Forum / A serious inquiry concerning what constitutes validation as a professional writer today...

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 13, 04:36pm

I read Charles Baxter's interview on the Fn Blog yesterday and he speaks, among other things, of conflict between the various media. Granted, things are in flux and there may be no real consensus to be had as to what constitutes recognition of a professional, but maybe it's time to ask.

Let me pose a question(s), since I'm really interested in what people think:

If a writer does not appear anywhere in print, but has been published extensively online in venues other than, say, his or her own blog and public sites such as this one, where there is no submission/acceptance process, what is the criteria for validation? Is it time for organizations such as PEN. and other groups to take a serious look at their policy of admission as a professional?

Simply put ... What constitutes professional validation today, or where does the line fall that separates the pro from the wannabe?

Matt Dennison
Dec 13, 05:08pm

Money, honey.

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 13, 05:29pm

I don't think so. We're talking about validation, not success. I made lots of money writing technical stuff, but would not dream of telling that to a prospective agent as incentive for him/her to read my novel.

For instance ... one criteria for PEN membership for pros calls for publication of at least two books of a literary nature ... or, one if it's a prize winner. There is no financial success clause.

And I'm not talking about PEN necessarily, but even some agents put up similar screens before they'll even give you a peep.

A lot of publishers may be looking for financialy successful writers, but those guys are not going to even talk to a writer without serious credentials or a very good agent.

Matt Dennison
Dec 13, 05:43pm

It seems as if your topic lies beyond "professionalism" and goes into a less black-white area.

But "professionalism" has always meant, to me, doing it for money, and *enough* money to live. (perhaps not doing it "for," but the result of said doing =ing $, whether or not that is the originating purpose.)

Brings to mind the Sam Johnson anecdote about comparing the evolution of his writing career to that of a prostitute. Roughly: I started doing it for my own pleasure, then the pleasure of my friends, and then for money.

(Of course, none of this speaks to your query!)

W.F. Lantry
Dec 13, 05:52pm

James,

In such moments, I always lean on Berryman:

"The secret is not praise. It's just being accepted
at something like the figure where you put your worth
anywhere on the bloody earth,
especially abroad."

Of course, that doesn't do any *practical* good, but it does lend itself to a kind of grim satisfaction.

I'm not sure any kind of validation would ever suffice anyone anyway. People move up one rung, and they keep looking up. It's human nature, I guess. Win some big prize, and it ain't like its the Nobel or anything. Win that, and people still go after you. It's not like anyone ever actually grabs the brass ring. It's just that the circle of collegiality expands.

And all of us need to expand that particular circle... ;)

Thanks,

Bill

Matt Dennison
Dec 13, 06:09pm

(and there are people who make boatloads of money and are despised by the Hoity-Toits, so...)

Sam Rasnake
Dec 13, 06:15pm

In a few years, the literary world's primary mode will be online. Organizations such as PEN and others will have to fall in line with that transition to remain vital.

Major print magazine venues - because of economic hurtles and the bent of prospective writers and readers for online access - are being forced either to shut down or to move into cyberspace.

Writers, unfortunately, don't always consider online venues to be as valued or as vital or important as print venues - which is absurd of course. The times they are... Well, you know the rest there.

If professionalism is equated with money, then no one should write poetry.

One section of a poem by W.H. Auden was used in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. That use generated more money to Auden's estate than all the other publications of Auden combined. It's a sad world.

Matt Dennison
Dec 13, 06:20pm

"If professionalism is equated with money, then no one should write poetry." I respectfully disagree.

"It's a sad world." I respectfully disagree.

Sam Rasnake
Dec 13, 06:29pm

And you should disagree with my statement, Matt, if you don't see it that way. We just see the world - literary and otherwise - with a different view. And that's fine.

Matt Dennison
Dec 13, 06:47pm

(coming back from kitchen to add to above comment so as not to appear curt, when that was not my intent--the stove was calling, is all.)

It's just that Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive, WCW a doctor (pediatrician, I believe), Bukowski worked in the postoffice. E.A. Robinson had some kind of a job as well. Today, many poets are teachers, etc., earning their livelihoods directly from that while supplementing their incomes from sales of books/readings/etc.

Now, while the above received monies for their poetry, it was not their sole means of support (working on the assumption that to be thoroughly professional means to derive the bulk of your living from poetry/writing.)

