Ain’t No Fun Waitin’ Round to Be a Millionaire
“The following is a true story. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.” - Bon Scott, AC/DC.
Major props to Angus Young, Malcolm Young, and Bon Scott, who have “Been there, done that,” as they say.
For once I’m not going to talk about me. There’s this other writer, you may or may not have heard of him, named Ryan White. This is his story.
Ryan White is a writer. His readers, fans, and peers often refer to him as a professional in the horror genre. Maybe they honestly consider him a professional, or maybe they’re stroking his ego. Doesn’t matter. He values their opinions and loves it when one of them has a kind word for or about him and his work, but if you ask him, he will reject the “Professional Writer,” label.
“A professional writer writes for a living,” Ryan might say. “Right now I’m making enough to cover pizza and car parts.”
Ryan drives a Roto-Rooter truck for a living, which stinks in more ways than one. He often works long hours, but earns a decent wage (Note: the definition of decent wage varies wildly depending on where you live. What Ryan earns in a two-week pay period wouldn’t rent a cardboard box in Manhattan, but does him fine in his uncivilized corner of the world). Ryan has three kids, one wife, and a cat, all of whom depend on him to keep them clothed, fed, and safe from the elements.
Ryan lives a moderately healthy lifestyle. He does not do illegal drugs of any kind, rarely drinks, never gambles. His addictions include caffeine, cigarettes, Howard Stern, and books.
He particularly likes scary books.
Though Ryan rejects the “Professional Writer,” label, he is a writer.
Writing is perhaps his unhealthiest addiction.
It wasn’t always like this. Ryan was once a normal, well-adjusted child with a shot at comfortable mediocrity.
Then something very bad happened, and things went downhill from there.
When Ryan was sixteen, his father died. It was a work accident, and one that Ryan still blames himself for. On a rational level, Ryan understands this is ridiculous, he wasn’t even there when it happened, but Ryan is a writer and has no use whatsoever for rationality.
Why do you need to know all of this? You probably don’t, but writers are a narcissistic bunch, and Ryan’s vanity insists that you hear the whole story. He contends that knowing these things about him will help you understand him a little better.
I still haven’t worked out why anybody needs to understand Ryan, but he made me promise to tell the whole story.
My promise to you is to abbreviate it as much as I can. I know you have your own kids, spouses, and concerns, and lets face it folks, American Idol (Vote Sanjaya!) waits for no man or woman.
I’ll spare you the details about how Ryan’s father died, because they aren’t important in this context. What is important is how Ryan reacted.
Ryan, who admits he was never a social butterfly, closed himself off in many ways. He bottled up a lot of negative crap, kept himself to himself, and traded in many of his tried and true forms of entertainment and social interaction for books.
In the sixteen years before his father died, he’d read a few books, mostly Indiana Jones choose your own adventure books and DC Comics, but very few real books. The first book he purchased and read only a few weeks after his father’s death was Stephen King’s Misery, which he admits he bought because of the title. Misery seemed fitting to him at that time.
Misery was the book that changed Ryan White’s life.
Ryan read Misery during a weeklong high-mountain camping trip, and proceeded to put all of his time and money into collecting and reading everything by Stephen King upon returning to civilization. After King came Koontz, Straub, Ligotti, and the triumphant return of English textbook classic, Mr. E.A. Poe.
At some point, Ryan Wright decided to be a rich and famous writer, just like his personal hero Stephen King.
Why the hero worship of King in particular? We can try to get in his head, if you have the time to waste. Maybe King had become a safely distant father figure, subconsciously chosen to replace Ryan’s dead father. It would be simpler to just take his fandom at face value and say he liked King best because the man was a hell of a writer. Perhaps it was a bit of both. Either way, Uncle Steve (as King sometimes refers to himself in his introductions) got Ryan through some tough times.
At the age of sixteen, Ryan started writing some of the most god-awful short fiction ever to curse the eyes of an unsuspecting first reader, and a equally horrid novel called The Other Side, all of which have had the decency to slink away while his back was turned and die their sad deaths out of the public eye.
Ryan submitted, and editors rejected him. Ryan wrote more, submitted more, and editors rejected him again. Ryan persevered, and editors cringed at the mere sight of his name on cover letters.
But did Ryan let this stop him?
You bet he did!
After two years of constant rejection, Ryan gave up writing to pursue his original dream. Ryan White would be the greatest rock guitarist since Angus Young! He would be rich, famous, and too fucking cool for words.
