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March 23, 2004

confessions of a semi-successful writer

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An article in Salon about the hell that is being a mid-level “serious” writer.

There was a time, just a decade ago, when my life as a wri­ter brim­med with hope and pro­mise; when the world of work and words see­med open to end­less pos­si­bi­lity; when the music my edi­tors and I made together — the appre­cia­tion and, yes, the love they felt for me, the appre­cia­tion and love I felt for them — made my heart sing in my chest and my words sing on the page.
There was a time when my life as a wri­ter ove­rrode my innate cyni­cism and doubt, moved me to tell my young daugh­ter, corn­ball as it see­med even then, that dreams do come true, if you really want them to. Because what is a book made of, if not the spun sugar of a writer’s wil­dest dreams?
“Does it ever get bet­ter?” I asked Patty, my most suc­cess­ful wri­ter friend, recoun­ting my mid­list author’s tale of woe.
“Not subs­tan­tially,” she ans­we­red. “My books sell well now, but I never stop won­de­ring what’ll hap­pen to me when they don’t.”

Yeah. It sucks. Guess what? I have no sym­pathy wha­tsoe­ver. The amount of books she sells in a year is com­pa­ra­ble to how many peo­ple read a semi-decent blog in a good week.
“Oooh! But I’m so cle­ver! I deserve bet­ter!” That was the sub­text I got out of it.
The whole article suc­ked. She was trying to expose the horror of the publishing busi­ness– all she mana­ged to do was expose the horror of being a mediocre talent with highly-developed sense of entit­le­ment.
As an artist, you are res­po­nis­ble for your own expe­rience. I des­pise artists who never accept this. And why the hell do they all seem to write for Salon?
Scalzi con­curs with this delight­fully scathing reply to the article.
Cynthia Rock­well also posts some stuff. Smart, witty blog.

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