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Where Words Meet

In Praise of the Deplorable

[Podcast edition available here, although a little later than usual this month.]

“Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
— William Munny, Unforgiven

It’s always flattering when someone gets outraged on your behalf. Give me 10,000 more who feel the same way, you think, and I’ll have my own army.

Or maybe that’s just a personal quirk.

I was recently interacting with an army of one, a reader who was genuinely distressed at the gross unfairness of it all: that most of my backlist is out of print, while millions of books, new and old, stamped with the name of someone we’ll call Writer X, are snatched off the shelves by readers who would be soooo much better served if only they weren’t willing to settle for someone pandering to the lowest common denominator.

As for the merits of Writer X, or their lack, I can’t speak to them, because I’ve never read a word by him. This appears unlikely to change. Not out of spite, but because of a total deep-space vacuum of encouragement to do so. For years, Writer X was barely even on my radar, although in the past several months, something seems to have hit critical mass, because I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so much bashing of someone who wasn’t, say, a homicidal ex-football player or a celebutante with a sense of entitlement that would shame a Caesar.

It’s been the writer as piñata, in obscure online forums and national magazines and all points between. It seems nobody has a kind word for Writer X, and the unkind ones are sometimes shackled to claims that sound reasonable enough, but whose truth I can’t verify: that he slaps his name on ghost-written books to further milk the market, that after a few “real” novels he started publishing what were essentially novel outlines. And on it goes. I’ve half expected to see accusations that he causes crops to fail, poisons wells, and moisturizes with ointments made from the fat of unbaptized babies.

Which brings us back to the gross unfairness of it all: Writer X up in his belltower, me on my fencepost.

Really, now — what kind of a god would allow a thing like this to happen, come to think of it?

It’s a human enough reaction, all right.

Also unproductive, self-pitying, and ridiculously shortsighted.

But … whatever gets you through the day.

When one writer grouses about the success of another, the jealousy is a given. Less apparent, but potentially more toxic, is the implied sense of surrender. As if the first writer is looking at the second and, down deep, making a confession: That will never be me. So I might as well curl my lip and throw rocks.

This, instead of looking at another’s success and seeing living, breathing proof that it can be done.

Still, these are matters of outlook, perception, disposition. They shift when the bearer is ready, and only then. In the meantime, there’s a whole other pragmatic dimension to consider, a perspective on the economic food chain that usually gets ignored when writers start wrestling with the word “deserve.”

And I can’t put it any better than a respected friend and colleague did, way way back in the long-ago.

During the ‘90s, when Dell Publishing was putting out a line of novels under the Dell/Abyss imprint, Kathe Koja and I had two of the most longstanding associations with it. In fact, we got in on the ground floor, as editor Jeanne Cavelos selected novels by us as the two leadoff titles. Throughout the Dell/Abyss years, Kathe and I found ourselves on several convention panels organized around the line and its authors.

I don’t remember when it came up, or where. All those hotel ballrooms look alike. But someone in the audience invoked the name of one of the mega-bestselling writers published by Dell — I’m 99% certain it was Danielle Steele — and asked how we felt about the fact that the promotional budget they accorded her was undoubtedly far in excess of what Dell had budgeted for the entire Abyss line, and all of us gathered under its umbrella.

You could hear the sympathetic indignation rumble through the audience. Heads nodded. Torches and pitchforks rose out among the folding chairs. Faces scowled, solemn with the righteousness of those ready to settle injustices by guillotine blade.

And then Kathe had to go and defuse this lovely burgeoning Bastille Day moment.

“I don’t have any problem with Danielle Steele,” Kathe said. “She pays for my advances.”

Ulp.

We all have them, perhaps once in our life or maybe as a chronic condition: thorns in our side and banes of our existence. Writers whose work we regard as an insult to the trees that died to print it, whose success is the bitterest proof of some vast cosmic imbalance, and whose very breath somehow steals the air meant for our lungs.

There has always been a Writer X. There always will be.

And by whatever name he or she is known to you, like it or not, publishers depend upon Writer X for revenue, some of which can’t help but find its way into pockets that you’re sure to regard as more deserving.

Scorn Writer X for his hackery, if it helps — I’ll be the first to admit there can be rocket fuel in it. Castigate her for her dearth of craft, loathe him for his purveyance of rank mediocrity, revile her for her high crimes and misdemeanors against the written word … but begrudge Writer X his or her success at your peril. And maybe your hypocrisy.

Because as Danielle Steele was for Kathe and for me, once upon a time, so too is Writer X for an untold number of writers who don’t have anywhere near his sales figures or name recognition … but are glad to have the chance to strive for it. Or as close as they can come. On their own terms.

For some, it will be enough. And some of those they touch, with their antidotal words, will be all the better for it. And on it goes.

And if by chance my next novel were to end up at the same house that publishes Writer X, I wouldn’t mind in the least, and if by some fluke of visitation we ended up under its roof at the same time, and passed in the hallway, I might even be compelled to shake his undeserving hand.

Except deserve’s got nothing to do with it. For either of us.

Thanks for all those books, I might say. To be blunt, they may not have much to teach me that I’d find worth knowing … but keep ‘em coming, just the same.

Related posts:

1. In Praise of Concrete and Rebar

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