Were they great? Yes. Even though they had to rely on other pursuits to put bread on the table. Should they not have written? Of course not (which of course you are not saying).

So, it's just semantics, really, as in how one chooses to define "professional."

(as for the world, well, the world just *is*)

stephen hastings-king
Dec 13, 06:49pm

i read a sociologist's definition of professional artists a while ago. it came down to making things with the intent of showing them publicly. that seemed to me a good way to look at it because it encompassed the whole continuum of making-things-public.

validation is a curious thing. from doing a lot of sound performances, i figured out that when you interact with the audience after a show what you find out is that people are polite and will tell you what polite people will tell you. you don't find out much of anything about how the performance actually was that you don't already know. so there's not a whole lot of validation to be had from the interactions, curiously. it comes more from the fact that people turn up at all. because they don't have to.

publishing stuff is interesting, but seem to me (so far) parallel.

in my experience what's important really is having a few people you can trust to telly you what they actually think and enough trust in what you're doing so that you don't have to pay attention to what they think. but you can if you want to. it's a good option to have.

Matt Dennison
Dec 13, 06:51pm

(change the original post/query to what constitutes a SUCCESSFUL writer, and that's an entirely different--and more-easily debated--topic.)

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 13, 08:06pm

Matt, to paraphrase the delightful, lovely Tina Turner, "We don'ever do nothin' easy.."

Success is too easily defined and either equates to numbers in the coin of the realm, or recognition from the audience and/or peers.

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 13, 08:09pm

It's snowing outside like Donner Pass. We've just run out of butter, but have plenty of cream for the coffee, subsequently plenty of time on my hands.

(Butterless crumpets. Dear God, the humanity!)

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 13, 08:25pm

Bill, acceptance is really the ideal, at least to the point where a writer at least has the access with which to compete for limited space in a world of print, or ... if the world goes according to Sam's prediction, access to compete within 'sanctioned' space in the vast and otherwise freely accessible internet.

Goals are personal. I'd just like to get a novel published, don't really aspire to greatness, just enough recognition to justify the time spent.

I've already been the best at ... something.

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 13, 08:32pm

Stephen, a peerage would be ideal, yes. But that really begs the question, especially with something as amorphous and taste related as writing, "Who can you trust?"

H-M Brown
Dec 13, 09:33pm

James Lloyd Davis Quote: 'If a writer does not appear anywhere in print, but has been published extensively online in venues other than, say, his or her own blog and public sites such as this one, where there is no submission/acceptance process, what is the criteria for validation? Is it time for organizations such as PEN. and other groups to take a serious look at their policy of admission as a professional?'

Here is a Rejection Response I received from a Lit Mag, after mentioning that I am a member of Fictionaut to help push my submission:

'Further, by all means, tell us if you are active in a writer's group or critique website. This is good news, as it means you're serious about trying to improve your craft. However, don't tell us all of the stories that the group has reviewed. That information is not of any use to us on this end. Also, having work reviewed by a workshop, online or not, does not count as publication.'

Despite Fictionaut stating our works here are "Published", (We've had this type of debate about "Publishing" before in past Forums dicussions.) many Short Story Lit Mags don't see Fictionaut that way and think Fictionaut is some random Writer's Group or Critique Website. If Fictionaut is to be seen in a "Profeesional" Light, then this site needs to step up with its publicity and stress to the writing community that it is a "Professional" Site at the level of publishing houses to legitimize our works posted here. It's not the Publishers fault for thinking that way about Fictionaut. If Fictionaut believes that it is a legitimate Professional and Publishing site, it needs to assert itself to the writing community.

Ann Bogle
Dec 13, 09:33pm

James, good topic. Bill, terrific reply! I love that Berryman quotation. Matt, I'm tempted to agree that money is the line. Audience is another factor: how many people want to read what you write? Is there an audience for your style, your delivery, your intelligence, your imagination, have you caught on? And if so, with whom? Do established writers and editors read you? We are still at a distance from recognizing free internet publications, despite their editorial process. There are a few exceptions (Anderbo, Wigleaf, elimae, among many fine publications), but again, money seems a factor. Prestige seems to attach to magazines that charge and pay. As many of us in cyberworld have trainings in editing and literature, including our own beginnings in print, there are other, appraisable ethics at play--such as grammar, spelling, mechanics, usage--whether or not a writer is paid. I think quality is recognizable, that merit is sometimes realized outside academe.

