Out Where The Buses Don't Run: How To Behave Like a Writer

Author's Note: This was an exercise in self-delusional idiocy that I came up with during a writer's workshop some years ago. The moderator of the workshop thought this was very funny. The rest of the class? Not so much. Fucking idiots.

Enjoy.

You?ve made the decision to be a writer. Ah, such a noble profession. So much for you to look forward to. Heartache. Misery. Lonely days and lonelier nights, sitting in front of a pad and pencil, or a typewriter, or a computer, while the cruel monster called doubt slivers into your head. Why on earth do you want to write for a living? Don?t you realize how many starving, unpublished writers are out there lining up at unemployment offices or employed as part-time clerical work? Are you aware of how many would-be writers spend their weekends scribbling alone on notebooks endlessly, hoping someday their fairy godmother publishers will discover and print their work? Hasn?t this scared you yet? No? You sure? Okay, let?s move on, then.

By now you?ve probably attended countless writing programs and workshops, sat in on writers discussion groups and read hundreds, if not thousands of how-to books. No doubt these resources, readily available, are of a tremendous value to you, the writer, and these should be mined frequently. But none of these reserves teach you how to behave like a writer. You can easily learn how to construct sentences, build characters, strengthen plot, but you have no idea what acting like a writer is like. Achieving respectability, fame and a little notoriety is a responsibility on your part.
So, how to, then?

First, choose a writing style. This will determine the level of success you will most likely achieve. Should you choose to immerse yourself in genre writing, such as mystery, romance, espionage, sci-fi, you will learn pretty quickly you?re playing in a crowded field. This is fine; don?t be discouraged. Most readers prefer a quick, mindless read. And a quick, mindless read means a big fat royalty check is in the mail. Genre fiction, bless its mainstream-minded little heart, is always available at your local supermarket and drugstore, and is always readily displayed at every airport newsstand, as the perfect time waster for a cross-country flight. The beauty of genre fiction is you?re guaranteed a fan base. You?ll win an even bigger fan base if you employ a recurring character as the hero of your novels. Think of the following: Jack Ryan, the vampire Lestat, Dr. Alex Cross, and, of course, Harry Potter. Eventually, you?re not going to have to spend countless hours hustling and shilling your new novel at the Doubleday or the B Daltons in locations throughout the Great Lakes, selling precious little copies of a book doomed for the out-of-print scrap heap. If you?re a genre writer, your books will sell themselves. It?s that easy.

However, if you?re of the literary class who thinks quality fiction should never be made available at K-Mart, genre writing certainly is not for you. If the lure of easy money and the literary equivalent of a cash cow franchise means nothing to you, then perhaps the reward of frequent praise from the Paris Review or the New York Times Book Review, plus the inevitable awards and citations will certainly fulfill your literary destiny. In other words, Dean Koontz?s novels sell by the millions, but when was the last time a Dean Koontz novel was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize? By forgoing sales volume, and the all-important commercial mass, you?re sure to achieve critical mass, which, truth be told, won?t sell as many copies as the latest Grisham legal thriller, but at the very least college professors will base entire semesters to your body of work. You?re sure to become the darling of the intellectual media ? the New Yorker will lionize you, perhaps even to death. Mainstream authors, the ones whose novels are readily found at convenience stores everywhere, will bemoan the fact that you?ll get the better reviews, even while they sit on their patio chairs by their Olympic-sized pools overlooking the Pacific Ocean while their butler serves them Mimosas and their accountants update them constantly regarding something called the bottom line.

If you?ve chosen the almighty dollar, and the hopes that one day your book will be optioned by Jerry Bruckheimer, scripted and cannibalized by a team of mercenary scriptwriters and made into a $150 summer blockbuster, then stop reading this right now; this wasn?t written for you.

If the path of respectability is what you?ve chosen, read on.

The common trait of the respectable, respected writer is their willingness to experiment. You should and must do the same. Experiment with dialogue. Shift willingly from first person to third person and back to third person. And do this often. Don?t worry if it seems like you?re imitating the style of writers past and present; writers are the worst of imitators alive. In fact, the word plagiarism exists only for writers. The beauty and peril with reference to experimentation is the majority of group-think literary critics won?t understand your writing, but twenty or thirty years later, you?ll be lauded ad infinitum for using bold strokes. Example: if there were critics that thought ?Ulysses? was a masterpiece back then, truth is they were lying sacks of shit. Of course, nowadays you can?t find critics worth their salt who won?t trip over themselves to explain and over explain Joyce?s literary coup de grace. Meaning: critics are too damned lazy to play closer attention to your unique style and craft, and are unwilling to take the time to dissect and unravel your usage of symbolize, metaphor, simile, puns, pathos, etc. But they?ll come around someday. All it takes is for a group of forward thinkers who have their fingers on the collective progressive intellectual pulse to champion your work.
Be careful over-using clich?s. There are millions and millions of clich?s that have been worn out and abused. Most writers, genre or not, are addicted to clich?s, addicted as if they were painkillers. Skip the disgraced cop turned detective (been there); avoid the rags-to-riches-back-to-rags story (done that); avoid heartwarming, overly sentimental, everyone-learns-the-value-of stories. Oh, and for Pete?s sake, the one clich? you absolutely will be hung, drawn and quartered for using is the writer suffering from writer?s block. Nobody cares. All writers go through block; it doesn?t make for an interesting read.

