Failure after Failure--Life as a Writer

This isn't a "writing blog" so I don't often talk that explicitly about my writing. But it's a significant part of my life that has some bearing on things. Even the act of me creating this blog about meditation involves writing, and there's a reason I'm drawn to hit these little black keys and make silly words come out for your amusement (or dismay).

My father is a writer. An unpublished novelist. By the time I was born he had already taken the hard licks from a difficult industry, and I've since heard the same few stories over and over from him. How he'd been a promising young writer in the late sixties at UMass Amherst, writing short stories that were published in the college journals. How agents from New York came to the school and actually solicited manuscripts (practically unheard of today) from undergrads. My dad ended up working on a novel called "Morning of the Owl" about Israel, Vietnam, and the Wandering Jew. He rewrote the entire novel seven times back in the day when there was no computers or word processors and every page had to be retyped.

Dad often told a story of how his agent convinced him to reject a publishing offer from one of the big New York houses because "he could do better." Another offer never came. The book never saw the light of day...Interestingly enough, in later years when dad tells the story, it has changed significantly. In the new version, he ALMOST got an offer from that big NYC house. But in the end, the editors were split on taking the book, and it ultimately just missed having an offer made on it.

I'm not sure which version is true and don't often bother asking about the discrepancy.

But suffice it to say that my father's grim view of the industry shaped my own. As a kid, I started writing stories young. Probably at age 5 or 6. These stories had pictures that I drew to go along with the text in crayon. I remember one about a school yard fight that took place on a Saturday, and whereupon my brother had to explain to me that school was off on Saturdays.

From those earliest days I was consumed with publishing. When would I be ready? When would my stuff be good enough? I knew that I was too young, seven and eight year old kids didn't publish novels. But I loved to write and I loved to read. I read The Hobbit in third grade (it took me close to three months of reading every day). By the time I was in fifth grade I'd started reading Stephen King, who became one of my favorite authors. I read and wrote constantly. My writings were read by my long-suffering mother who I would torment with questions about whether I was "good enough to get published." Nothing she said would ever be enough for me.

But I loved to write, even if I was tortured about it. I would read the author bios of guys like Stephen King or Harlan Ellison, Isaac Asimov and see that they had begun publishing short stories in their teens. By the time I hit my teens I felt that it was now or never. If I couldn't start publishing my short stories now, then clearly I wasn't talented enough to make it as a writer. But I never sent my work out in those days because I wasn't sure where to send it, and I figured I wasn't yet good enough since that's what I often heard from my parents.

As my internal pressure to write publishable work grew, my enjoyment of the practice lessened dramatically. What had been a profoundly enjoyable experience grew to be a grind as I got older. By my early twenties, I was still writing quite a bit, but finding it more difficult. The words didn't flow as easily, my ability to feel "in the story" had lessened dramatically. Although I had some success in college writing controversial opinion articles and even had a play win entry into the Playwrights Festival, nothing was ever good enough.

I finally sent a small batch of short stories out to a few magazines and got maybe five or ten rejections. One rejection from a well-known magazine said the editor had been on the fence for a long time about including the story but ultimately had come down against it after great consideration. The fact that I had come close meant nothing to me. Instead I decided that I wasn't any good. Hell, I wasn't even a teenager anymore, when most of my writing heroes had started to get their work accepted!

After college, I got into Noam Chomsky and Dan Quinn, alternative thinkers who railed against U.S. society and our warmaking, "taker" culture. Along with a group of friends, I dropped out of society (or so I thought at the time) and moved to Providence where I was determined to create a new culture for myself and my likeminded friends. During these years I didn't write at all, but immersed myself in music (we had a semi-horrible garage band) and political/philosophical dialogues with my buddies.

This was a miserable time. Having no money, no girlfriend, no job, and finding that even with our new theories about culture we still were as depressed as ever...it dawned on me that nothing had changed. My misery had less to do with U.S. consumerism and militarism and more to do with my state of mind. Thus came meditation. And along with that, I fell into the mindset of "always trying to live in the now." I wanted enlightenment fast.

Reading and writing were in the realm of fantasy, which I felt had deadened my appreciation of life. So I stayed away from reading entirely and continued not to write. This period lasted even as I moved back to the Boston area and began working a corporate job again.

I lost probably ten years of time that could have been spent writing and honing my craft. I don't consider it a waste, because I did learn a lot about myself--but I do wish I hadn't been so silly about my writing, which is something that's been with me since childhood.

It's only in the last six years, particularly since I met my wife (who is herself a successful author) that I have really begun writing again in earnest. In this time, I have written 5 unpublished novels. I've had four agents, but I've been rejected by hundreds of agents. I've been rejected by dozens of editors. I've rewritten my books over and over again, gone through ups and downs until I felt numb to it all.

And yet...here I am, still writing. I have a new novel (the fifth one) that I'm working on with a top tier agent. And even if this one doesn't sell, I will keep writing and keep plugging away. That is the only way.

Meditation is no different, by the by. No different at all. Except instead of rejections and pain from editors and agents, I get it from the voices in my head. The ones that say "this is ridiculous," "this doesn't help anything," "why aren't you enlightened yet like your guru??" But I keep going anyway, and somehow, someway, it makes a difference...if only to me.

In the next day or two I should be putting a link here so you can read a bit of my non-fiction humor that I wrote a few years ago...if you so desire. Some of you might get a kick out of it.