From the Charles Baxter interview:

"What beguiles you now, in this time in book culture and its evolution alongside technology?"

"What’s exciting about the present time is that screen culture is in a pitched battle with book culture; there are all kind of people who want to kill off books, who really want them dead. It’s frightening to watch."

This has been bothering me off and on for a day or two since I read it. While I feel the book and the bookstore (what they are calling "brick and mortar") are suffering from our neglect, neglect of buyers and readers, who have apparently taken their purchases online (based on sales projections I read at Publishers' Weekly), I haven't met people who want the book dead. There is neglect, and cultural moodswing, but malice toward the book? According to Bowker, 300,000 books were printed in the U.S. last year alone. That doesn't count print-on-demand books (another 300,000) and many periodicals or books overseas. It's more like an orgy of the book, as it seems to me.

Ann Bogle
Dec 13, 10:21pm

H-M, since you named Fictionaut as not matching the selective criteria of the lit. mag where you submitted, it may be beneficial to those of us who defend Fictionaut as a vital, interesting, challenging, fun place to read and write, if you named the mag!

Sam, interesting view that the written world will shift to the internet. I think the paper book will also survive. I always suppose that the people who built and created the internet will go unsung while the print writers with their agents will simply move in, fit in, be ushered in to the space to make money there. That the architects of the internet are pyramid builders.

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 13, 11:41pm

Wonderful responses so far ... and much to digest.

H-M, I would never suggest to anyone to whom I'm submitting fiction that, as a regular contributor to Fn, I'm published here. This venue is an excellent place to experiment with new forms and ideas, and ... I'm sure it's a place where the exposure can't hurt. Nonetheless, there is no submission/acceptance/rejection process. You can pretty much post anything, much as you can in a personal blog. However, the unique collection of extraordinarily talented people form, if not truly definitive critique, they are a fair cross section of the reading public in terms of taste. You can tell whether a piece you've written has appeal, which is a plus in my book. Besides, there are some fabulous writers here.

Ann, I was also troubled by Mr. Baxter's statement about pitched battle between 'screen culture' and 'book culture.'

To some extent, I believe that it is more a pitched battle of markets in opposition that may or may not lean toward the 'screen culture' over time if those involved with books allow the creeping preference to dominate. However, I think that it is not so simple as 'screen' versus 'book.' I believe what is happening suggests a trend to mini-fiction that threatens the very idea of literature as we know it, with a trend that is making longer works, such as the 'short story' of between 5 and 15 thousand words a 'chore' for the average reader. The novel, in an age of little bits and bytes, may become an unthinkable undertaking, even for college educated readers.

600,000 books sounds like a big collective number, but the ratios and comparisons with historical figures may show that it's not that good.

Not my job.

That's the academic challenge. My challenge is to write novels that people want to read, hopefully literary, but necessarily engaging, else they'll never see the light of day in a shrinking market.

Can't wait to see who says what here next.

stephen hastings-king
Dec 14, 02:36am

Interesting. I don't think there's "a" conflict between monolithic screen or print "cultures"...for example, I've been seeing the emergence of people who are doing things with the book form that are predicated on a kind of awareness of the object-ness of books in ways that seem to me to flow from the flux that publishing seems to be following music in sliding into.

At the same time, what is being written now seems influenced by the constraints of a monitor screen--flash for example is a monitor-sized form.

So even at this rather specific level, it seems pretty clear to me that there are multiple types of interaction happening one aspect of which is a transition in dominant medium of expression.

My day gig has me working on building research databases and I can tell you that there's A LOT of money that changes hands around licensing arrangements and for most academic journals the authors don't see a dime of that money. Folk tell themselves the obvious things--o symbolic capital is reflected in promotions and so forth therefore there is compensation but it's indirect....whatever. It's not an economically equitable system.

Things could be different were the United States less devoted to spending obscene amounts of money on shiny technological systems that kill people in great number and instead diverted more into funding the arts--because it's possible that one of the problems the net poses that underpins all the others is that it undermines the notions of "intellectual property" that have been developed since the French Revolution because it undermines the exclusivity of production and cracks open processes of distribution. If you look at anything published by publishers for themselves, the central question is how to "monetize" the web, so to impose barriers and access fees on information flows. They can't do it because the culture of the net won't allow it. Anarchists they call it. Art and information production could be considered a kind of public good, however--but for people to live there'd have to be ways to underwrite artists. American capitalism is not your friend if you make things.

