Writing isn't a chore

 

In your writing life, how do you cope with your self-doubt, feelings of inadequacy, frustrations, and despair? I’d really like to know.

 

I read this question several times and I struggled with how to answer it. The truth is I don’t like to talk about myself.

 

Self-doubt, inadequacy, frustration (yes to all), and despair (not so much)—sure, I’ve felt these emotions, but not in ways you think. I’ve accepted that publishing is an ugly business. Art and Commerce mix like oil and water, so my natural response is to fall back on my sense of humor. Folks who follow me on Facebook know that I post humorous memes daily. I’ve had people approach me at conferences to tell me that I’m the first person they read in the morning, and they thank me for making them smile. I’m not Negative Nancy. Of course, I want to scream and point to my fourteen published novels, but I get it. I’m positive, a little twisted, supportive of other writers, and glad that I made them smile for a second in this crazy and demented world. I’m the right kind of evangelical and bearer of good news. When asked about writing and publishing, my natural reflex is to say I often feel that I am either Brahms playing the piano in a whorehouse, or I’m an inmate in the asylum waiting for my meds and a fruit cup.

 

Yes, humor is one of my coping mechanisms, as are yoga, working out, long walks, and time with my cat Munchkin. I do all the above because when I was young I learned that the one thing I could control was my body and my reactions. Humor, while creative and constructive, is also another one of my clever, evasive maneuvers. It’s performative without revelation. I am the ultimate in Show, don’t Tell. If you want to know me, read me.

 

I feel the pressure to make something of this thing called writing. I’m more than midway in my years in life, and I don’t have Virgil for a guide. I came to writing in my forties, compared to those who wrote their first novel with crayons. I’ve also come to it from a dangerous angle. Being an author is a piss-poor way of finding validation. I’ve found this one true thing I enjoy, that I’m good at—and what does this monkey have to do? He has to take what he has created to market and present it to the masses for approval. I’m certain that is some form of masochism. If that isn’t noir, I don’t know what is.

 

Yes, I can write formula. Either I’m not intelligent enough to figure what that is (not true) or I have a steel spine that won’t bend to fraud. Of course, I could rationalize, and money is wonderful for that. Robert B. Parker, Ed McBain, and Georges Simenon were all writers who made no bones about writing for money. They are the gigolos who screamed “Show me the money!” before Jerry Maguire was born. Truth be told, I’ve made good money as a ghostwriter and developmental editor, but I didn’t like it because I provided a service and it was not something I created.

 

Frustration is real. Amble over to Statistica, and the data is depressing. Americans read, on average, 15 minutes a day. and the elderly, who use what time they have, read 40 minutes. Be they digital or paper, people are spending less of their money on books. Writers have to compete against Netflix. A camera can reduce pages of exposition to seconds, and viewers are rendered passive. Americans are so stressed out from all their freedoms that they don’t want to use their brain cells to translate words on a page into emotions and scenes in their heart and minds.

 

Despair. I won’t allow it. I’ve survived too much in life. When family fails you and ‘authority’ feeds you to the wolves, I understand all too well the especially cruel phrase of ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps.’ Despair is not an option. As a writer, you have a choice, to either try and try again, or be content with being Geppetto in his workshop, and accept that one out of hundred people may appreciate what you do. Despair is reading Statistica, and wondering why the F do I bother?

 

Writers know publishing is more about money than it’s about art. You’ve read the books everyone is ‘excited’ about and say to yourself, ‘I don’t get it.’ To sell 5K copies of anything to become a Times bestselling author amounts to 0.0015% of 333M Americans buying your book. The stat is enough to make you stab yourself with a dull pencil. There are more writers than readers. Supply vs. Demand. Yadda, yadda. I think it was William Goldman who said, ‘Nobody knows anything.’ Agents don’t, publishers don’t, and everyone has bills to pay. It does seem, however, that the history and nonfiction genres are reliable sources of revenue.

 

It’s easy to quote Polonius and say, ‘To thine own self be true,’ but that requires awareness and knowledge that doesn’t come over night. It’s why what most twenty-somethings write and MFA material seem technical and paint-by-numbers, but ultimately rings false because it lacks soul. Knowledge either confirms phenomena in the world or contradicts them. You pick up the discrepancies and figure them out for yourself. We all have to do it.

 

I know myself, all my shadows. I prefer writing about them than talk about me. I write scenes that haven’t been written. I also dare to show Ambiguity when people insist on Black and White because it makes their life easier. I’m like most of you, a reminder that Life isn’t easy.

 

Writing is fun. It’s exercise. It’s me coping with my life and my experiences, so I stay sane. The hard part is to let go of the need for validation. I’ve negotiated darkness few people have experienced or known, which is an accomplishment that I forget.  Writing isn’t a chore or difficult for me. People and the world are.

 

I hear Polonius, but I remember two things that most people forget about the play and indecisive Hamlet.

 

Polonius hid behind a curtain, and that’s an existential choice.

 

Oh, and he was stabbed.