There are, however, two clich?s that are acceptable to use. In fact, you are encouraged to explore and embrace them.

Clich? No. 1 is the time-honored clich? of the dysfunctional person/family. Remember, you can?t spell dysfunction without the word fun. A loony parent or relative. A depressed teenager. Multi-generational sagas of families with blood and lust in their bourgeois hands. Anything dysfunctional ? addictions, sexual ambiguity, psychosis and depression - works. Normal lives are only successful, in the literary sense, if beneath the normal veneer lays dark, hideous secrets or hushed longings for something else. Lives lived in quiet desperation are the basis for any good story told.

Clich? No. 2 is the flashback. This technique works best when writing a novel that requires two generations, separated by any length of time, to be connected into one story. You may want to flashback often, jumping back and forth from one era to another. This may present a welcome challenge to the seasoned reader, and it may also annoy the living daylights out of the casual reader. Screw the casual reader; they?re the ones who think Tom Clancy is a genius, because he can describe incessantly in grotesque detail the inner workings of a Class A nuclear submarine but couldn?t fashion a sentence of sublime elegance if Milan Kundera held a gun to his head.

Keep in mind, you?re not writing for a pre-determined audience. The genre readers won?t ever pick up your work, unless overzealous college professors, or a nagging spouse forces them to. Yours will not be the book that can be gulped down on a red-eye flight to the West Coast.

Now that we?ve gotten the writing part out of the way?

Jump ahead. You?re a published writer. If you?re one of the lucky few that?s made it through the gates of those hardened cynics known as the publishers, your book has been made available by one of the big names in the business. A blessing, but also a curse; they?re depending on your book to sell by the bushels, since they?ve already shelled out thousands upon thousands in publishing and promoting your novel. Jacket cover designs, editing ?consultants?, publicity photos, full-page ads, these cost your publishers a lot of money, which will come out of your pitiful earnings.
Remember this helpful little caveat: only one in five books published actually makes a profit . So, acting like a musician who tours frequently to substantiate their earnings, you must hit the promotional circuit. Attack it is more like it. This is no place for the meek or the shy, and if you?re uncomfortable speaking in public, swallow a Valium and get a grip. Researchers have revealed that the book buying public is more likely to purchase a book if they?ve seen and heard the writer who is actively promoting and reading from their books. So, put on a happy face, clear your throat, and in your best bedtime story voice, read from your newest novel - or short story collection, or poems ? and sign a few copies if you can. Answer questions, if a Q&A session is planned, with precision and insight. Selling your book means the public, however small, will buy it without question. And this precious word of mouth may also generate some publicity from the literary press.

You should realize that selling a decent amount of copies is small potatoes compared to glorious reviews from the literary press. A well-written review from The Literary Review is worth more than gold. You?ll now be invited to speak at the best conferences, read at the best bookstores - kiss shilling at the Books-a-Million in Ames, Iowa goodbye! - and chat in the best talk shows. Advanced praise from a well-established writer, printed in the front or back of your book?s jacket is also worth bucketfuls. If John Updike says he likes your book, that?s like Johnny Carson inviting a stand-up comic to sit next to him after his routine. Of course, John Updike may be doing the blurb as a favor to his editor buddy, and is probably lying through his teeth. Then again, he probably doesn?t lie through his teeth for just anyone. Oh, forget it, you?re not likely to get Updike to bullshit on your behalf.
Your picture will adorn the cover of the fall issue of Poets & Writers, and you?ll be interviewed in Writer magazine. These are always a given: writers have their media outlets. The best bowlers in the world are always featured in Bowling Illustrated. Maybe, just maybe, you?ll earn a small but pivotal mention in Time magazine as well. People magazine, too, but they?re usually more interested in the Lords of Genre than they are you.

