Storytellersunplugged

By
Richard Steinberg

“Coleridge wasa drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman’s name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to be a writer - and if so, why?” Bennett Cerf

It’s a question I ask myself frequently. 

It’s not to be “happy,” whatever that means. 

Referring to my address book, I know (meaning know well) thirty-seven professional writers.  In reviewing the list, I discovered that four of them could be called happy pretty much all the time, two others were happy more often than not, one pretends she’s happy to please her husband and children, and thirty were pretty much depressives on one level or another, like me.

Why then do we do it?

It’s not to get rich, or even have words be our sole source of income. 

Of the thirty-eight of us, only seven have writing as their only source of income.  There are two computer programmers, four teachers, seven with full-time white collar jobs, and seventeen multiply-employed persons who do whatever they can to support the writing.  Much to his confusion, Prince Mishkin Of Scotland teaches preschool five days a week, and the weekend works in a cattle slaughterhouse.

And it is most certainly not to live in Happily Ever After. 

Twenty-nine of us are either divorced or have had multiple “serious” relationships bloom and then die horrible, disfiguring deaths.  Now writing was not the sole reason for the breakups; except for The Red-headed Stepfather who thought his in-laws history of kleptomania, his sister-in-law’s penchant for young teenage boys, and his wife’s cousin’s oddly disturbing affection for farm animals would make a good book.  The marriage ended, but it really was a good book.

Mr. Cerf asked us: why? 

Why do we want to put ourselves into a business where we will most likely face rejection and attempts to squash our dreams?  Where we voluntarily spend much time in pain and anger?  Where we often experience feelings of inadequacy and psychic impotence in a world that rewards typed flatulence and punishes literary air fresheners?

I think part of it is that we’re not too bright.

Consider this:  In the year 2000 approximately 1,825,000 novels were begun in the United States alone.  Of these, only 181,250 were actually finished within two years.  Of those, only 71,400 (give or take a nervous breakdown) were actually shown to someone other than a blood relative.  And of these, right around 26,000 were submitted to an agent or a publisher for consideration.

For consideration to be one of the 718 fiction titles published in the USA in 2005.

That’s under one percent.

0.04%

And upwards of ninety percent of the 718 titles published by mid to major houses were sold for an advance less than five thousand dollars. 

Not exactly quit the day job money.

Why then do we do it? 

I had actually forgotten that the pub date of my first novel was upon us, and was looking for a copy of The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck.  I walked into the local Barnes & Noble, knew Steinbeck was kept on the next to the bottom shelf on the back left wall, and stopped.

There it was.

Requiescat by Gloria Usiskin Steinberg & Richard Steinberg

Steinbeck, then . . . Steinberg.

And I realized that despite the truth that my publisher at the time was a sonuvabitchin’ thief who would never give us an honest accounting, I had the book. I had the accomplishment.  I had crossed a unique Rubicon and could honestly and without doubt or hesitation call myself an author . . . and mean it.

A feeling of almost inexpressible achievement and wonder that I wish for every one of you.

I charged out of that bookstore ready to conquer the world.

Like I said, we’re not that bright.

And as evidence I would point to this harsh statistic:  less than twenty percent off all published writers are ever published again by a mid to major house.

I asked Adjective Brandishing what kept him in the game?  When, despite the relative success of his small press novel, he had as much trouble as I (and most) to get published a second time; this time with a major house.

“I guess I’m not that bright,” he said after a moment of thought.  “I just knew I had to write, and that writing by itself wasn’t enough.  I had to be read as well.  And why not at a major house?  They deserved the chance to publish me as much as any small house did.”

And amen.

Against all odds, and due to a gentle insanity that neither of us questions or examines too closely, Brandishing and I have managed to scratch out not insubstantial careers in words.  Some highs, many more lows, but in all we represent the most fortunate of the not too bright ones.

So, I say this in all seriousness and with a sense of profound responsibility to those who might wish to follow. 

Go back before it’s too damned late!

I cite all the above – this irrefutable argument of the intellect – to discourage you.  To convince you that there is a greater chance of your being elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire than there is of making a career in the arts; let alone making a living as a writer.  That for you to believe that what you have to say and the way you need to say it would have any meaning to total strangers you will never meet is ridiculous, dumb, and a complete waste of your time . . . and probably significantly painful to your loved ones and closest friends as well.

Give it up.  They let nine people make a living as a writer.  You have no chance.  None.

Leave and be happy.

. . .

      . . .

            . . .

Anybody still there?

I thought so; I hoped so.

The thirty-seven writers in my address book (along with me) are a pretty diverse bunch.  We live in five countries spread across two hemispheres, to say nothing of a bunch of us scattered throughout AmeriCanada.  The youngest is nineteen, the oldest ninety-three.  Male and female, rich and poor, gifted and self-taught; frighteningly wealthy, piteously poor, and all stages in between. 

And we’re all not too bright.

But we also have a brand burned into our brain; no . . .  It’s seared directly into our hearts and so battered souls.

Block bold letters that read, simply:

This Being Shares Dreams

That’s all.  We share our dreams with you.  And we hope we’ve presented them with sufficient skill, talent, whatever, for you to lose your occasionally too pained selves within.  At least for a time.  We do that because we know that within creation – as in all life forces – there lie three, or maybe four, dimensions.

Length . . .

Breadth . . .

Width . . .

And sometimes, when we’re luckiest and work hardest . . . Magic.

It is the magic which sustains us; nurtures and enriches us.   That sometimes destroys, sometimes renews us.

It is the magic which we offer to our readers after our painfully gentle reshaping of it into our books, plays, stories, songs, poems, presentations. It is the same magic which compels a reader to turn the page, to read on.

And if it is the magic – nascent or oppressive – within you that demands words/worlds for creation and life, then I welcome you to this company of not so bright people.

For you have been kissed by the Demon Gods and not one of the aforementioned difficulties in “making it” will ever stand in your way for long.

“I can’t help but to write, I have an inner need for it. If I’m not in the middle of some literary project, I’m utterly lost, unhappy and distressed. As soon as I get started, I calm down,” Kaari Utrio

Perhaps I’ve failed in my role as a Storyteller today.  I’ve offered no technical tips, no structural insights; nothing that will materially and really help you become a better writer.  In my defense, I don’t know whether or not I can help anyone become a better writer.

Myself most assuredly included.

Ilario The Magnificent calls it:  THE ROLLERCOASTER.  Lost Weekender refers to it as:  THE SPLENDID CHAOS.  But I think His Sartorial Splendor said it best.

We were at a photo shoot for my third solo novel’s publicity tour, and I was bemoaning the chaos of my life.  During a break in an otherwise uncomfortable three hours, I said: “When is all this chaos going to stop?”

Sartorial just smiled, told me to tuck in my shirt (so the shoulders would have a better line in the pictures) and said:  “You’re a writer.  It doesn’t.”

However much pain, however fleeting the ecstasy, however wounding the setbacks or ennobling the few wins have been and will be, I would not trade my life as a writer for a life of perfect happiness, consistency, and contentment.

I couldn’t.

Anymore than I could bleach my soul.

There’s one other thing I should tell you at this point, but I don’t have time.  It’s almost eleven, and time for me to go to work . . .

. . . as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Believe!