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.