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Failing to Write
First Published in Writers Monthly A shorter version was published in |
American writers complain a lot. Mostly they complain about how nobody
gives them money.
Sit next to an American writer on a bus, train, plane, or at a cocktail
party and chances are she will complain bitterly that the National Endowment
for the Arts doesn’t shower writers with money.
While I agree that more American writers need to be showered, I think
hot water and soap would do the trick, not money.
Sure, there is a direct relationship between writing and money--but it’s
a limited one.
Desperately poor people don’t write much because all their energy
goes into getting food, shelter and television for themselves and their
loved ones. Rich people don’t write much either, because all their
energy goes into getting better food, better shelter and buying television
stations—and hey, face it, when you have all that money, sitting
still and writing is the last thing you’re going to want to do, yes?
It’s folks who have just enough food and shelter and have had their
fill of television who spend their limited hours of "free" time sitting
still and writing.
Beyond buying the time to sit still—and maybe read something and
maybe think awhile--money has nothing to do with writing.
Yet today’s American writers have this annoying attitude that someone—often
a whole lot of someones—owe them something. It seems every time I’m
reading an interview of or an article about an American writer they are
quoted as saying something along the lines of "being a writer in America
sucks—no one pays any attention to writers."
I could be wrong, but I suspect that what these writers are really saying
is that being a writer in America sucks because not enough people are
buying what they have written, reading what they have written, or offering
to have sex with them after buying and reading what they have written.
The profound joy of being a writer in America is wasted on these dopes.
Being a writer in America rocks-- because no one here pays any attention
to writers!
I believe that the scariest part--and the most thrilling part---of being
free--is being left alone to do what you most want.
On planet earth there are now and always have been places of shadow and
dark. In places where there’s more shadow and dark than light—places
like Cuba, Guatemala, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, most of Africa and parts
of Utah—people are not left alone to do what they most want. In places
of shadow and dark writers are taken very seriously. They are read--and
read closely--both by Them That Got, and Them That Want.
In places of shadow and dark, should a writer manage to become widely
read, she runs a high risk of becoming permanently dead. This is because
in places of shadow and dark--writers are the canaries in the mine. Writers--explorers
by nature, and compulsive tellers of stories--are the first to sound the
alerts of poisonous fumes or incipient explosions. Consequently, writers
are among the first to die.
Sometimes, in places of shadow and dark, a writer manages to become extremely
widely read--to gain an international readership that includes free people
in brighter places--before she can be killed discretely. Such a writer
then becomes disappeared. She is thrown into prison to die slowly while
her readers get distracted by their pursuit of food and shelter and television.
She endures the countless hours between conjugal visits from her torturers
by desperately dreaming those same readers of such limited concentration
spans are working with Amnesty
International and PEN to shine a bright light into that prison and free her.
Overall, America is a bright place, a kind and gentle place. When an American
writer manages to become well known, it is only rarely the result of many
people actually having read what the writer has written. Our writers rise
to national prominence because of how many (unread) books they sell, how
many dollars they get for the screen rights to their books, or how many
celebrities they have sex or fist fights with.
Sure, the occasional writer will get a letter bomb from Ted Kaczynski
or be shot by an anti-abortion assassin. But these are freelance literary
critics. Up until the Bush II administration’s Faith Based Re-distribution
of Wealth and Cementing of Church and State into One Wall, they had no
chance of being sponsored by the government.
People sometimes ask me, "Why do you write?"
I always show them a serious smile, look them straight in the eyes, and
lie through my teeth. I tell them, "Beats the hell out of me."
Truth is, I know exactly why I write. I write because I have proven myself
to be astonishingly incompetent at everything else that I have used my
abundant freedom to try my hand at.
I have failed at being gainfully employed--for small, medium and large
employers. I have failed at being gainfully self-employed. I have failed
to spend less than I earn. I have failed at buying low and selling high.
I have failed at love, at marriage, at parenting, and at CPR training.
Sometimes I have succeeded in failing in ingenious combinations, as when
I was eleven, and precociously failed to resist the temptations of alcohol,
while simultaneously failing as an altar boy. (I was fired for drinking
the blessed wine.)
I have failed at making music, and at making ends meet. I have failed
at riding a bicycle across the continent. I have failed at getting educated
and getting aboard. You name it, chances are good that I’ve failed
at it.
But I’m okay with my resume of failure--because I’m a writer
now.
It’s impossible to fail at writing. Sure, I can fail at being read,
or making money from my writing—but who’s going to fire me?
Who’s going to stop me?
In my mind and heart, that is the profound joy of being a writer in
America: no one is trying to stop me, to keep me from writing.
And I’m always writing. Even when I’m not. If writing were illegal
in America I would have been convicted and injected long ago.
Say I don’t get out of bed in the morning, and instead, grab a book
from the pile of books on the floor near my bed, and start reading. I’m
actually working. No. Really. I’m writing, sort of, because I’m
reading, which gives me stuff to think about, which maybe I’ll be
motivated to write about.
Or say I’m lingering over my third uber-sized cup of coffee in my
neighborhood café, watching the people rushing to their jobs, and
some busy-body has the effrontery to ask, "Hey, shouldn’t you be
home writing?"
I just give them a withering look, arch an eyebrow menacingly, and say,
"I’m thinking." They always leave me alone. And that is all I want.
Freedom is being left alone to do what you most want. An essential part
of that freedom is being left alone to fail at doing what you most want.
American writers who are complaining about being unread, unloved and totally
ignored need to get in touch with the long and honorable tradition of
American writers exercising their freedom to fail. Whether they appreciate
it or not, today’s kvetching American writers stand on the shoulders
of giants—of heroic, sometimes spectacular, failures.
So many wonderful American writers have been abysmal failures at so many
diverse pursuits of happiness before becoming writers that I feel honored
to count myself in their company.
Mark Twain failed at publishing, manufacturing, and entrepreneuring. Thomas
Payne (an honorary American, if anyone is) was a total screw-up in three
countries and on two continents, yet became a powerful internationally
influential writer who revolutionized the essay and created what we now
call "the rant". Jack Kerouac really only became a writer when he failed
at being Neal Cassady. David Sedaris became a fine writer by failing at
being a maid in Manhattan. Ethan Hawke continues to fail at acting so
he can be free to fail at writing.
Consider that, in a nation of shadow and dark, if you failed at being
President, you’d get shot. But in America, Richard Nixon was left
free to write ponderous books that a few Republicans bought but did not
read. Consider that, in any self-respecting nation of shadow and dark,
just failing to win a corrupt presidential election would get you shot.
But in enlightened America, Al Gore was left alive, and free to write
ponderous books that a few Democrats buy but don’t read.
That’s why I get so persnickety when I meet folks who complain that
no one pays attention to writers in America.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.