The Institution of Writing, or We Are All Fucked
As a general rule, they say, never start any major work of writing at the beginning. Begin by writing the finality, or the developing action, or the transformation of the protagonist even, but never the beginning.
They say. But I am starting at the beginning. So there. Ponder that decision for a moment.
If one starts at the beginning, the writing process is disturbed, and the institution of the craft is interrupted by whatever straight forward plan that the author might have. A good writer does not, CAN not think in a linear format. Ideas run amuck in their heads and the ability to get them down on the page is a feat in itself. To put it in linear form is a juvenile mockery at best, not to mention a big middle finger to every professor in one’s past from elementary school to the end of your college years. The point of most contemporary literary works is to push the boundaries, create the next great American novel, and achieve perfection in the meantime. I don’t dare dream of such achievements. My initial goal, or at least this project’s goal, is 3800 words in a week, or as dictated by my professor (I wonder if it would be ok if I turned in 4000 one week and 3600 a different week…). I am now about 200 words closer to the end.
They also say to not use an abundance of parenthetical clauses, as it detracts the reader from the main point of your argument. Ha.
Imagine if you will, a fresh crop of college graduates, much like my future self, with writing degrees from varying institutions of higher learning, all believing that they have the next big idea, or the next fad in literature. Vampires? Hell no. My novel has robot ninjas fighting lesbian snake charmers in the Indian ocean. How shocking for them when they realize that the world of writing is a cold mother whose children (us, the writers, in this instance) are abandoned at birth, left to find shelter and warmth from the nearest “kind soul”.
(The “kind soul” here would be any job after graduation; sure, some go to graduate school to further their studies, but the real writers, the get-down-to-business-drink-lots-of-coffee writers, get out there and try to find their way in the market place, where ever that may be. This, more often than not, means taking a job as a frustrated used book salesman or a stockroom manager at Urban Outfitters. Or Starbucks. In fact, I estimate that about 56% of Starbucks employees – baristas, not corporate suit wearing folk – are college English majors with multiple books of poetry from which they read during their mandatory 45 minute break.)
But why is this? I offer first some answers - some “history” if you will – and hopefully I shall conclude with a brief analysis of the contemporary institution of writing, explaining that when all is said and done, we are all fucked. (note: you could stop reading now, as my point has already been expressed and the following is nothing more than pseudo-fictious half-assed cockamamie. None of the following is researched. However, if one were to reference this particular work at a later date, say for a different essay on writing by writers who have written essays on writing, please feel free to openly reference any or all of my work here, in the appropriate MLA format.)
We are told as wee children that we can grow up to do anything, that we can dream for the stars and become movie stars or legendary jazz musicians or veterinarians (why veterinarian is THE chosen profession by nearly all children between the ages of say, six and 12, I will never know). But for many of us, this dream is soon thereafter killed by societal norms. We’re not pretty enough to be movie stars (exception: Joan Cusack), not talented enough to be a jazz musician (exception: free form jazz musicians), and there are too many vets in the world (this I have never experienced first hand. I sometimes think that there is a secret society of veterinarians that sit around in a bunker somewhere and discuss the proper way to administer medication to iguanas).
Many of these dream-killers have the following conversation, if not wholly then at least bits and parts:
“You want to be an astronaut, kid?”
“Yeah, when I grow up I want to be an astronaut. I want to go up into space and see all the stars and see the earth from a far enough distance so I can realize just how small of a role I play in the larger schema of things.”
“hmmm… that sounds like a good goal. How do plan on going about this dream?”
“Well, I’m going to study real hard and take lots of classes and learn a whole lot and take lots of notes and…”
“Stop right there. I ain’t paying for no fancy community college. So you need to either pick a trade that doesn’t require a whole lot of school, or get a job right now to start saving.”
“But I’m only six.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“…so…when I grow up I want to be a disgruntled claims consultant for State Farm…”
I realize now that there is no plausible way in which a six year old has (1) enough vocabulary training to use words like “claims consultant” or (2) the knowledge of mundane professions such as this, however, I have neither the space nor the patience to write out several years of conversations that would lead a high school junior to realize his potential in the insurance business. This is merely an example.)