In experimental music, when this transition took hold between dominant media--from material to immaterial if you like---what went down first were the smaller labels and distributors. That also took down some of the older mediation outlets. One result of that was the multiplication of scenes---in experimental music, a very considerable multiplication---as a function of people seeing in the collapse of these older, centralized models an opportunity to build something otherwise.

Using the net, alot of music that would otherwise have had a difficult time getting released at all has been able to reach audiences. The problem has been that there's not a whole lot of centralized mediating outlets---critics who tell people what they want to want, basically---and it seems that people are timid and want to be told what they want to want because if they're not told what they want to want maybe they'll make mistakes and want the wrong things in the wrong way.

So while there are more options to play, they're fragmented. There are audiences but they're also fragmented. It's hard to cross out of a specific audience who's into a specific scene or genre. It's easy to get recordings out to people but not so easy to get paid for them. But that's not so different than it was before, really---you make money doing performances. But because the labels are often tiny or fictional, you have to organize stuff yourself & build tours. It's possible to get over, but it's a hustle. So most musicians do what most musicians have always done, which is hold things together with a day gig and do what they want to do sonically and do small tours when they can.

In experimental music, it's possible to sustain yourself but it's a grind. In terms of validation...experimental music is musician's music. If what you're doing is bullshit, they'll tell you. If it's not, you'll find people wanting to work with you and invite you to do sets and so on. There's not a whole pile of money changing hands though. That seems just part of the game, yes?

So who do you trust? People who work in areas that are similar, whose craft you respect and who aren't assholes so are cool to have beverages with and like that. Or people who do other stuff themselves but with an attention that you get, and who get the attention you put into what you're doing.

Building an audience is a different matter. And (back to music for a second)...it's nice that people come out for a gig but like I said for the most part what they tell you is that they're nice polite people. You want to know what happened or how it was, ask the other musicians. Same with writing, yes?

That's why I like Fictionaut, really. It's where other musicians hang out.

Linda Simoni-Wastila
Dec 14, 02:48am

Wow. Provocative stuff here. Still chewing.

For myself, I can't decide whether I want to be a reader's writer or a writer's writer. And I kind of think that's part of the divide between online and print. Peace...

Ann Bogle
Dec 14, 03:57am

Stephen, I read you. I'd like to see a way for writers to be paid for their work both online and in print. I have researched studying applied economics and wondered about unions for creative writers. Rick Moody has referred to the subject of payment for writers at online journals. I agree that it is a central topic. I suppose pay for writers is not equitable even now. Many are subsidized by universities to teach, their paper works underwritten; others win large advances in the wider market. Aren't there writers you read for free and writers whose work you pay to read? Wouldn't you pay a bit to read the ones you read for free if that were the only way?

Linda, exciting, imaginative question!

H-M Brown
Dec 14, 05:54am

James Lloyd Davis Quote: H-M, I would never suggest to anyone to whom I'm submitting fiction that, as a regular contributor to Fn, I'm published here.

@ James: That's the thing, I never mentioned that my works were "Published" on Fictionaut or that Fictionaut was a "Publication" Group. All I said was that I was Member of Fictionaut and explained what this site was all about. No where in my Query Letter did I say that Fictionaut was a fiction Publisher. Which was a head scratcher for me seeing that reply.

Ann Bogle Quote: H-M, since you named Fictionaut as not matching the selective criteria of the lit. mag where you submitted, it may be beneficial to those of us who defend Fictionaut as a vital, interesting, challenging, fun place to read and write, if you named the mag!

@ Ann: Sorry, but given that this lit. mag. responded in kind, and treated both my work and myself as a writer with Professionalism, even giving me advice, I do not want to divulge their name, as a Professional, that could put them under the microscope of scrutiny, or give their editors the impression that I am a disgruntled writer of any rejection they tossed my way. I am still submitting Short Stories to them, and I would like to maintain good terms and Professional standing with them. They did nothing wrong to me.

All I gave was an example, as per this topic's question, of one of the perceptions Publishers have about writing fiction on the Internet and groups like Fictionaut on the Internet.

Now defining Professionalism in terms of a writer. Well I think it depends on what route the writer wants to take. After all, not everybody who writes is seeking a steady career, with a steady income. Some just want to make a hobby of it and enjoy sharing their work with others.