As for the talk shows, NPR is always a good choice. Charlie Rose is even better (Television: never underestimate its power). Charlie is going to talk over you throughout the entire fifteen or thirty minutes his producers have allotted for you, but who cares? You?re on the damned television! But you are not to allow your book to be named to Oprah?s Book Club, or appear on her show. This amounts to nothing more than good publicity with the most crippling of attachments involved. You see, Oprah likes to think that because she?s read your book, she?s discovered you, and without her, you?re nothing. If you appear as part of her little book club, this means you?ll have to submit to a demeaning, contrived segment about you as a writer and where you came from and what your book is about and how hard Oprah cried when she finished reading it, etc. etc. etc. You really want to stay as far away from this as possible. And, just so you know, if you do accept membership into her exclusive club and then express doubt and ambivalence, don?t worry; Oprah will boot you on your ass faster you can say Jonathan Franzen, but you?ll have the last laugh as your book?s sales increase fivefold. Her cute little logo will appear on the book jacket?s cover, but if you?re one of the few who?s crossed her path and lived to talk about, no doubt people will want to know who you are.

Some Smaller But Equally Important Details to Mind

The greatest clich? (again) in the literary and non-literary world is you can?t judge a book by its cover. No, but you sure can judge what kind of book you?ll be reading by the publicity shot in the back cover. This is so very crucial to your eventual success as a respectable author. Depending on the tone and makeup of your book, you?ll want to present a serious, scholarly image. Arms across your chest are fine. If you wear glasses, keep ?em on. Just don?t appear too uptight, like having your picture is tantamount to an audit from the taxman. Don?t smile too much; either you?ll look like too much of an idiot, or you?re an insincere ass who?s well aware there?s a big fat royalty check in the mail. The darker the tone of your book, the sterner you should look. Not evil or self-possessed, just terse. Big hats, feathered boas, period wardrobe and pets are an absolute no-no (Dogs and cats are adorable, yes, but they?re also exploited by authors to solicit undeserved interest in their writing). Genre-writing weenies resort to this type of cheap gimmickry. Best of all, if you can arrange for a fuzzy, sepia-toned picture which paints you as mysterious and unapproachable, jump at it. Nothing says serious, award-winning author like a picture that screams I?m the best writer you will ever, ever read.

You will win awards. Guaranteed. The Pulitzer is by no means unattainable by any stretch of the imagination. But if you never win the Pulitzer, take comfort in the PEN award, or the National Book Award, or the Booker Prize if you?re from across the pond. Be gracious when accepting your award. Use that bedtime-story silky-smooth voice of yours to eloquently relate your chronicles of life as the struggling writer. Rail against censorship and the injustices committed against your writing colleagues living under tyrannical regimes. Thank your publishers. Mention your influences (bonus points awarded if you name-drop European or Latin American authors). Champion unknown or unpublished writers, for you were once unknown and unpublished, and someday someone else will carry the torch like you will. Winning an award is another credential you can add shameless in your short bio underneath than serious, award-winning author publicity shot in the back of your book covers.

Be clever in your book jacket and back page bios. Mention where you?ve lived, where you?ve taught and been taught. If you have a wife and children and pets, mention them, but no names! List awards and literary societies. Website? By all means, plug it! Your readers are curious enough to log onto www.yournamehere.com And don?t be afraid to add a little cheekiness: reveal colorful little tidbits such as you like to cultivate mushrooms in the summer, or when you?re not writing, you collect cancelled stamps commissioned by the Ottoman Empire.

Dedicating your book is a courtesy extended to someone who either proved the inspiration for it or helped you put it together. Or it could also mean you just dedicated it for the sheer hell of it all. It doesn?t mean you automatically dedicate it to your spouse, unless your spouse happens to be your editor. Then it goes without saying that dedicating this book to your husband/wife is an absolute given. Better yet, dedicate it to whomever you please. Barney Fife? Thank Barney Fife.

Move a lot. Change your address frequently. Live overseas. Many of the greatest writers have kept their local post offices busy forwarding their mail. Spend a year in Paris (but don?t bother to learn French). If you?d rather keep your roots in one place, and there?s no shame in doing so, then make terrific use of your passport. Traveling is an excellent form of research. If you?ve been to Helsinki or Bangalore or Caracas and have roamed and explored their back streets, you?ve just given yourself extra material. Readers like a travelogue to go with their novels. Plus, you?ll want to project yourself as a stickler for details.

Drinking and smoking ? maybe a little drugging too - are vices. Almost 99% of all authors have and continue to indulge in either vice. Name a famous writer, and they?re likely to have been a boozer and a chain smoker. It?s not a prerequisite, but it?s also hard to accept awards when you?re twelve days into detox at a rehab facility in Arizona.