After this conversation, many folks who are now functioning adults claim that school becomes secondary in the pursuit of finding a job that would feed a family and allow one to purchase a new Honda Odyssey shortly after marriage. The dream is only that: a dream. Nothing more than a flighty thought that could be easily squashed like a pesky mosquito or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The real world has no place for dreamers, we are told, and the only dream worth considering is dreaming of a Christmas bonus so you can pay for that new toy your offspring want.
But I digress. As educated persons, we all know that this is not always the case; there are many families out there who have all the resources at their disposal and can easily build a new library wing or new…thing…on the campus of Prestigious University, allowing their child the opportunity to join Kappa Sigma Xi and enjoy the fruits of some past relative’s labor. In addition to the countless keg parties and trips to the Hamptons, these chosen few, these “exceptional” youth, are exposed to the finest in educators, teachers who let their students believe that anything is possible. Some might say that the conversation goes as such:
“Prof, I don’t know if I can make it as a neurosurgeon after med school. I don’t have it in me.”
“That’s what Barack Obama said about becoming president.”
“…………..well, shit.”
(Note: if you take notice of the content of this conversation, you can note that this exchange of dialogue is fairly new. Also, I highly doubt Obama ever doubted himself; it is in this way alone that he is a god among mere mortals.)
And so, these students graduate and become doctors and lawyers and such (cue Waylon Jennings) and make lots of money and perpetuate the system, building wings of libraries or new Mac labs in the hopes that their “talented and above average” child follows in their families foot steps, attend Prestigious U, and become doctors, etc, thus perpetuating a cycle of greatness.
In between of all this is the oft forgotten bastard middle child, the somewhat privileged liberal arts graduate who became a writer. Surrounded by what were at one point super smart but now tenured professors, our education is not given to us on a silver platter, but on a plastic lunch tray with a side of high tuition. Not particularly smart but not particularly dumb, we become what I described at the beginning of the essay: pissed off thinkers who believe we’re going to change the world with our writing. Degrees and manuscripts in hand, we march into the offices of Random House or De Capo Press with our new idea, our brain child, hoping to get it published so that we may revel in our creative selves and claim millions upon millions of dollars as a reward.
We all know, even non writers know, that this isn’t the case.
Upon the completion of a manuscript, or a body of text, for not all literary accomplishments can be considered manuscripts, many writers do nothing. Or they become disgruntled and albeit sour professors who talk about the process of novel writing and what a bitch of a task it is. The writers who do nothing about their work do so not because they don’t want their work published, or even because they think it isn’t good enough to be put into paperback, but many writers are, plain and simple, lazy. Lethargic. If the task of writing an updated version of Gravity’s Rainbow wasn’t enough work, the act of publication is like a fat kid trying to run a marathon. (I realize that one could train for such an athletic task, though let’s be honest with ourselves: really?) Many writers, me included, will, upon the finality of their brainchild, will give copies, complete with amateurish façade of a plastic report cover, to those closest to them. This includes, but is not limited to: friends, lovers, relatives, neighbors, the mailman, the worker at the coffee shop where most of said manuscript was penned, the dentist, who at one time mentioned that they would be interested in reading your work, former English professors, and mom.
(In the American family, I do understand that the mother is indeed part of the “relatives” group which I have already made note of, and therefore it would seem repetitious to mention ‘mother’ in addition to ‘relatives.’ However, as the average reader will realize and inherently know, the mother is more than just a relative. She is your biggest fan, and always will be, regardless of how horrible your writing ends up being. Likewise, it would be inappropriate to group mom in with the rest of the family, uncle Mitch and aunt Shelly and the like. Compared to them, mom is king. Or queen…)
Now your script, your poetry, your life’s work, is in the hands of others. With any luck at all these kind folks, the neighbors and the like, will read the pages and tell you, “oh, I read your work and it’s very good,” and so on and so forth, ranting and raving about how you should publish your story, blah blah blah. Nothing you haven’t heard before. What separates writers at this stage is the act of sending the cleverly written pages to your local publisher. But as I previously mentioned, writers as a whole are lethargic and bumish. This is not to say that they are lazy or unproductive; far from it. How could one be lazy and write 700 pages of fiction? I have heard of some writers, when caught in writer’s block, tripping on acid and not being able to come up with more than 300 words (the novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas comes to mind), so 700? That’s a damn miracle. What this suggests is that writers, while proud and talented offspring of the liberal arts mentality, are more concerned with conventional matters, say, getting the laundry done or paying the bills on time. These efforts are not in self hatred mind you, they are actually a good thing; many adults, both writers and otherwise, are so enraptured by their professions/jobs that they forget such menial activities as, say, taking care of everyday business. (This is quite possibly the reason that there are so many “free credit score assessment” companies in the market these days. I seem to remember, probably less than a decade ago, this was not the case).