I guess Professionalism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. (Though I could be wrong.)

Marcus Speh
Dec 14, 06:00am

wonderful thread. discovered, alas, half an hour before work. reminds me of discussions we had over at matchbook which makes me think that these are timeless questions. i think linda put it beautifully. i've come to think that i want to be both a reader's writer and a writer's writer. i will take berryman with me now and what stephen said with the panache of the musician about validation by those we trust (fictionaut from beginning to end, for me). elsewhere, i have agreed with ann and sam: i think writers are going to make this online business work for themselves as a business. there's no way around it - the publishing houses are clueless, groping for straws much like the music companies when the consumers realised these companies weren't actually MAKING the music they were only SELLING it and by taking out a premium, the music wasn't getting any better. there're open questions for me, as for others here, around the issue of long vs short form. but after > 1 month with a kindle in the backpocket of my pants, i have less and less doubt that we'll be paying for online novels in installments not unlike dickens' readers did. the beauty of this thing is: unlike in the agent-controlled world, it's not a question of "who's going to get there first", because there's so much space, there are so many readers, screens, iPods, iPads, small monies that accumulate easily. and now i must absolutely run but with a smile on my face , folks: good times.

Ann Bogle
Dec 15, 01:34am

No. Nevermind. It's Hollywood East. I thought that last week: Hollyword.

I just watched Gary Shteyngart's book trailer with "cameo" appearances by Mary Gaitskill, James Franco, Edmund White, Jay McInerney:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/james-franco-cameo-in-gary-shteyngart-book-trailer_b12127

Remember our long thread about the word "wannabe" at matchbook? While "we" are thought to be wannabe writers, the real writers, as it turns out, are wannabe moviestars, and it's coming closer. Thanks partly to writers such as Jonathan Franzen who is a wannabe football player. Maybe when it all shakes out, "we" will be real writers who are not wannabe moviestars or football players. The idea is that when you aren't writing or reading (and Shteyngart says he doesn't read, can't read), you are wanting to play in front of a camera as the real movie stars do. For free!

Here is the link for Eileen Myles' Inferno:

http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/PWxyz/?p=1296

She is frank enough to remark in interviews that her writing doesn't pay. She remarked that she sent the ms. to 60 publishers, though she was already known in poetry, though she had run for president. I'm reading the novel and a book of her essays called The Importance of Being Iceland. Her poetry book, Sorry, Tree, I bought directly from Matthew Zapruder of Wave Books at the AWP in Denver in April.

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 15, 01:25pm

Ann, thanks for these priceless links and how relevant!

Wannabe.

It's a concept.

When I was seven, "I wanna be a fireman."
When I was twelve, "I wanna be a priest."
When I was sixteen, "I wanna be a writer."

I was never a wannabe ironworker, but I became one.

I've been lots of things over the years and understand, today anyway, after decades of living with other people's perspectives and labels, that I am what I do. I write every day, therefore I am a writer.

Labels are inconsequential, relative.

Nonetheless, writing, though practiced in solitude, is incomplete and superfluous unless it produces a 'thing-to-be-read,' like a novel, a poem, a flash, a vignette ... whatever ... with the understanding that, unless it is read, the writing is merely vain, purposeless.

I don't want to be judgemental, but when I hear, "I don't care if I'm published. I write because I must. If all I do is write for my own amusement, so be it ..." Well, it sounds, to me anyway, a little like saying, "I love to talk. I must talk. If no one will listen, I will sit in a dark closet and expound for hours on end anyway." You can do that, sit in a dark closet and talk to yourself for hours on end, but ...

Writing is communication. Without a reader, the writer is incomplete.

Ultimately, unless a writer self-publishes, self-promotes his or her own work, the writer has no control over the availability of the work to a readership. I want very much for my work to be read, but can't accept the idea of self-publishing, any more than I would go back to work on the high steel as an ironworker for free. Maybe it's okay for some, but the concept won't click for me. As long as people are paying for books, why should I produce a novel and pay someone else to publish it? It's ... I dunno ... I'll call it un-American, though some might say it's the American dream. Some people also think Sarah Palin should be president.

So I sit in a small room and write novels. I've written novels. I have not published any novels, but I have published smaller works. People like my writing. Well, some do anyway. Eventually, or so I believe, my work will have the validation that I crave, and I do crave that validation. Maybe that's my personal conceptual hangup, and makes me a wannabe in the eyes of some people until I publish one of these novels, but I will insist, to myself and to anyone who asks that, as long as I'm writing, I'm a writer.

