Sunday Archive XX: Views on Writing

From March 06, here’s an outtake from the Notes from the Margin series.  I trashed this one for a reason, and that reason is:  I’m an angsty cunt.

I have to say this again.  I should take time out every three months and send out a personal message:  Writing does not make you a writer.  I’ll come back around to that.  Right now, riding the Metro into work with my forehead pressed against cold plexiglass, I was struggling with a few demons.  They all email me religiously, these great scourges, and they all have one mantra: This story will sell!  Do you like it?

We live in a culture where we’re trained to look down on ourselves.  Look at all the personal ads out there.  All the negative words these people use to describe themselves.  All the confessed bad relations, troubled pasts and embittered hatred for the dating scene.  Donald Sutherland’s “negative vibes” rolling off of the paper or the dating site and infecting me as I try to happily cruise around seeking loose, unscrupulous women.  Writers are even worse.  They’re obsessed with selling the story and, with so few exceptions, they never try to sell themselves.

Here’s a thought:  The story doesn’t matter.  It comes second.  What’s first is your ability as a writer.  That’s how you get in the door, that’s what you should hone.  I meet people every day who think the story is the foot in the door.  They obsess with how to make it the unique plot that’ll hurl them into the glittering dream of fame and fortune.

Storytelling.  Ooh!  There you go.

Let’s dance aside on a tangent.  Let’s talk about the big-time writer who can’t get out there because they’ve been pigeon-holed.  The .literati who can’t write pulp crime, the pulp crime writer who can’t move into the literati, the romance geek who can’t go into adventure, the fantasy novelist who will never break out of the genre.  Lock down, crushed by the publisher or the agent.  That’s not what the people want, they say.  Your audience expects book 27 of the Sword of Heaven trilogy.  You will die writing about a washed up detective in Missoula.  You should never do anything but crack out the miughty Pulitzer-level work about coal miners.

The publisher and the agent couldn’t more wrong.  What they are saying is:  You’re on a path that makes us money and, even if you burn out and die tonight, or get screwed financially, we don’t care.  Short-term gain.  Desperate attempts to bring the cash in.

I knew that was the case all along, but I’ve recently been taught an object lesson from the publisher-side.  Dearest god in heaven, how can you make money with something as intangible as art?   And how do you do it quickly before the accountants catch up with you and run a serrated blade across your ankles, bringing you to their foul level,  tearing your intestines out while you scream, insane with horror and agony?

Can you tell it’s tax time?

I blame the authors for letting writing – and publishing – become such a monster.  The pathetic, whining need for fame and fortune, the self-loathing and doubt, the ignorance of the trade and lack of motivation to pick it apart all leads to the sad state of affairs today, and a vicious cycle.  The writer, a weak and tasty prey in the eyes of the saber-toothed beasts supposedly “helping” their career,