I seem to recall a past in which my writing had reached this stage. Multiple times actually. If I remember correctly, my drafts went through many a phase as described above, many times over (without the credit checks or multiple loads of laundry). And as I think about it now, I realize that I am a larger disappointment in writing than I once perceived myself to be. (This last passage is what we call “self-loathing.” Once popular in the genre of autobiography, this has since become a tool that nearly every writer uses to make themselves seem more humble than they actually are).
One of my first writing projects that I can recall youth was a research paper. It was my first research paper to be exact. I was assigned to write a research paper on one of the presidents. (Upon further pondering, I realize that this was just stupid in any and all attempts. What was I going to prove as a seventh grader? I could barely tie my shoes correctly…) We were supposed to write a paper discussing a specific president’s life, and anything interesting that may have happened during his presidency. While I don’t remember the actual paper at all, I remember that the writing process was a bitch. My chosen president was John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Note cards. Outlines. First draft. Peer edit. In my elementary mind, these were all stupid and mundane steps that were put in place to make sure that we were, “all using the same writing process that adults and other professionals use,” or some bullshit like that. I learned some years later that (1) not all adults are professionals and (2) no writer, and I mean NO writer, goes through those steps (This may be false). I once read an interview with a famous biography writer who said that he sits down and types as much as he can and then goes to the bar until he gets wasted enough to write another twelve pages before he passes out on his couch. How’s that for inspiration? Pulitzer via Pabst Blue Ribbon.
After several months of research (yes, they gave us months to finish this one paper), I didn’t even remember what I was writing about. I had started out writing about the tragedy that was Kennedy’s assassination and ended up with four pages of Kennedy’s affairs with women, including Marilyn Monroe and other famous lasses. (It’s odd to think about now, but this was scandalous stuff to a small and innocent child. The president does taboo things? Who knew! And then the Clinton administration took place and Bill was impeached for lying about a blowjob. How times had changed.) When I finally reached 10 pages, I felt like a whore who had just sold her soul for a better looking pair of shoes.
(I realize that many if not all of my readers have never felt this reaction, and you are all better people for this. The feeling of a whore is not unlike having your birthday celebrated at a teppenyaki restaurant, forced into drinking sake whilst being humiliated. It’s the feeling of going to a place, having a pile of crap dumped on you, and being told that everyone is “laughing with you” when you know damn well that there is no way that this is possible.)
The ten page of crap that I turned in were not good at all, in fact I would go as far to say that they were horrible. I had been forced to write about a subject I didn’t like for a class I wasn’t fond of. All of the right circumstances of feeling like a whore. It was at that moment that I learned that there was no way that I was ever going to turn in any work to a professor or otherwise without feeling like a lady of the night.
My theory held true all through high school, as I progressed from honors to AP English classes with relative ease, whoring my way to A’s by parroting what ever the teacher had told me in the prior class (Moby Dick isn’t really a whale? Got it.). However, I feel that I must add that I started to become comfortable “whoring” myself out for a better grade. Sure, I wasn’t learning anything, but did anyone learn anything in high school, other than learning how to drink in the basement without your folks finding out or how to properly roll a joint? I didn’t think so. After I took the AP test in English literature, I felt spent and realized that I couldn’t do what I had been doing for the rest of my life. I was done writing what other people wanted me to write, and I was done playing by the rules. I was done starting at the middle of an essay.