Doesn't really matter, though, does it? Until a writer is published, who the hell is going to ask?

Maybe the question is entirely irrelevant and unanswerable. I don't know. However, the gatekeepers have established benchmarks that are no longer relevant, I think. They won't bother to adapt their standards unless the questions are asked ... and who's going to ask them unless its the people who write?

Linda Simoni-Wastila
Dec 15, 03:38pm

James said: I don't want to be judgemental, but when I hear, "I don't care if I'm published. I write because I must. If all I do is write for my own amusement, so be it ..." Well, it sounds, to me anyway, a little like saying, "I love to talk. I must talk. If no one will listen, I will sit in a dark closet and expound for hours on end anyway." You can do that, sit in a dark closet and talk to yourself for hours on end, but ...

Linda says: Apart from folks who write only in personal diaries and journals, I think saying one writes for personal amusement/pleasure/pain is an excuse for fear of NOT finding validation. This fear, of course, is fully justified -- it's scary as hell to put yourself out there (because it is yourself, your words, and over time these become more separate, but there always is a smidgeon of you in the words).

Places like fictionaut help alleviate that fear. Peace...

stephen hastings-king
Dec 15, 06:46pm

Interesting. I'm a recovering academic and discovered that insecurities, which are to my mind the flip side of searching for validation, prevented me from publishing as much of that kind of work as I probably should have...but as it turned out I grew tired of having to trawl about to find Authorities who were interested in what I was interested in so it looked legitimate for me to be interested in it, particularly when what I was interested in was radical politics or art production. What was initially just an institutional quirk grew over time into a real problem, one that pushed me along toward breaking with that mode as anything more than a kind of parlor game that I like playing from time to time and read more often, but which doesn't mean much beyond that. I mean, it's not as though flat voiced explication du texte can't suck because the authenticity of flat voice prevent it. But I digress.

In the music I have done, a need for validation worked itself out across a need I had to develop a wall of technique before I felt comfortable doing performances. What is curious to me now, looking back at it, is that over time I played fewer and fewer notes. When I started working with prepared piano, it seemed that I got almost to the inverse of the wall of technique in an obsession with timbre and placement. People started responding with more validating responses the less of it I "needed"...we'll see what happens when the opera gets up and running though.

With writing, I doubt seriously that I would have ever started trying to put stuff out into the world had I not been fortunate enough to have a group of poets whose work I really admire ask me what the hell I was doing hiding what I was doing long enough that I started sending things out.

I'm still working on figuring out this writing stuff, but at this point the relation to an audience is like I said earlier---I suspect they're out there somewhere but I've no idea who they are. They don't talk to me. (do they talk to anyone?) I assume that for most of the venues I've had the good fortune to publish in so far that much of the readership is either people who have published there or are thinking about publishing there or who like the particular direction a venue takes even though they don't write that way. I have no idea if there is a "general readership" for this sort of work and even less how I'd find out.

That's why I think validation comes from a community of other folk who do parallel things or who, even if they don't do parallel things, at least can get hip to what you're doing and hopefully tell you if it sucks or not.

But in terms of actually making stuff, I think we're on our own, yes?

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 15, 08:03pm

Linda is right about the fear factor. A writer who puts his or her work 'out there' will be judged unmercifully and needs to have the nerve to open a vein without bleeding to death in the process. It helps to be a high functioning sociopath. Then when you get another automatic rejection slip, you can sniff and say, "Idiots. You had your chance."

That's not vanity, by the way, I know a successful short story writer who has a larger folder stuffed with such slips than I do. He made. Why not me? You can't give up. There is a point where you simply have to say, "To hell with the gatekeepers, I'm coming through." Then you keep pushing until you crash the gate.

I agree, though, that a place and a spirit like you find at Fn is a great help. And you people are inspiring.

Stephen, I love that phrase, "recovering academic." I've known a few, but never knew what to call them. Bravo. You should work as a phrase coiner for Time Magazine.

W.F. Lantry
Dec 15, 10:01pm

"Writing is communication."

James,

I don't have any answers on this subject. I'm certainly no authority on the complexities involved. But I wonder about this one. There are many thoughtful people who have agreed with this statement. Others have put it differently.

