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.