This rebellion lasted about four months into my college career. I had initially thought that a collegiate level professor would want me to “express what I was feeling” or “write what I know, and not what I don’t,” however I quickly learned that this was not the case. The first four months was the time in which I realized that putting my dignity in the desk drawer was necessary if I wanted a good grade. This also meant that for the first year or so, I really didn’t learn much in the world of writing. Sure, I had creative writing classes and poetry classes and fiction classes, but all of my professors had a set idea of what poetry/fiction should sound like.
Some of the first poems that I wrote were about death and suicide. I meant nothing by this but as we all know, if you give an inexperienced writer a pen and tell him to write a poem, more than likely, he will be depressing as hell. The first poem I was proud of was about a teen that gets in a motorcycle accident and dies. Though proud of this piece, it raised many questions of my poetic style, such as (1) why motorcycles? And (2) that’s the whole poem? My answers to these questions were simple. To the first – why motorcycles – the answer is simple: why not? I don’t own a motorcycle nor have I ever been lucky enough to have ridden on one, but I don’t think I have to experience the thrill of going 90+ miles per hour on the freeway just to get in a crash to know what it would feel like to get thrown over the handlebars only to have my flesh scraped against the pavement like a soft cheese against a grater. (This last passage is not unlike the poem that I wrote). So, needless to say, motorcycles need no explanation. To the second question, I offer this answer: yes. One of our first poetry lessons was about the length of contemporary works. We learned that many poets, ranging from Frank O’Hara to Chelsea Minnis, wrote poems that were short in length. Sentences even. So, being the smart ass that I was, (and still am for the most part) I took these words quite literally and wrote a one page, double spaced poem about a motorcycle crash.
(It seems juvenile now, but back then, that poem was hot. The experience reminds me of my youth, or rather when I was about eight or nine years old and played soccer. I understand now that no one, with the exception of my friend Gabe, was good at soccer. If you were to look out on to the field you would see a collection of children doing various things; some played soccer, but not well, some picked weeds from the grass, some cried uncontrollably until the game was over. I was one that took the game seriously, and for several weeks, I thought I would go professional. But I was horrible. Just like the above described poem.)
Poetry such as this never made anyone famous, much less made a name for anyone; I suppose the one exception to this rule is Lenard Nemoy who has successfully published numerous books of poetry which is laughable at best. (Mr. Nemoy, if you are reading this, I apologize, but it’s true). However this didn’t stop me or any of the other students in the class, mostly because it was the middle of the semester at this point and there was no backing out now unless we wanted a big ole “DROP” across our transcript. We persevered, and at semesters end, we were victorious, however slight a victory.
The fiction class that I was enlisted in took place in the basement of a ramshackle building known as the English house. (This is what we call in fiction the setting; the author divulges some sort of insight as to the importance of the location of the story, in this case, the basement of a make shift department office.) The basement, in and of itself, was very distracting, and I was unable to absorb any of the lessons that my professor preached to us. A combination of an overhead projector, a skeleton, a rusty chalkboard (how it was rusty I still have yet to find out) and uncomfortable chairs proved to be too much of a distraction for me. My writing suffered, and I barely passed this class. It was a sad state of affairs, but I did learn that fiction would never be my forte. And this has held true.
This brings us back to my original point; no matter how hard you try, no matter what education you are blessed with, if you choose to be a writer after graduation, you are fucked. Fucked from the get go. No hope. There is a slight chance that you will have the false sense of security and hope dumped on you as a freshman, and an even rarer chance that you will actually make it in the world of writers. And for those, say, five of you, that are luckier still, you will make copious amounts of money with your writing and will die a happy and fulfilled individual, having brought a new world of literature upon the world. This group would include folks like J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, and Dan Brown.
But for the infinite number of us who will not have this pleasure, this ease of life brought on by books-turned movie, we will have to get day jobs at Starbucks or Urban Outfitters. Some will be so ambitious as to take on several of them, all the while working on their craft in the corner of their one bedroom apartment, hoping that one day, one day they’ll get their asses off the couch and down to the publisher’s office. Until that day of miracles comes, though, we will have to find contentment in being disgruntled and unsatisfied.
