Writing

Here’s Something To Depress and Inspire Every Writer

We want to write. We don’t really want to do all that other stuff.

The Sunday New York Times ran an obituary about someone I’d never heard of, but the headline sucked me right in: Bruce Duffy, 70, Hailed for His Ambitious First Novel.

I learned that Duffy had written The World As I Found It, which I’ve never read, but which was lauded in a way every single writer who has ever lived would find gratifying: A slew of other good writers agreed it was great.

Here’s the depressing part: He published only three books in his lifetime. The rest of the time, he worked mundane jobs like security guard and speechwriter and occasionally wrote magazine pieces.

Many of us on Medium aspire to make a living as writers. Some of us (me) are former newspaper journalists or self-publish genre novels under pen names (me) or blog (me) or take every freelance copywriting or proofreading or SEO gig they can get (me) or write magazine pieces (me) and some of us will make a good living from this (not me). Some of us have a Serious Novel we keep polishing and sending to agents (me again).

When I read Stephen Markley’s debut novel Ohio recently, I was struck by something he said in the end notes: “… I’m in this place right now, with a book that, no matter what happens with sales or reviews and all that other glitter, is something I’m deeply proud of….” That’s it. That’s exactly it. Most of us don’t write for fame or fortune. We just want to write something that other writers will appreciate as something good, and we really do not want to waste a third of our waking hours doing something we don’t care about for money. We want to write.

When I was the editor of the local newspaper, people around town recognized me because my photo ran in the paper each day. If I was outside my paper’s distribution area, I usually but not always got my anonymity back. There is nothing worse than being drunk at a bar in another town on your birthday, standing in line for the restroom and trying to appear sober-ish, and having someone walk up to you and announce they recognize you. And now they want to have a conversation and explain to the other drunk-ish women in line who you are. Who the hell would want to face that all the time? My God, it would be a nightmare. So, no fame desired.

How about fortune? To be honest, I don’t think I could handle being really wealthy. I have spent too many years hanging up laundry, soaking dried beans, watching every penny, wearing old clothes and making do in a thousand ways to change now. What I’m after is the ability to stop being afraid each time I see my dentist that I’m going to need work done that I can’t afford and to stop feeling a deep dread whenever the furnace makes a funny sound or a pipe breaks. I don’t dream of sports cars. I dream of fixing the old car in the driveway that needs a new battery.

What I want is to make a modest little living by writing some things that I know are good, and to have even a small number of people appreciate my work. Not everything I write is good. All of it is at least decent and some of it is not bad at all. Once in a while I write something that I know is good. Sometimes others agree and I feel gratified. Sometimes I get crickets and start scrolling LinkedIn for remote marketing jobs.

Bruce Duffy should not have been working as a security guard. He should have been a full-time writer. First-rate writers are such rare things, and if you’re capable of writing halfway decently, you know that. The world is absolutely bursting with terrible writers and there are plenty of us who are halfway decent writers. Good writers, however, are few and far between.

My editor advised me to read Ohio because he saw a similarity between the structure of Markley’s book and the one I’m still gestating. Markley’s book is very good indeed, and if you appreciate good writing, you should pick it up. (It’s free on Kindle Unlimited, if that helps you.)

I struggle to find the right path for me. What I want is to work for a daily newspaper again but I might as well wish to be a fairy princess. My choices seem to come down to a corporate marketing/advertising job or more freelancing or more genre novels or more Medium pieces. Right now, I’m throwing pots of spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. Mostly, nothing does. If someone like Bruce Duffy had to work as a security guard, what chance do I have of supporting myself with my writing?