When did writing become easy and glamorous?

Let me start off by saying: it’s not. It’s lonely and tedious and frustrating and, after the one thousandth and one rejection letter, can lead to irrational plans of rejecting the editors and agents who rejected you in a way that will really make them pay (which, believe me, is impossible and just annoying). For example, just to write this blog, just to get started, I spent half an hour walking my dog around the neighborhood at one in the morning. No rational person does that. It was me and a couple drug riddled teenagers sharing the street. But, in some form or fashion, that’s what writing is.

I’ve noticed, ever since I started going to grad school and had to tell people I was getting a degree in creative writing, that not only does everyone think they can write, they’re pretty sure they can do it better than you. Or, at the very least, that you will be somewhat impressed by their work. And maybe artists and musicians and photographers have the same problem. I don’t know. But, after telling someone that I teach they never say, oh, I have this great lesson plan you should really look at.

The other thing that amazes me, and is really what led me to write this blog, (I was walking around thinking about my students at the prison) is that everyone assumes they can make money with their writing. And, usually, not just a little money. They think once they hand me a poem that I can (and will want to) pass on to someone who will pass it one to someone who will give them fifty million bucks. Dude, I’ve been studying and working for six years and haven’t seen a penny. I have friends who have been doing it for twice as long and are in the same boat. And, you’re going to solve all of your financial problems with this one poem. When was the last time you bought a book that wasn’t self-help or written by a Republican, let alone a book of poetry? Maybe I’m being whiny.

So, back to the actual issue of my creative writing students. Several have these plans of solving their family’s financial problems with their writing. I can’t blame them for the idea. These guys are stuck behind a fence, working sixty to seventy hours a week, and, after all living expenses are paid and a percentage pulled out for fines to the government, the guys get a nickel per hour. Maybe a dime or quarter if they’ve been in long enough, so they need some get rich quick plan. But the problem isn’t just with the incarcerated. Most people have a disconnect between the fact that they don’t spend money to buy books, yet they feel there must be easy money in writing books. There was a great moment during one of the talks at the Summer Literary Seminar in Russia a few years back. One of the participants went off about the unfairness of journals not paying their writers. Small literary journals like ours. She vowed not to allow her fiction to be published unless she was getting paid for her efforts. Eli Horowitz, one of the panel members and an editor for the McSweeney’s publishing company, asked the lady how many of these journals she actually bought. He asked her, quite bluntly, how she could demand payment from these journals while she was unwilling to spend money for these journals? The crowd broke out in applause.

Honestly, there’s an even greater problem than just the amateur writer not reading. Right now, I’m reading Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma. I just finished the first section on corn production. This section discussing, among many things, how Americans don’t realize that the Twinke they’re putting in their mouth actually comes from a farm in Iowa, or how close to a barrel of oil went into producing that burger they are eating. We want clean air but won’t stop buying Hummers. We want to lose weight but won’t quit drinking cokes (I’m in Texas, so that’s a generic term for soft drinks). These disconnects occur all over our society. Our consumer culture has taught us not to fix problems, but apply band-aids which only cause other problems. So, I shouldn’t blame my hairdresser when she hands me twenty pages about her mother. Capitalist society has taught her that there is plenty of money for the taking, just not in hair dressing, otherwise she would already be rich. So, she looks to writing. Because of my personal experience and expertise, I know that she won’t be able to pay her bills with those twenty pages. I am obviously the enlightened one here and have started work on a screenplay.