-t.
They say. But I am starting at the beginning. So there. Ponder that decision for a moment.
If one starts at the beginning, the writing process is disturbed, and the institution of the craft is interrupted by whatever straight forward plan that the author might have. A good writer does not, CAN not think in a linear format. Ideas run amuck in their heads and the ability to get them down on the page is a feat in itself. To put it in linear form is a juvenile mockery at best, not to mention a big middle finger to every professor in one’s past from elementary school to the end of your college years. The point of most contemporary literary works is to push the boundaries, create the next great American novel, and achieve perfection in the meantime. I don’t dare dream of such achievements. My initial goal, or at least this project’s goal, is 3800 words in a week, or as dictated by my professor (I wonder if it would be ok if I turned in 4000 one week and 3600 a different week…). I am now about 200 words closer to the end.
They also say to not use an abundance of parenthetical clauses, as it detracts the reader from the main point of your argument. Ha.
Imagine if you will, a fresh crop of college graduates, much like my future self, with writing degrees from varying institutions of higher learning, all believing that they have the next big idea, or the next fad in literature. Vampires? Hell no. My novel has robot ninjas fighting lesbian snake charmers in the Indian ocean. How shocking for them when they realize that the world of writing is a cold mother whose children (us, the writers, in this instance) are abandoned at birth, left to find shelter and warmth from the nearest “kind soul”.
(The “kind soul” here would be any job after graduation; sure, some go to graduate school to further their studies, but the real writers, the get-down-to-business-drink-lots-of-coffee writers, get out there and try to find their way in the market place, where ever that may be. This, more often than not, means taking a job as a frustrated used book salesman or a stockroom manager at Urban Outfitters. Or Starbucks. In fact, I estimate that about 56% of Starbucks employees – baristas, not corporate suit wearing folk – are college English majors with multiple books of poetry from which they read during their mandatory 45 minute break.)
But why is this? I offer first some answers - some “history” if you will – and hopefully I shall conclude with a brief analysis of the contemporary institution of writing, explaining that when all is said and done, we are all fucked. (note: you could stop reading now, as my point has already been expressed and the following is nothing more than pseudo-fictious half-assed cockamamie. None of the following is researched. However, if one were to reference this particular work at a later date, say for a different essay on writing by writers who have written essays on writing, please feel free to openly reference any or all of my work here, in the appropriate MLA format.)
We are told as wee children that we can grow up to do anything, that we can dream for the stars and become movie stars or legendary jazz musicians or veterinarians (why veterinarian is THE chosen profession by nearly all children between the ages of say, six and 12, I will never know). But for many of us, this dream is soon thereafter killed by societal norms. We’re not pretty enough to be movie stars (exception: Joan Cusack), not talented enough to be a jazz musician (exception: free form jazz musicians), and there are too many vets in the world (this I have never experienced first hand. I sometimes think that there is a secret society of veterinarians that sit around in a bunker somewhere and discuss the proper way to administer medication to iguanas).
Many of these dream-killers have the following conversation, if not wholly then at least bits and parts:
“You want to be an astronaut, kid?”
“Yeah, when I grow up I want to be an astronaut. I want to go up into space and see all the stars and see the earth from a far enough distance so I can realize just how small of a role I play in the larger schema of things.”
“hmmm… that sounds like a good goal. How do plan on going about this dream?”
“Well, I’m going to study real hard and take lots of classes and learn a whole lot and take lots of notes and…”
“Stop right there. I ain’t paying for no fancy community college. So you need to either pick a trade that doesn’t require a whole lot of school, or get a job right now to start saving.”
“But I’m only six.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“…so…when I grow up I want to be a disgruntled claims consultant for State Farm…”
I realize now that there is no plausible way in which a six year old has (1) enough vocabulary training to use words like “claims consultant” or (2) the knowledge of mundane professions such as this, however, I have neither the space nor the patience to write out several years of conversations that would lead a high school junior to realize his potential in the insurance business. This is merely an example.)
