My name is Steven and I’m a failed writer.

I’m beginning today’s blog with another quote from someone else. I did the same thing yesterday and recommend that aspiring failed writers note this technique as one that screams, “Amateur.” It should be used only by failed writers and in Letters to the Editor (Webster’s Dictionary defines “pissed-off” as  . . . . ). Here’s the quote, which has been attributed to George Burns:

“Critics are like eunuchs at a gang bang.”

I first cited Burns’ observation more than fifteen years ago. I found it while editing a literary journal and used it as an inscription.  At the time I thought it more insulting to eunuchs than critics, but have since softened as critics were kind to me with my last book, Howling at the Moon, their praise temporarily elevating me from #2,346,514 to #1,789,344 on the Amazon sales list. Do the math. That’s an improvement of nearly 25% and I’d like to thank my wife for buying the one book that made it possible.

So, failed writers, do you need critics? They come in many forms, often disguised as fellow writers who are determined to improve your work by turning it into their work. This is why you need to be part of a Writers’ Group, which I have unnecessarily capitalized for emphasis (This stuff is free, aspiring failed writers. Soak it up.). I have been part of a Writer’s Group for twenty years and must say that I consistently find my colleagues wanting. We meet monthly and read our work to one another, usually a thousand words or a maybe two or three poems. Much of the work is new, but reworked pieces are offered, as well. Here’s the problem I have with these people: they are determined to make my writing better, asking questions about the interior logic of a piece, the motivation of its characters, what I intended it to be. They listen thoughtfully, take notes, and make an effort to keep things in context. This sort of approach is not helpful if one is to become a failed writer, and frankly, they have slowed my descent. Without them, there would have been so much more telling than showing, much less keeping of the reader beside the narrator, and don’t get me started on passive voice. I once had a shot at becoming the world’s champion in the use of passive voice, or as I might have written it before my Writers’ Group messed me up, the world’s champion in the use of passive voice was once something I had a shot at being.

I meet with my Writers’ Group next week and am already preparing myself by incorporating their past suggestions into the piece I intend to read. Why do this if I aspire to fail as a writer? Well, there’s just too much pressure. This is an accomplished group of writers who behave as if they are branches on a tree from which I’ve spilled, breaking my fall as I descend so that the ground will be less hard when the real critics have a go at me. In return, they expect honest and thoughtful appraisal of their own writing. They expect that I will not turn their work into my work, that I will point out too much telling rather than showing, voice my confusion when the narrator speeds ahead of the reader, and gently recommend less of my beloved passive voice. Rats!

My name is Steven and I’m a failed writer.

Norman Mailer once said that writing books was the closest men would ever come to childbearing. I mentioned that to my wife who fell off her chair laughing. Now, aspiring failed writers should note that I have just employed two reliable techniques: stealing someone else’s work and banal cliché. I mention this so that you’ll all pay attention. I can’t stop in the middle of every post to point out the crumbs along the trail (Again, note the cliché, but don’t expect any more help.).

For many years I was an intensive care doctor for infants. I saw thousands of women in the throes of labor and delivery. I have also written books. This makes me an expert on Norman Mailer’s observation, which is a really dumb remark from a really smart guy. Placing writing side-by-side with childbearing is a bit like comparing psychotherapy to a beheading. What’s my point? There isn’t one. This is a segueway to something else about Norman Mailer that has nothing to do with his quote. It is also another mark of a failed writer and Rule #3: Don’t get to the point. Wander around and confuse your reader for awhile. Waste their time. Before long, they’ll give up.

So . . . I was at the SF Writers’ Conference in February. I highly recommend that aspiring failed writers avoid this conference as it is full of highly useful information provided by well-qualified people in the publishing industry. To make matters worse the conference fosters a spirit of encouragement and inclusion that inspires a failed writer to work on his/her craft and not give up. It is a serious impediment to failure. Anyway, I went to a session given by a panel of editors. They were mostly New York types. I think you know what I mean — pleasant people who have devoted their lives to unearthing literary gems, after which they receive very little money or credit. To make matters worse they were friendly and approachable and should have been wearing FAILED WRITERS BEWARE signs as far as I’m concerned. One of them edited Norman Mailer’s last book: The Castle in the Forest, a novel that fictionalizes the childhood of Adolph Hitler. In the middle of the book is a very long section on Russian history that is only tenuously connected to the rest of the narrative. The editor offered an amusing anecdote, describing his efforts to convince Mailer that the section should be deleted. The editor and his publisher failed in their efforts, largely because Mailer was . . . well, Mailer. If you are Norman Mailer and want to put a couple hundred pages of Russian history into your book about a teenaged vampire cheerleader, you probably won’t get much argument, either. However, this is a very good time to emphasize Rule #4 for failed writers: Go ahead and write as if you’re Norman Mailer and can get away with the crap that he pulled.

I often go off on tangents in the middle of a narrative, providing unnecessary backstory for a character who is otherwise insignificant. In other words, I write little Russian sections just like Norman Mailer. We’re practically twins, he and I. Indeed, take away his thirteen novels and many brilliant works of non-fiction along with two Pulitzer Prizes, a National Book Award, a Helmerich Award, and a Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and what do you have? Me!

See what I did there, failed writers? I followed Rule #4. Now you can ignore the same rule. You can merely admire Mailer’s work or draw inspiration from it, writing about what you know in a voice that feels authentic. However, keep in mind that your chances for success as a writer are improved if you break both Rules 3 and 4 by:

1) not wasting the reader’s time, and

2) writing and writing until you discover your true voice.