Take Pierre Reverdy. He didn't think a writer should even think about a possible audience, he thought a writer should be engaged completely in self-pleasure, on the assumption that what pleased the writer may be authentic. He was the champion of the people who say "Writing is self-expression."

Then there are those who say "Writing should please the reader." One shouldn't think of it as a sellout: it's a respectable position, it's what Prospero says at the end of the Tempest. Trying to figure out what gives joy, and then giving it... well, there are worse things.

So there are three goals: to please, to express, to communicate. All of them worthy. But I have this nagging feeling that something's missing.

This is why I love Cassirer. He said that writing should arouse while it composes. What did he mean by that? He never quite said, but I'm going to speculate anyway. I don't think we should be trying to communicate, or express, or please. I think we should be doing far more than that. I think we should be making love with our readers. Seriously. 'Making' in the sense of creating. I think it's far beyond sex, even if sex is involved. Think of it this way: two lovers (writer and reader), through the act of love, reestablish love in the world, expand its scope. They both get to participate in it. The wind, the energy swirls around them, filling them, but at the same time expanding its presence in the world.

This would mean we don't read to listen to someone else talk well. We don't read for self-pleasure. And we don't read to learn anything. We read to participate in the ongoing act of the creation and recreation of that wind or energy or love or whatever its called this week. There's not a good word for it. Even Stevens foundered when he tried to describe it. But that didn't mean he shied away from the concept: "I know a thing that bears / a semblance to the thing I have in mind..." Or again: "The measure of intensity of love / is measure also of the verve of earth."

What should that mean for us as writers? Here's the best way I can think of to say it. I have had an experience that completely changed my life, changed everything I thought about the world. It was completely transformative. It brought me to a place of nearly unspeakable joy and peace. So now, every time I write, I try to create a space for the reader to dwell, a place where he or she can have a similar experience. A room of ecstasy, if you will.

So yes, we do it with artifice, but it's not artificial. We do it with words, but its not about words. We do it with what we have, because that's all we have, but joy and love and ecstasy have to be the goal, for us, and for readers. Everything else, really, everything else is unfulfilling.

Thanks,

Bill

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 15, 11:03pm

Bill, a thoughtful response.

Joy, love, and ecstasy are lofty 'goals.' They are worthy spiritual aspirations. Life, however, covers a broad spectrum of possibilities, few of which attain to those qualities or, at the very least, even approach them. What part of grief will attain those goals, when that grief is inconsolable?

Yet, when a writer succeeds in expressing that grief, the reader will recognize and appreciate the expression. This is communication, when the writer and the reader join in the recognition of ... any emotion, experience, visualization ... but it is only a small part of what writing is or can be.

Writing is the form of self expression that a writer uses, but the force which drives the writer ... call it compulsion, need, passion ... is often as difficult to define as the force which feeds that creative process, so much so that, at times, it feels external, hence the idea of the muse. One could spend a lifetime of research and study, simply trying to formulate theories that may seem to define that process, and I don't believe it would be a wasted life to try. It would be interesting, but I think that many writers are themselves baffled by how 'it' works. Some even live in fear that 'it' will one day disappear.

I contend that the gift may not disappear, but that it changes, sometimes to the point that the writer transcends the reader's understanding, or, at the very least, challenges the reader's willingness to follow.

This is where the question of validation becomes relevant, I think. In that the reader defines the writer's limitations for a platform, at least in the contemporary world.

If the writer is a visionary, he or she may well fall by the wayside, while the writer who embraces the zeitgeist can usually guarantee him or herself a platform from which to relate the stories that are written, the forms that will become the style of the day (not unlike the soup d'jour). Some visionaries succeed through sheer force of intellect, but they are rare.

And here is where I find myself swimming beyond sight of the beach, far from my question, but fascinated by the fact that the deep water's color changes, but wary of the sharks.

I'd best go back before I become entirely incoherent.

Matt Dennison
Dec 17, 04:07am

If everyone knitted as a means of communication, the "serious" knitters would be knitting about how their knitting wasn't being knitted about as knitting that other knitters found knit-worthy (to knit a phrase).

Meaning, trying to make art out of that which most everyone already knows how to do: talk, scratch out a message of some sort, order bacon, NOT sausage, and be rewarded for it ("That is talk so good I will give you money," talked the man to the gooder talker.)--is inherently dicey.

