Writing

I have been reading a few books on writing lately.  I've always been curious what drives the greats. When I think of those who most inspire me I think of D.H. Lawrence, W. Somerset Maugham, James Joyce, Garcia Marquez, Alice Munro, Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy, Saul Bellow, Camus, Celine, Tim O'Brien, Jose Saramago, Ken Kesey, Raymond Carver, Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, and a few relatively new writers who blow me away...Aleksandar Hemon, Danilo Kis, and Adam Haslett.  They make me dream at night and lift a pen during the day.

Alice Hoffman wrote, "It is the deepest desire of every writer, the one who never admit or even dare to speak of: to write a book we can leave as a legacy.  And although it is sometimes easy to forget, wanting to be a writer is not about reviews or advances or how many copies are printed or sold.  It is much simpler than that, and much more passionate.  If you do it right, and if they publish it, you may actually leave something behind that can last forever."

Albert Camus claimed, "It is immoral not to tell."

And Moliere said, "Writing is like prostitution.  First you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for the money."

Okay, so that leads me to my next point...the money.  A few years ago the Author's Guild found that the average author earned about $4000 a year.  So here is what I wonder...if you write for groceries and you happen to become financially solvent from the profession, have you somehow lost that place of risk that accompanies mind-blowing prose?  I don't know, it just stands to reason that when you become a commercial commodity and publishers have first-rights you probably don't even realize that your writing has become as safe and marketable as Danielle Steele.  I can't imagine that she wants to break loose and write like Bukowski or Kerouac.  She may in fact be popping the next bottle of Dom Perion and celebrating her newest Costco bestseller with the intention of laughing all the way to the bank.  She is the queen of her ant colony...and if you can't tell, it bothers me.  To me it is not about the paycheck but it is more about stretching yourself and bringing something new to the bookshelves.  

Be in love with yr life

Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

Blow as deep as you want  

Write what you want bottomless from the bottom of the mind

Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibiition

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.  (Kerouac)

Hemingway wrote to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934, "For Christ sake, write and don't worry what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what.  I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit.  I try to put the shit in the waste-basket...Forget your personal tragedy.  We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously." (William Faulkner said about Hemingway, "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.")

Whether we write to document a completely fascinating or terrifying point in history, or maybe we feel the noose tightening and must do something creative or die a slow grueling death of boredom...regardless, there remains in all of us a desire to express...a need to explain...a moment that yo must stand up for your infinitesimal self and bare your weary little soul.  If not, than it truly is a dark and dangerous time that we have chosen to live.