After this conversation, many folks who are now functioning adults claim that school becomes secondary in the pursuit of finding a job that would feed a family and allow one to purchase a new Honda Odyssey shortly after marriage. The dream is only that: a dream. Nothing more than a flighty thought that could be easily squashed like a pesky mosquito or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The real world has no place for dreamers, we are told, and the only dream worth considering is dreaming of a Christmas bonus so you can pay for that new toy your offspring want.
But I digress. As educated persons, we all know that this is not always the case; there are many families out there who have all the resources at their disposal and can easily build a new library wing or new…thing…on the campus of Prestigious University, allowing their child the opportunity to join Kappa Sigma Xi and enjoy the fruits of some past relative’s labor. In addition to the countless keg parties and trips to the Hamptons, these chosen few, these “exceptional” youth, are exposed to the finest in educators, teachers who let their students believe that anything is possible. Some might say that the conversation goes as such:
“Prof, I don’t know if I can make it as a neurosurgeon after med school. I don’t have it in me.”
“That’s what Barack Obama said about becoming president.”
“…………..well, shit.”
(Note: if you take notice of the content of this conversation, you can note that this exchange of dialogue is fairly new. Also, I highly doubt Obama ever doubted himself; it is in this way alone that he is a god among mere mortals.)
And so, these students graduate and become doctors and lawyers and such (cue Waylon Jennings) and make lots of money and perpetuate the system, building wings of libraries or new Mac labs in the hopes that their “talented and above average” child follows in their families foot steps, attend Prestigious U, and become doctors, etc, thus perpetuating a cycle of greatness.
In between of all this is the oft forgotten bastard middle child, the somewhat privileged liberal arts graduate who became a writer. Surrounded by what were at one point super smart but now tenured professors, our education is not given to us on a silver platter, but on a plastic lunch tray with a side of high tuition. Not particularly smart but not particularly dumb, we become what I described at the beginning of the essay: pissed off thinkers who believe we’re going to change the world with our writing. Degrees and manuscripts in hand, we march into the offices of Random House or De Capo Press with our new idea, our brain child, hoping to get it published so that we may revel in our creative selves and claim millions upon millions of dollars as a reward.
We all know, even non writers know, that this isn’t the case.
Upon the completion of a manuscript, or a body of text, for not all literary accomplishments can be considered manuscripts, many writers do nothing. Or they become disgruntled and albeit sour professors who talk about the process of novel writing and what a bitch of a task it is. The writers who do nothing about their work do so not because they don’t want their work published, or even because they think it isn’t good enough to be put into paperback, but many writers are, plain and simple, lazy. Lethargic. If the task of writing an updated version of Gravity’s Rainbow wasn’t enough work, the act of publication is like a fat kid trying to run a marathon. (I realize that one could train for such an athletic task, though let’s be honest with ourselves: really?) Many writers, me included, will, upon the finality of their brainchild, will give copies, complete with amateurish façade of a plastic report cover, to those closest to them. This includes, but is not limited to: friends, lovers, relatives, neighbors, the mailman, the worker at the coffee shop where most of said manuscript was penned, the dentist, who at one time mentioned that they would be interested in reading your work, former English professors, and mom.
(In the American family, I do understand that the mother is indeed part of the “relatives” group which I have already made note of, and therefore it would seem repetitious to mention ‘mother’ in addition to ‘relatives.’ However, as the average reader will realize and inherently know, the mother is more than just a relative. She is your biggest fan, and always will be, regardless of how horrible your writing ends up being. Likewise, it would be inappropriate to group mom in with the rest of the family, uncle Mitch and aunt Shelly and the like. Compared to them, mom is king. Or queen…)
Now your script, your poetry, your life’s work, is in the hands of others. With any luck at all these kind folks, the neighbors and the like, will read the pages and tell you, “oh, I read your work and it’s very good,” and so on and so forth, ranting and raving about how you should publish your story, blah blah blah. Nothing you haven’t heard before. What separates writers at this stage is the act of sending the cleverly written pages to your local publisher. But as I previously mentioned, writers as a whole are lethargic and bumish. This is not to say that they are lazy or unproductive; far from it. How could one be lazy and write 700 pages of fiction? I have heard of some writers, when caught in writer’s block, tripping on acid and not being able to come up with more than 300 words (the novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas comes to mind), so 700? That’s a damn miracle. What this suggests is that writers, while proud and talented offspring of the liberal arts mentality, are more concerned with conventional matters, say, getting the laundry done or paying the bills on time. These efforts are not in self hatred mind you, they are actually a good thing; many adults, both writers and otherwise, are so enraptured by their professions/jobs that they forget such menial activities as, say, taking care of everyday business. (This is quite possibly the reason that there are so many “free credit score assessment” companies in the market these days. I seem to remember, probably less than a decade ago, this was not the case).
