Writers'
Anonymous
Stan
Rogal
I am of an age and at the point where I can honestly suggest the
government initiate a program titled Writers
Anonymous. It would function in the same manner as it does to treat
alcoholics and gamblers, except it would offer assistance to those of us who have
fallen off the tracks and are in desperate need of help. After all, isn’t the
mindless pursuit of writing (or Art, in general, for that matter) a serious
form of affliction and addiction and doesn’t it invariably carry with it the
attendant symptoms: loneliness, despair, depression, divorce, anti-social
behaviour, mania, anger management issues, aloofness, sedentary lifestyle,
substance abuse, madness, carpal tunnel disease, sexually transmitted diseases,
stomach cancer, constipation, blindness, back pain, loss of limbs, loss of job,
heart ache, heart break, death by misadventure, death by suicide… The list goes
on and all one need do is check the obituaries: David Foster Wallace, Anne
Sexton, Richard Brautigan, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Jerzy Kosinski,
Virginia Woolf... And let’s face it—these were the lucky ones. They made it to
the top and so their special demises are recorded. What of the rest who remain
cloistered in darkened rooms, huddled over blue computer screens or poised with
pencils over pads of lined paper hammering out words, words, words until one
day they pull out pappy’s old thirty aught six Springfield and blow their
brains out? A sobering thought.
Though, not sobering enough,
apparently.
After all, what
sane and healthy person would set themselves up day after day to face constant
and continual rejection, little hope of success or remuneration of any sort and
the strong possibility that life will be harsh, brutish and short? Well, many
of us apparently, and the question is why? Or, at least why continue after
lengthy experience has proven that the light at the end of the tunnel is just another
goddamn express train and you are simply another annoying bug meant to be
rammed, squashed and discarded without so much as a by-your-leave?
There is, of
course, Freud’s famous tenet that people become artists to secure fame, fortune
and beautiful lovers. I’ve already pointed out that the fame and fortune is a
pipe dream except for a blessed few and it’s also well established that the
beautiful lovers disappear rather quickly once the initial thrill of the
‘writer-as-romantic-figure’ wears thin and they wake one fine morning to be met
by the basic and true ‘writer-as-fucked-up-and-totally-annoying-asshole-figure.’
Not a pretty sight, and the lover (if smart enough or lucky enough) packs a bag
and moves on. The writer, meanwhile, knocks off a crappy poem or two to sum up
the affair, then goes back to hitting the bottle, the needle, the prescription
meds, the sex toys, God or whatever other crutch, wailing alas and alack; woe
is me, woe is me!
Not to sound totally
negative, every so often work is sent out into the ether and somewhere down the
line an acceptance letter appears from a small magazine saying a piece will
manifest in an upcoming issue, along with a cheque for however much nominal
payment. Or an entire manuscript is accepted, and—barring bankruptcy, acts of
God, a polar vortex or death—a contract to follow, along with the promise of
publication in the next two to three years. The carrot is dangled and the
writer is only too happy to chase after, dragging bag and baggage along behind.
Speaking of
carrots dangled, a certain writer who shall be known as S, recently blamed the amount of lousy writing and writers in
Canada due to the fact that programs are government subsidized. I think any
surface financial investigation will show that the amount of money invested by
any level of Canadian government in either Literature or the Arts as a whole,
is minimal, compared to the total wealth of this country and, certainly, the private
sector has, forever, been responsible for producing and promoting more than
it’s fair share of maudlin, inane, inept, hackneyed and downright talentless
writers and artists. I only point to Hollywood blockbuster movies as one
example, and Argo winning an Oscar
for best picture recently. Or the popularity of 50 Shades of Grey. Or any Dan Brown piece of shit novel.
The worst we can
say is that, with the ease and relatively low cost of self-publication these
days, there are certain people who get together and create a small press in
order to print themselves and their friends. Then, after a few years, they fold
and move on. And maybe some of this material is questionable and some is
outright awful, but the enterprise follows a long respected tradition, and
occasionally through the dreck, a few writers appear who can be deemed talented
and worthwhile and who might have gone forever ignored and unrecognized if not
for such noble enterprise. In any case, no government subsidy and paid for by
the participants out of pocket. Their credo? Don’t quit your day job!
And the bottom
line is—the money doesn’t matter anyway, even if it was there. Not the fame nor
the promise of lovers, beautiful or otherwise, neither. Why? Because the true
writer is afflicted, addicted and irrevocably hooked. They don’t need any
outside incentives because they are deranged and affected right through to
their DNA. It’s an illness with no known cure. They are content in their
misery. I admit, the monkey is on my back and the more it digs its claws into
my back, and sinks its teeth into my neck, and scratches at my face, and
screams into my ears that both me and my work are pieces of worthless bat
guano, the more I say: fuck you and the
horse you rode in on. Even knowing I’m the horse. I drag myself back into
the basement, pour myself a glass of red, fire up the computer and go at it:
bang the keys until I’ve beat some poor sonofabitch poem or story or play into
a kind of reasonable shape that I can live with, and perhaps want to share with
an audience.
Or not.
Oh, and forget the
bit about a government subsidized program for writers in distress. I was
joking, sort of. Like any other addict, it’s deny, deny, deny and I know I’d
have to be dragged off kicking and screaming if I was threatened with a cure. Why?
Well, in the immortal words of Tom Waits: I’m afraid if I exorcise my devils,
my angels may leave too.
And you can take that to the
bank.