(that'll be one potholder, please, and no, I don't knit change.)

;-)

W.F. Lantry
Dec 17, 05:31am

"What part of grief will attain those goals, when that grief is inconsolable?"

James,

I think you've put your finger on the heart of the problem of Art. This is a problem Kate faces every day.

As you may know, she sings in churches. She sings weddings. And she sings a lot of funerals.

She's the one who has to stand up, at moments of horrific grief and loss. I'll spare you the examples, but they would break the hardest heart. I hear them almost daily. And she's the one who has to stand up, in a room so full of weeping no-one can speak, and find words.

And not just any words. Words of comfort and consolation and even hope, in a place destitute of those things. It's impossible to exaggerate the difficulty. And yet she does it, constantly. How?

Well, she does it through her art. She brings beauty and grace even to that situation. I've watched as her voice comforted widows, I've watched them weep, not from grief, but from gratitude to her. Anyone who questions the value of Art has never heard her sing. And any one who thinks Art is about getting paid needs to see what I've seen her do.

She sings people together at weddings. She sings them through their lives each weekend. And then she sings them from this life.

And we need to remember that we do the same with our writing, though seldom on such a dramatic scale. We need to remember that, although it's easy to be self-focused, it's not about us, just as her Art is not about her.

I don't think we swim far off the beach, as you suggest. I think we live right at the shore, in a country half land and half water. And whether we're speaking or singing, in some ways, we all do the same thing.

Thanks,

Bill

Bill Yarrow
Dec 24, 02:09pm

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." ~ Samuel Johnson

"Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money." ~ Virginia Woolf

"Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money." ~ Jules Renard

"If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write." ~ Epictetus

http://twitter.com/#!/billyarrow/status/10516548529

David Ackley
Dec 24, 03:08pm

Unlike most here, evidently, I was always first a reader. I once wrote to Beate," I live to read." And she replied," Or read to live." Yes. Like that. I used to want to "be a writer," but then decided it was a foolish ambition. If you would be a writer, write. Make something with words. Then see what happens. But the great fear always is running out of things to read. To a great extent, Fictionaut has alleviated that problem. And, in the event, should even that fail, you can also try writing something that you'd like to read, assuring yourself of 1) validation as a writer and 2)That, qua reader, you'll not run out anytime soon.

James Lloyd Davis
Dec 24, 04:33pm

William Saroyan said:

"The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough."

Good advice.

Validation, really, is unnecessary if you are serious about writing. You write, you send, you write some more, you send some more. Either people will publish you or they will not. You have little control over acceptance, but you have absolute control over what you write.

It pretty much goes without saying that if a writer is not also a reader, his or her art is bankrupt in the realm of human reference through the use of language. However, if a writer does not live with eyes wide open, does not live with passion and involvement in the human sphere, what is there to write about?

Wish I could have dinner with Saroyan. It isn't possible, but I can read his work because someone gave him the space in which to do so.

I celebrate and thank every publisher who believes in the art and works to preserve what is written today.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in here.

Enjoy the holiday ... and may the next year bring you whatever success and validation you deserve.

Darryl Price
Dec 24, 06:13pm

sO VERY INTERESTING--ALL OF THIS. but WHY LOOK TO LABEL YOURSELF AS ANYTHING so locked down anyway? yOU WRITE. yOU DON'T WRITE. yOU WORK AT A BANK. yOU WORK AT A BOOKSTORE. OOps..sorry about the caps-wasn't looking up. My point is a writer writes regardless of being paid well for it because that is who the writer is. Are you true or are you false?It's great to get money. But money has it's own problems. You're in a bigger bag. Being alive. Being a parent. Being a lover. Whatever.Father brother sister mother.Soldier citizen philosopher teacher ditchdigger. You live and you do. The old suits don't fit this world too well if you want to wear only one big one that defines you in the maximum terms.To let yourself be defined is too static and loses the truth of your being merely by remaining still for too long in one place.You'll be a statue by morning.Remember what Auntie Em said in the Wizard of Oz:well don't go posing for it now!I've got nothing against those who want to only do one thing and do it well, pour all themselves into it, just as I have nothing against those who want to do it for money. But that's just a bag, Oh yeah I said that already. But there it is. You're no safer in this world just because you wrap yourself up in a defined position and say leave me alone this is who I am. Death can find you easily. It's life that may have trouble spotting you among the stacks of identified things.
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