I seem to recall a past in which my writing had reached this stage. Multiple times actually. If I remember correctly, my drafts went through many a phase as described above, many times over (without the credit checks or multiple loads of laundry). And as I think about it now, I realize that I am a larger disappointment in writing than I once perceived myself to be. (This last passage is what we call “self-loathing.” Once popular in the genre of autobiography, this has since become a tool that nearly every writer uses to make themselves seem more humble than they actually are).
One of my first writing projects that I can recall youth was a research paper. It was my first research paper to be exact. I was assigned to write a research paper on one of the presidents. (Upon further pondering, I realize that this was just stupid in any and all attempts. What was I going to prove as a seventh grader? I could barely tie my shoes correctly…) We were supposed to write a paper discussing a specific president’s life, and anything interesting that may have happened during his presidency. While I don’t remember the actual paper at all, I remember that the writing process was a bitch. My chosen president was John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Note cards. Outlines. First draft. Peer edit. In my elementary mind, these were all stupid and mundane steps that were put in place to make sure that we were, “all using the same writing process that adults and other professionals use,” or some bullshit like that. I learned some years later that (1) not all adults are professionals and (2) no writer, and I mean NO writer, goes through those steps (This may be false). I once read an interview with a famous biography writer who said that he sits down and types as much as he can and then goes to the bar until he gets wasted enough to write another twelve pages before he passes out on his couch. How’s that for inspiration? Pulitzer via Pabst Blue Ribbon.
After several months of research (yes, they gave us months to finish this one paper), I didn’t even remember what I was writing about. I had started out writing about the tragedy that was Kennedy’s assassination and ended up with four pages of Kennedy’s affairs with women, including Marilyn Monroe and other famous lasses. (It’s odd to think about now, but this was scandalous stuff to a small and innocent child. The president does taboo things? Who knew! And then the Clinton administration took place and Bill was impeached for lying about a blowjob. How times had changed.) When I finally reached 10 pages, I felt like a whore who had just sold her soul for a better looking pair of shoes.
(I realize that many if not all of my readers have never felt this reaction, and you are all better people for this. The feeling of a whore is not unlike having your birthday celebrated at a teppenyaki restaurant, forced into drinking sake whilst being humiliated. It’s the feeling of going to a place, having a pile of crap dumped on you, and being told that everyone is “laughing with you” when you know damn well that there is no way that this is possible.)
The ten page of crap that I turned in were not good at all, in fact I would go as far to say that they were horrible. I had been forced to write about a subject I didn’t like for a class I wasn’t fond of. All of the right circumstances of feeling like a whore. It was at that moment that I learned that there was no way that I was ever going to turn in any work to a professor or otherwise without feeling like a lady of the night.
My theory held true all through high school, as I progressed from honors to AP English classes with relative ease, whoring my way to A’s by parroting what ever the teacher had told me in the prior class (Moby Dick isn’t really a whale? Got it.). However, I feel that I must add that I started to become comfortable “whoring” myself out for a better grade. Sure, I wasn’t learning anything, but did anyone learn anything in high school, other than learning how to drink in the basement without your folks finding out or how to properly roll a joint? I didn’t think so. After I took the AP test in English literature, I felt spent and realized that I couldn’t do what I had been doing for the rest of my life. I was done writing what other people wanted me to write, and I was done playing by the rules. I was done starting at the middle of an essay.
