Writing for oneself is intrinsically valuable. It is invaluable, even. But if you write to get published, you might value most what others see as valuable. As much as I have an occasional urge to write a story, what is traditionally thought of as fiction, it often feels anachronistic to me, either in what I am trying to write, or in how I see it positioned in relation to what is the prevailing mode of fiction. And though I might find it worthwhile to write, I often feel I will not place it. That I won't have the energy, time and gumption to push, prod and shape a narrative to its unique place, where any creative work can get to, or must.
What has become apparent to me in the past year or so is that my relationship to writing has been altered irreversibly. Maybe this was inevitable. At one time this troubled me, wanting to be someone thoughtful enough to write it, and one who still avidly wants to read it. And how much of this relationship to books has been from my sense of perennial worth—from others to me—about the value of what I write?
This is all about trying to fit in, I suppose. I'm sure I'm not the only writer who perceives themselves in this way. I am almost envious of those writers who seem to have figured it out. Even if I won't read their work, I admire how they have made it work.
Even after all I have published, I don’t feel like I’ve achieved my goals. Is it better to acknowledge this now, rather than struggle another ten years with dashed hopes? Do I continue on anyway, as there are a few cracks I might still slip into? It’s possible, even likely, that I can do that. Is it wise to hunker down and stay in my lane, assuming I will have my time in the future?
Trying to engage leads to the recognition that you must stay in your lane or get off the road completely.
The culture has shifted. I don’t believe this is merely my perception. At times, I no longer feel like I am part of the literary world; I no longer feel like trying to fit in with it. It has left me behind. Or I’m no longer willing to try to negotiate the hoops that are required, hoops that others will get through by virtue of qualities alien to me.
In fact, the publishing world has not closed to me. It is rather that I have stopped trying to make the kind of inroads that I once wanted to make, and even felt for a while that I might make. I have always been an outlier. Why would I stop now? The literary world likes shooting stars, cultivates them and watches them flare and disappear forgotten into the sea. But, resolutely, this is not for me.
The holy grail of writing is books and awards, but not everyone can attain that, which has become an increasingly difficult arena to break into and must take a whole other kind of patience and resolve. I can feel like I am always several steps behind my peers, because I do not have books to show for it. Yet there is that danger in comparing yourself: you can always find someone who is the exception to make your pretty good seem not so great.
The exceptions are the 1% or less writers who put out books and earn a living at it. This was certainly the dream for me, but if in fact I have never gotten to those upper steps on the rung, why would I compare myself to those who have? This is not to say I was not ambitious. It’s almost as if I never had to make a go of it. Although in fact, I did, I simply never got far enough.
Most people pour this kind of wish for exceptionalism into their careers. That I don’t have a career in writing might prevent me from having achieved in this way. I’ve never had to publish in order to earn money, and I’ve never been so desperate that it’s all that I had to fall back on to make a career.
I might now be reckoning with how I never gave myself a chance to find out if I could do it. But on the face of it that is wrong, too. No matter what comes of my long involvement with writing, there are myriad rationales or explanations about how I might have done it differently.
This is where I find myself at my 25th year of writing.
One thing that may have hindered me over the years is a lack of community. This has also been a case of, not for a lack of trying. For me, writing has been a solitary pursuit. I’ve had a difficult time becoming an extrovert about my solitary pursuit. There have been many itinerant communities, corresponding to memorable and rewarding writing conferences (Thailand, New York City, Charlottesville), but I am not in contact with any of those wonderful people, most of whom have their lives and other communities, if they are even still writing.
Writers are more focused on marketing than they are on the actual writing. Maybe this is what passes for “practicing your art” these days.
I still search for books to read, but I admit to having less interest in what is being published these days. Aside from a few authors (Cusk, probably Lerner, Knausgaard, though I am losing faith, a few others), not much gets me excited. I sense this inward turn, which isn’t terrible, it just seems odd to me to have so little to look out to. I’m not interested in genre, or most of the themes that animate the culture. It is telling that so many people write genre: it is as if no one wants to bother with realism any longer. Barring that, the writing is not about much of anything of substance, just gender politics, politics. I am surprised to read about anything else.
I was thinking about Charles Baxter’s notion of capturing a specific time in literature in his essay from Wonderlands (“Things About to Disappear: The Writer as Curator”). He argues here for the notion that if these places are “on the verge of disappearing, you would work to get them on the page in all their glorious detail.” I wrote in the margin: Would you? It seems we don’t necessarily do this anymore, or maybe I am not interested in it. Maybe the heavy insistence on genre has rendered this idea moot.
In Baxter’s formulation, maybe we need to save things from disappearing. But perhaps we've already hyper-looped into the dystopian future. Sure, in our daily, quiet lives historic relics can seem relevant. But if you try to engage with the world on its terms, it seems like you have to put on protective outerwear, mask and gloves. No one really cares about what's left behind. We are eager for the dismal future, yet weary of it sneaking up on us.
Maybe you have to find the quiet space where you can find a future to look forward to. For me, whatever that traditional path was, seems gone. I've always known that looking toward anything that was out of my hands for my salvation was futile. I suppose it's a surprise at how prescient I was.
Literature flourishes only through the quiet observation of the dedicated writer. But to go onto social media is to see its antithesis. Seemingly so many people, proclaiming to create with from more of a need to talk about it than to actually do it. Writers are more focused on marketing than they are on the actual writing. Maybe this is what passes for “practicing your art” these days. But it's essential to turn your back on this chatter and nonsense. I will admit I am just as likely to go on there for attention, as if it is a surrogate for the actual reading of work. But you can't forget that those are all tools; maybe worthless other than that they create an illusion of community.
Maybe it is harmless insofar as one does not take it seriously. But if I would have had social media as an outlet 25 years ago, I may have sacrificed my development as a writer. (Or maybe I would have been fully formed, like the generation that seems to have gotten a perfect pampering; I'll admit it is tough to relate to that generation.) Everyone who does not want to evolve alongside the prevailing and predominant system, or who does not want to jump onto the wave of the next trend, falls by the wayside. I suspect I would have felt the crush of rejection and ostracism.
I used to think it was good that there are so many literary venues available, but now I believe this has led to a diminishing of quality. Journals come and go like the weather. How many are really of quality when the mere fact of announcing you are going to start a journal has eager writers clambering to get to it? The niche has become rife with niches. With so many variables of dubious quality, quality is lost. The flourishing of interest means more people are submitting, and more are floundering, languishing in the purgatory of the submission queue.
This is effectively why I have stopped submitting for a while, or paused, trying to reassess what I am doing and how I am going to continue to do it.
I'll admit ulterior motives. I too want to be read. I want to be acknowledged, but for what it is worth, I'm not sure it helps my writing by engaging in this artificial, or merely novel way of trying to disseminate one's writing. I read of nothing but success stories when I am sure there are millions more, not unlike me, wondering at what has been lost.
Not to make an outrageous comparison, but there was a point for Beckett, after the crazy success and demand of Waiting for Godot had overtaken his life (and the Nobel was soon to follow), that he simply and unremorsefully turned his back on it. He delved into the writing that would become fizzles and other gnomic, anti-commercial work. It's good to think about that. There isn’t much to gain by any of this when it is not generated from an intrinsic source.