I am a writer and a working man. This season of my life I drive a twelve hour shift on a bus. I have no Ph.D's or Master Degrees. I have never founded a foundation that was not made of cinder blocks or concrete, the best kind in my opinion. Which is to say I am a blue collar worker and writer. What I have to say is connected to the earth. What I write is born from bloody knuckles and sweaty days spent in the sun or cold hours below zero trying to stay warm.
I came across a gold mining camp hidden within a gorgeous and heavenly valley of the Sierra Nevada. Emblazoned on a tall wooden sign were these words:
WE ARE A DRINKING CAMP WITH A MINING PROBLEM
Just so. I am a writing man with a working problem.
Yesterday I received a letter from Jonathan Galassi, president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He read the first fifty pages of my novel, The Goldfinder, and said he found the setting and premise "made for interesting historical fiction" and said "many of the passages are lyrical and powerful", but that overall the writing was inconsistent. I have received three such letters from The Gods Who Rule the Writing World. It's hard to be consistent when you work twelve hours on the streets--but that is the job of a working writer.
Now I must find a way to return to that imaginary world where I am almost someone, where I am in love with my mind pulsing through my fingertips.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Working Novelist
This blog (while I may be speaking to no one) really works for me. My words are transmitted into the public domain to an audience potentially larger than a dentist's office or any other place where people supposedly read magazines. Temporarily at least, the great kick for me is to not receive a notice from some stranger: "Your article does not fit it with our needs at Horses End Review. We wish you success somewhere else."
My problem is my work does not fit with any of the thousands of commerical journals that populate the market grid the world has been sliced into by the smart people. Every day I listen to crap on the radio and on the TV (I do not use this term loosely--there are sights and sounds insulting to any normal human being every minute on radio and TV). And yet there is no place for me? Not one word? Apparently I am not welcome in the commercial world of crap. So I have my blog: Working Novelist, where I create my place from space, a space for beautiful language. Now then, we were talking about novels.
I have written two novels: The Goldfinder; 782 pages; and The Black Butterfly Woman; 315 pages--taking twenty years and five years respectively to complete. I am merely a working man who puts his boots on in the morning and goes to his day job right after I having finished my writing. The reason I have been able to persevere at novel writing for so long is that I love doing it. Every day I look forward to that three hour writing session. It is an incomparable ecstasy. Now I am trying to market my novels. This is not ecstasy. Not to mince words, it is headache producing misery. One serious problem I have is that I am a novelist, not a short story writer. I've only had one SS published, Evolove, and it easily should have been a novella. I do not write short. Why would a marathoner be expected to run a 50 yard dash? Anyway not having a long list of published stories might signal to big book publishers I am either not much of a writer, or lazy. I say without any misgivings at all that I am likely the hardest working novelist on earth if you consider my working life. If there is a novelist out there who is also a coal miner, I want to hear from you. I will consider taking second place.
I have always done brutal physical jobs. I have been a laborer on bridge construction, a framing carpenter, a shingler, and finally, a UPS driver for 28 years. I began my serious writing when I was a UPS driver. I came home so beaten up I could not write and unless you're Jack London, brutal labor doesn't lead to great novel writing. So I did my writing in the morning, always three hours, never less. This is the pure creative time, the golden hours with the mind still refreshed from the sacred dark temples of sleep, when the mind is yet still and suspended in that nearly subconscious state that welcomes divine ideas from the many twilight zones of creativity. If you would write a real novel (something that is new) you will write upon awakening.
I think I have said enough for now.
My problem is my work does not fit with any of the thousands of commerical journals that populate the market grid the world has been sliced into by the smart people. Every day I listen to crap on the radio and on the TV (I do not use this term loosely--there are sights and sounds insulting to any normal human being every minute on radio and TV). And yet there is no place for me? Not one word? Apparently I am not welcome in the commercial world of crap. So I have my blog: Working Novelist, where I create my place from space, a space for beautiful language. Now then, we were talking about novels.
I have written two novels: The Goldfinder; 782 pages; and The Black Butterfly Woman; 315 pages--taking twenty years and five years respectively to complete. I am merely a working man who puts his boots on in the morning and goes to his day job right after I having finished my writing. The reason I have been able to persevere at novel writing for so long is that I love doing it. Every day I look forward to that three hour writing session. It is an incomparable ecstasy. Now I am trying to market my novels. This is not ecstasy. Not to mince words, it is headache producing misery. One serious problem I have is that I am a novelist, not a short story writer. I've only had one SS published, Evolove, and it easily should have been a novella. I do not write short. Why would a marathoner be expected to run a 50 yard dash? Anyway not having a long list of published stories might signal to big book publishers I am either not much of a writer, or lazy. I say without any misgivings at all that I am likely the hardest working novelist on earth if you consider my working life. If there is a novelist out there who is also a coal miner, I want to hear from you. I will consider taking second place.
I have always done brutal physical jobs. I have been a laborer on bridge construction, a framing carpenter, a shingler, and finally, a UPS driver for 28 years. I began my serious writing when I was a UPS driver. I came home so beaten up I could not write and unless you're Jack London, brutal labor doesn't lead to great novel writing. So I did my writing in the morning, always three hours, never less. This is the pure creative time, the golden hours with the mind still refreshed from the sacred dark temples of sleep, when the mind is yet still and suspended in that nearly subconscious state that welcomes divine ideas from the many twilight zones of creativity. If you would write a real novel (something that is new) you will write upon awakening.
I think I have said enough for now.
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