Unfortunately, he was as bad with a guitar as he was with a typewriter.
Eventually he gave his rock ‘n’ roll dreams up as well, and focused his energy on getting laid as much as possible (he was slightly more successful at this endeavor, but only slightly).
Fast-forward now … Ryan White at twenty-two.
Ryan finally finds someone who will let him bang her on a regular basis, and cons her into marrying him. The new Mrs. White has two children from a previous marriage.
Holy shit! Instant family. Ryan had no idea what he’d gotten himself into.
No more partying, no more irresponsible friends (irresponsible friends were the only friends Ryan had), no more fucking around. Ryan loved his new family, if he didn’t he would have bailed quickly, but he understood things had to change.
Ryan White was a family man now.
More out of boredom than anything else (though there was a part of him that still expected to be recognized instantly as a great talent and rewarded with fame and riches) Ryan took up writing again.
This time he kept at it, and thanks to the discovery of the Internet, and a horror small press that was still in its infancy, Ryan made friends with other writers, most much better than he was, and learned that while his stories still sucked, he had the potential to grow and improve.
And so he did.
Ryan sold a book to an upstart small press company, and though that company folded within a few years, that first book lives on through the grace of other publishers who recognized Ryan’s true and colossal greatness, and reprinted it.
Ryan then sold another book to a slightly larger company.
Fast-forward again … the present.
Ryan White is not a prolific writer, he has his good years and his bad, but he has published four novels, one collection, three novellas, and a bunch of short stories. The small press editors like his work enough to pay him for it, and a lot of readers like it enough to shell out their hard-earned cash for some very expensive limited editions of his work.
Other writer’s still trying to break into the small press will undoubtedly think him an ungrateful son-of-a-bitch, but he is not happy.
The expected fame and riches have not materialized. He understands that his expectations were a pipe dream, that writer’s like King, Koontz, and Straub are an exception to the sad rule that most writers will die poor and unrecognized, so he has downgraded his expectations slightly. Now he only wants to write for a living, even if the living he makes isn’t an exceptionally rich and glamorous one.
That life is only a few contracts away, but the folks he needs to sign those contracts are slightly bigger bugs than those he is currently working with, and right now, he is barely on their radar. No one from the bigger houses is jumping, or even shrugging resignedly, to sign him up.
Will he ever take that next step? Once he would have said yes, honestly and without hesitation. Now, he’s not so sure.
So what to do now?
Keep writing, that’s what. If only to stave off the boredom of not writing. He’s done it for so long now, he can’t not do it.
As long as there’s a small press to keep him going, he’s closer than most to realizing his dream. Even when (if) he takes the next step, he will have a place in his heart and schedule for the small press publishers who keep him working.
Ain’t no fun waitin’ round to be a millionaire, but there’s worse things than waiting.
In a maddening and ironic twist of fate, just as Ryan is close to making the jump to “Professional Writer,” the small press itself seems to be going through an identity crisis.
There is a shifting in the bedrock of the horror small press. Brothers, sisters, and friends turn on each other at the drop of the wrong word or name. Careers built over the course of years of long, solitary nights are in danger of falling over trivialities. The pretenders have taken up their banners and indignation, drawn a line in the sand, and dared us to step over it.
Ryan is not happy about this.
Neither am I, for that matter.
Part two of Ryan White’s story – The Pretenders – coming very soon at
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Comments
Hey Dave. I would have done the whole thing last night, but it was running a little long. I’ll have the rest of it up this weekend.
Teresa, I hope the finale doesn’t disappoint. 
Mark Hassle asked me to post this:
Think I like this Ryan White character; think he’s got his head on right.
Of course, he should be reminded that small press has been around even back thyar befor’ them Internets. (Nice brief history in ON SMALL PRESS AS CLASS STRUGGLE–Merritt and Robin Michelle Clifton).
And he should realize, I hope, that he is already a success: His words are in print (for real–and not with PublishAnyone or BlowhardBlog) and that people are seriously reading what he has created, giving up moments of their lives for his imaginings. How does one put a $$$ on that?
Mort Castle, electronic agent for Mark Hassle, who’d be in a bunch of message boards and blogging himself if he could figure out a bunch of KEWL names like Dippy O’Doule, Wonka Yr Willy and Peter Bittenoff
Mort, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it here. You are one of the classiest guys in the business. Don’t ever change man.
Tell Mark that Ryan said thanks 
Um…..hmmm?? Okay…and I will wait to hear part two because — while enthralled — I’m still waiting to see where this is going.
D