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Writing Life

How many novels must one man write, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, before you can call him an author?  I’ve completed six, none published, and I’ve got another well under way.  My business card, however, nowhere indicates that I’m an author.

Being a writer is more than an occupation.  It’s an identity.  Like the vast majority of writers, I work for a living.  Long hours.  Long commute.  Heavy eyelids.  Sloped shoulders.  Weary sighs.  My boss thinks of me as an employee.  I think of myself as a writer gathering information.

For me, there’s an ethics about it all.  I spend a lot of time reading.  Years, if I add up all the hours.  Am I not morally required to give something back?  I’ve written, sweated over, edited, and polished my novels.  Yet they sit on my hard drive seen by my eyes only and the even harder eyes of alabaster editors.



Such is a writer’s life.  I’m not really looking for the big time.  I’d like to send my fiction out there for the (I hope) hundreds, or maybe a few thousands, who would find in me a kindred spirit.  I can’t do it alone, however.  Life’s funny that way because writing is such a solitary activity.  Like taking a shower, I only ever do it alone.

No one need tell me I’m naive.  Authors are those with connections.  They’re punchy, upbeat, and cheerful.  Editors fall over themselves to sign up their lackluster books.  It’s the law of the economic jungle.  That book can’t see the light of day unless it’ll make me some money.

The other day I was looking over the results of an amateur writing contest.  Kids receiving awards for their early literary efforts.  I smiled at the irony.  I won a state-wide essay contest when I was in high school.  After that I published a couple of non-fiction books.  Now editors won’t give me a second glance.


So what about the ethics of it all?  Should we be encouraging the sacrificial lambs?  Don’t ask me—I’m no ethicist.  And please don’t look, because I’m going to the showers now.
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