It’s up to you. Remember, failure often requires as much effort as success and there are only so many hours in a day. If you want to be a failed writer, you’ll have to focus.

By the way, during the SF Writers Conference I ran into Norman Mailer’s editor outside the Mark Hopkins. “I read the Russian section,” I told him. “I loved it.” He smiled in response, but seemed vaguely fearful. I did read the Russian section in The Castle in the Forest. That was not a lie. I did love it, too, and have subsequently filled my latest book with a number of pointlessly tangential side-stories. The book, “Delphic Oracle,” will probably be out next year and those who read it will feel as if they’ve stumbled into one of those 1980s video arcades filled too much light and noise. I, however, will feel like Norman Mailer.

Tomorrow, I may write about critics and their tiny, little pin-sized heads. We’ll see.

Welcome

My name is Steven and I’m a failed writer.

The sentence structure is familiar, the words made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous and its various offshoots. It’s meant to level the playing field, provide a commonality of experience that will hopefully evolve into a commonality of purpose, as well. It is a purge, an acceptance, a confession. My name is Steven and I’m a failed writer.

Wow . . . that felt amazingly good, even liberating. I am now part of a group whose members use the word “commonality,” as easily as others utter, “it” or “full of.” I share a commonality of opinion (Tip for failed writers: Always italicize words you want beaten to death.) with agents, editors, and publishers, all of whom agree with me. They think I’m a failed writer, too. I realize that’s not exactly the way a support group is supposed to work. However, it’s my support group and I get to make the rules. Accordingly, unlike the agents, editors, and publishers who have spurned me, I welcome them into Failed Writers Anonmyous (FWA). Many of them are failed writers themselves, I suspect, and the rest can serve as moderators at the meetings. They’re good at that stuff. I’ve been to writers’ conferences and the panels are filled with agents, editors, and publishers who provide truly helpful information about how to become successful even though most of the people they’re addressing are not. Their advice often begins with Rule #1: Write a good book. This is excellent advice that I have spent decades ignoring. It is merely one of many things that has brought me to this place in my career. Did I mention that my name is Steven and I’m a failed writer?

A bit of background is worthwhile: I began writing when I was nine years old, composing bad poetry about historical figures. In the many years since, I have evolved and now write bad fiction, often with historical figures as characters. In junior high I began to write my first book, an experience that begs the following advice for eighth graders: Do not tell your classmates that you are writing a book. They will break your glasses. I’m not kidding.

         By the time I was in high school I had moved on to bad horror stories that were loosely based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe. By “loosely based on,” I mean “pretty much copied the plots.” In college I majored in English and won the Mari Sandoz Award for fiction, a minor literary prize also known as the “Delusions of Grandeur Award.” This led to a two year stint in Hollywood, writing sketch comedy, after which I began a flirtation with success that became a long-term affair.

It began when I learned I was to become a father. This is a frightening prospect for many young men and I was no different. I decided to give up writing fiction and went to medical school. I became a doctor and began a career in academic medicine where I practiced, taught, conducted research, and wrote scientific papers. By the time I went into private practice in 1989 I had published around forty articles, abstracts, book chapters, and solicited reviews. At that point I had not written a word of fiction in fifteen years. One day I sat in my office at the university and the idea for a book came to me. Remember now, I had not written fiction in fifteen years — dry for a decade and a half, my friends — and, oh my, how sweet those first words were after all that time.

There’s more, but it’s not a pretty picture. I fell off the wagon and it wasn’t long before I was publishing short stories in literary magazines while working on a novel I felt certain would captivate the nation’s readers. Alas, if only an agent had been around to discourage me then! If only a publisher had made clear their disdain for my writing! If only an editor had pointed out that writers who use so many exclamation points are amateurs! I might have taken up golf or collected stamps. I might have figured out how those guys get ships into bottles (How do they do that, anyway?). I might have avoided sciatica from sitting on my butt, pecking at a keyboard. Alas and alack, and another alas, because a good failed writer is a redundant writer.

         Well, fellow members of FWA, that’s the short version of my sad tale. Since returning to the world of writing I have published a dozen or so things: short stories, some ghost-written books, a collection (Howling at the Moon, 2010). I’ve worked as an editor, too. About a year ago I finished another book and today was sent the last polite rejection from an agent that I shall ever receive. The agent, by the way, is a lovely person. Her note to me was lovely, as well. “There’s much to admire . . . ,” she wrote, which says so much more about her than my writing. She took the time to listen to a pitch, read some additional work, and fashion a cordial reply. Her parents would be proud of her. She also became the final push that put me at rock bottom, the place one must reach before beginning the long climb back up. I thank her.

FWA will work a bit differently than other “Anonmyous “ groups in that I intend to encourage my readers to become failed writers, because it is so much easier than becoming a successful writer. Indeed, it requires very little change in what you are presently doing, but in case any of you are on the periphery of literary success or laboring under the delusion that success awaits you, this blog will provide helpful hints to ensure your failure as writers. I welcome the comments of both successful and failed writers, but must caution the former group that I refuse to take your advice. This is the hallmark of a failed writer and Rule #2: Ignore advice from successful writers and people in the publishing business. Trust that you know more than they do. This is critical if you are to fail as a writer. More later.