This rebellion lasted about four months into my college career. I had initially thought that a collegiate level professor would want me to “express what I was feeling” or “write what I know, and not what I don’t,” however I quickly learned that this was not the case. The first four months was the time in which I realized that putting my dignity in the desk drawer was necessary if I wanted a good grade. This also meant that for the first year or so, I really didn’t learn much in the world of writing. Sure, I had creative writing classes and poetry classes and fiction classes, but all of my professors had a set idea of what poetry/fiction should sound like.
Some of the first poems that I wrote were about death and suicide. I meant nothing by this but as we all know, if you give an inexperienced writer a pen and tell him to write a poem, more than likely, he will be depressing as hell. The first poem I was proud of was about a teen that gets in a motorcycle accident and dies. Though proud of this piece, it raised many questions of my poetic style, such as (1) why motorcycles? And (2) that’s the whole poem? My answers to these questions were simple. To the first – why motorcycles – the answer is simple: why not? I don’t own a motorcycle nor have I ever been lucky enough to have ridden on one, but I don’t think I have to experience the thrill of going 90+ miles per hour on the freeway just to get in a crash to know what it would feel like to get thrown over the handlebars only to have my flesh scraped against the pavement like a soft cheese against a grater. (This last passage is not unlike the poem that I wrote). So, needless to say, motorcycles need no explanation. To the second question, I offer this answer: yes. One of our first poetry lessons was about the length of contemporary works. We learned that many poets, ranging from Frank O’Hara to Chelsea Minnis, wrote poems that were short in length. Sentences even. So, being the smart ass that I was, (and still am for the most part) I took these words quite literally and wrote a one page, double spaced poem about a motorcycle crash.
(It seems juvenile now, but back then, that poem was hot. The experience reminds me of my youth, or rather when I was about eight or nine years old and played soccer. I understand now that no one, with the exception of my friend Gabe, was good at soccer. If you were to look out on to the field you would see a collection of children doing various things; some played soccer, but not well, some picked weeds from the grass, some cried uncontrollably until the game was over. I was one that took the game seriously, and for several weeks, I thought I would go professional. But I was horrible. Just like the above described poem.)
Poetry such as this never made anyone famous, much less made a name for anyone; I suppose the one exception to this rule is Lenard Nemoy who has successfully published numerous books of poetry which is laughable at best. (Mr. Nemoy, if you are reading this, I apologize, but it’s true). However this didn’t stop me or any of the other students in the class, mostly because it was the middle of the semester at this point and there was no backing out now unless we wanted a big ole “DROP” across our transcript. We persevered, and at semesters end, we were victorious, however slight a victory.
The fiction class that I was enlisted in took place in the basement of a ramshackle building known as the English house. (This is what we call in fiction the setting; the author divulges some sort of insight as to the importance of the location of the story, in this case, the basement of a make shift department office.) The basement, in and of itself, was very distracting, and I was unable to absorb any of the lessons that my professor preached to us. A combination of an overhead projector, a skeleton, a rusty chalkboard (how it was rusty I still have yet to find out) and uncomfortable chairs proved to be too much of a distraction for me. My writing suffered, and I barely passed this class. It was a sad state of affairs, but I did learn that fiction would never be my forte. And this has held true.
This brings us back to my original point; no matter how hard you try, no matter what education you are blessed with, if you choose to be a writer after graduation, you are fucked. Fucked from the get go. No hope. There is a slight chance that you will have the false sense of security and hope dumped on you as a freshman, and an even rarer chance that you will actually make it in the world of writers. And for those, say, five of you, that are luckier still, you will make copious amounts of money with your writing and will die a happy and fulfilled individual, having brought a new world of literature upon the world. This group would include folks like J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, and Dan Brown.
But for the infinite number of us who will not have this pleasure, this ease of life brought on by books-turned movie, we will have to get day jobs at Starbucks or Urban Outfitters. Some will be so ambitious as to take on several of them, all the while working on their craft in the corner of their one bedroom apartment, hoping that one day, one day they’ll get their asses off the couch and down to the publisher’s office. Until that day of miracles comes, though, we will have to find contentment in being disgruntled and unsatisfied.
-t.
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