Start a literary feud. Or become the target of another author?s ire. Either way, this works like a charm. As a writer, you are blessed with the power and skill to construct sentences of utter grace and power. Use this talent to conjure up the best insults and put-downs ever committed to paper. Mercilessly slam a writer whose work you think is sub-par. Be subtle with your put-downs, but be vicious. Take it to a more personal level, if you dare (if you can dish it, you better be able to take it as well). Be memorable, and eternally quotable. A terrific example was the long-standing feud between Truman Capote and Gore Vidal:

Reporter: Truman Capote died.
Vidal: Oh, that?s a good career move

Needless to say, feuding does come across as childish and petty. It doesn?t mean you?re above it in any way. Pick on someone who?s been free from the bloody frays of a literary feud. You didn?t hear it from me, but J.K. Rowling needs to be knocked down a notch or twelve. She could stand to be on the receiving end of a jealous, spiteful writer?s wrath.

Even though you?re not a genre writer, a big-shot Hollywood type will probably option your book for more money than you?ve ever seen. Sure, it would be nice to see your Pulitzer Prize winning novel adapted for the screen. Just forget any notion you have regarding creative input ? the same Hollywood big-shot who coughed up seven figures to purchase the rights to your book already has a screenplay and a director and a cast in mind, regardless of what you think. They?re going to rewrite your story and cast megawatt superstars completely inappropriate for what characters you?ve created - if your main character is Latino or Asian, George Clooney will surely play that part - and it will make money you will never see. In this case, since you?ll probably never see this kind of money again, take the money and run. Cash the check immediately. This doesn?t mean you?ve veered off into Genreville. You won?t have butlers waiting on your every beck and call. You won?t earn a team of ghostwriters helping you pump out novel after novel. This just means you?ll be able to move out of that cramped apartment into a more suitable living arrangement. Don?t listen to your conscience whatsoever.

Speaking of films, avoid the temptation of appearing in films. You will undoubtedly be cast as yourself: the serious, respected author. Writers are writers and are bad actors. Surely you may love to see anyone of your favorite authors on film appearing as themselves, but they just look as pathetic as a deer caught in the blinding spot lights of a closed set. Kurt Vonnegut?s been in a film. So has George Plimpton. Don?t bother. Case in point: Salman Rushdie embarrassed himself for a few minutes in Bridget Jones? Diary?then again, considering Rushdie spent nearly ten years in hiding with a price of death on his head, if he wanted to star in a remake of Porky?s, he certainly earned the right to do so. But you don?t.

The greatest service you can do for yourself, the serious author, is to make yourself as reclusive as possible. If your body of work can sustain it, then forget everything mentioned before about talk show appearances and book readings. Tantalize your readers and your critics with your words, not your looks. Grant interviews to obscure magazines and news sources, like the Peabody (Massachusetts) Workers? Party Journal. Turn down those big-shot Hollywood producers. Tell Charlie Rose?s people you?re not interested. Refuse to you?re your picture taken for publicity purposes. Be as vague as possible in your bio. Form impossible opinions and philosophies. Turn up the crankiness. Bitch about the perceived dumbing-down of the book reading public. Give your home phone number to only your agent or your publisher, but not both. Become the focus of an obsessive search commission by news magazines throughout the world. Chuckle to yourself as an earnest, wet behind the ears cub reporter questions you as to your whereabouts, blissfully unaware he is talking to his intended target, and smile when you say you haven?t seen him or her in years. It?s worked for Salinger. It?s worked for Pynchon. Embrace your loner self and the world will embrace you.

Finally, leave a substantial work behind once you?ve passed away. Notes, journals, letters, whatever; your estate, if you?ve left one behind, will allow for these inconclusive doodlings to be published, and literary scholars and professors will pour over each scratch on a cocktail napkin to find the hidden meaning behind your usage of metaphor. This means absolutely nothing to you in the afterlife, but you?ll be amazed at what lengths critics and scholars will go to in analyzing and scrutinizing your every word.
(Of course, if you?ve had the bad taste to die early, before any of your work was discovered and subsequently published, this will mean that this delicious irony won?t be lost on anyone. The ranks of authors published posthumously after discovery have forced their poor mothers or spouses to accept their awards, also posthumously, and with their voices cracking, declare what a shame their talents weren?t found earlier.)

There you are: simple modest steps one should take towards the path of worthiness. You can?t go wrong with these. With everything you have read now in mind, surely you will join the upper pantheon of the literary masters past and present. These are the words and ethos you will live by. Now get cracking; your audience waits.

Source: http://dabi71.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-to-behave-like-writer.html

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