Who You Sacrifice

           As I pull out of the drive, my ten year old daughter is crying and saying, “Daddy, I don’t want you to go.”  I could say that I don’t want to go either, and, in part, that’s true, but it would confuse her.  I’m making a choice to leave for a writing weekend.  As much as I love my family and try to arrange a schedule to get work done, sometimes I need uninterrupted time.

            There is the cliché of the struggling artist, and the idea that an artist makes sacrifices.  These are true, but the nature of the struggle and sacrifices are sometimes misunderstood.

            For me, these have nothing to do with money.  I’m primarily a poet, and although I might sell a few books at readings, it's rarely enough to cover the gas and coffee costs to get there.  But, I don’t write poetry expecting to be paid.  Nor do I believe that I'm "paying my dues" and one day I will hit it big like Billy Collins or Mary Oliver (who I'm sure are rolling in it with Rolex watches, champagne readings, custom-designed poetmobiles, etc.).  As long as I have enough to buy a morning pastry, I'm satisfied, and, because my local bakery -- Camino -- is owned by a friend, I suspect that she'll slip me a free muffin or two if things get rough.
            Time, however, is a different matter.

            To do almost any kind of writing takes concentration, and time is a zero sum quantity. There is only so much of it.  Time devoted to writing means less available for something else – my teaching job, my family, my falling apart old house, my other interests.  
           So, the “sacrifice” an artist makes is often being with other people, and the price is paid by them.  If I wasn’t a writer, my children might spend more time with me, and, when I am with them, I might be less distracted.  Right now, their memories of Saturday and Sunday mornings won’t be of making pancakes with Daddy, but of Daddy going off to the coffeeshop for a few hours.  Right now, they suspect, for good reason, that sometimes even when I'm there, I'm not actually there.

            And we sacrifice people in other ways.  The writer, Julie Suk, says, “If you’re acquainted with a poet, you’re going to have your life exposed.”  Or, as Joan Didion puts it, “Writers are always selling someone out.”  My family’s lives are my material.  I will sacrifice their privacy and often their feelings to explore it.

            Occasionally people say how wonderful it must be to be a writer, and often it is, except for those times that you’re driving away from your crying daughter.

The Long Haul

           As I walk along the sidewalk, a phrase comes to mind.  I consider it, repeat it, turn it back and forth, say it out loud (something I’m doing more and more of and which can worry passersby).  I suddenly realize that it could go with a poem that I was working on five years ago and eventually abandoned.  I had liked the poem, but it had never quite worked.  This phrase could be the solution, or at least a way towards a solution.  When I get home, I find the old file and start revising the section of poem where the phrase might fit.  It becomes better, much better, but it still isn’t right.  And then, perhaps because I’ve been writing a lot of fiction this summer, I realize the poem isn’t a poem, but a piece of short fiction.  Or – to not even bother with these distinctions – the piece doesn’t need line breaks and stanzas, but paragraph breaks and looser sentences.  When I make these changes, it comes together.

            If someone should ask one day, “How long did it take you to write that?” what should I answer?  Several afternoons?  A couple of weeks?  That’s how much actual time I spent, but those afternoons were separated by years.

            I’m often asked for advice about writing, and the main piece I have, perhaps the only one, is:  be in it for the long haul.  Not because it takes years to achieve success or recognition, but because it can take years to finish even some small works.

            In a preface to Six Degrees of Separation, John Guare explains how he read about one of the play’s key events in a newspaper, but he didn’t write about it, or even think about it explicitly, for six years.  He also mentions writing another play, but not having a beginning for it.  Then, in his notebooks, he found material that he had written two years earlier that fit perfectly.

            Or to offer a different example, Neil Gaiman has talked about how he had the idea for The Graveyard Book, started to write it, and realized that he wasn’t good enough to do it (or didn’t think he was).  So, he put the idea aside and developed his skills.  Twenty years later, he tried again, and discovered that he could write the book in a way that satisfied him.

            Some might find this discouraging.  I find it reassuring.  Writing is something that – at least theoretically – you can get better at as you get older.  Our physical skills decline much faster than our mental ones.  I have long past the point where I can improve at basketball, soccer, or swimming, but I think my writing is getting better.  Cervantes published the first part of Don Quixote when he was 57, and then, he is believed to have hit his “creative stride” at 65.  Saul Bellow, John Updike, Adrienne Rich, all continued to do important work until they died

            Some consider writing an act of faith.  I consider it an act of optimism.  My advice?  The usual.  Go home and write.  For years.  Hopefully the rest of your life.

Writer Envy

          As a poet, I sometimes am aware of the envy of other writers.  It happens mostly at book festivals and events that have multiple authors.  Perhaps it’s not something we want to admit or talk about – the dirty laundry of the industry – but it’s understandable.  The fact is that other writers can be jealous because, as a poet, I get the perks of being an author– the cachet and respect and business cards – without having to do a lot of the promotional drudgery.
            I’ve shared book signing tables with Maya Angelou, Orson Scott Card, and, most recently, Gillian Flynn who wrote Gone Girl.  Writers like these have to deal with long lines of people who keep asking them to do things; they have to sign books, answer questions, and agree to photos.  They have to sit there for hours.  I suspect they suffer from calluses on their autographing hands, repetitive stress injuries, and dry throats.  I worry about no such health problems.
            I look at those lines and pity the writers.  Poor Maya Angelou.  Poor Orson Scott Card.  And I think, “Thank god, those people are not here to see me.”  As my wife and children know, I hate to be asked to do things, and, as my colleagues know, I’m terrible at small talk.  Luckily, as a poet, it’s not a problem.  At any event, there will be only a couple of people bothering me about my books.  This leaves me lots of free time to text, do crosswords, stare and make faces at the people in the lines to either side of me.  Sometimes I lay out a small picnic.  Sometimes I even do some writing.  I’m not one of those writers who complain they can’t find time to write; it’s easy for me.  I just set up a signing.
            I sense the irritation of the other authors.  They have to work hard, while I get to be there and call myself a writer as well.  And, often my photo is even as big as theirs!  I want to tell them that it’s not my fault they picked the wrong genre, but I realize it’s not always a choice.  Some people write novels because they can’t write poetry.
            So, although we smile at one another, there’s the frank truth about authors.  They envy me, and I feel sorry for them. While they have to worry about mundane concerns like royalties, agents, and their position on the best seller lists, I am free to live the life of the mind and concentrate on what is important like mastering another level of angry birds.