Vague Shrine

I am still not an asshole — at least not the right kind. Like many would-be writers, I have read an astounding amount of text devoted to advice intended for this demographic. This is one of our favorite past times, much more beloved than writing itself and second only to video games. One piece of advice comes up again and again. I’m talking about life experience.

Before you ask, I already checked, and this has nothing to do with defeating bugbears with crossbows. Many would-be writers have spent years searching for this nebulous quantity. Some wouldn’t consider you a writer unless you have it, but few would be able to provide even a vague definition. It seems to require a fair amount of menial labor and drinking during a peripatetic period. I could provide a fair number of counter-examples, writers whose experience was largely limited to the breadth and depth of their cyclopean minds. The would-be writer, naturally, already knows them, so I won’t bother.

A practical definition, or rationale, for life experience would be to garner material for one’s stories. Using the details of one’s private life as fodder for fiction has led to many raconteurs becoming estranged from their social circles. Perhaps they lacked the skill or the foresight to sufficiently alter their anecdotes. In any case, this seems an insufficient explanation.

The best I’ve come up with is that life experience is what makes us write. The writing may resemble the experience, but it is the stuff itself that drives us rather than some Romantic spark. I must be thinking egocentrically here because the notion I’m getting at is rather existential, or perhaps more correctly absurdist. To make the point more poetically, it is the cleated foot of life on our backs that forces out the ink. We suffer. I say suffer because I can’t think of anyone who would do this because they were content or even intellectually fulfilled. Books written by happy, well-adjusted people tend to have as much depth as a bathtub. Writing is an act of the reptile brain, a reciprocal response to the crap of the world, to life experience.

A while back, I was chatting with a friend of mine, a writer, and we were discussing, naturally enough, writing. There was a little commiseration involved, and, again naturally enough, the topic of frequency came up. I have read from established writers that the real secret is simply in the writing itself. Writing every day; not workshops, not fine arts degrees from low-residency programs, not tutelage by a Great American Novelist, not even study of the masters.  Writing is the quintessential ingredient.

My friend had this to say: “People who write every day are assholes.” Now, we had a good chuckle about that, and it was true enough. It is also true that people who write every day are writers.

Now, I have been called an asshole many times. I’ve also been called a dick, a jerk, and a bastard. At least one of those is accurate. I can’t say, however, that I’ve ever managed to keep up a regular writing habit. This wasn’t an attempt at the Romantic ideal of living the life of the artist and writing comparatively little — that’s always been a con anyway. Whatever the reason, the truth is that I haven’t been busting my ass day in and day out. I’ve studied, I’ve honed my craft, I’ve practiced. I haven’t done enough.

I’ve gotten to the point in my professional development that I am an editor, managing submissions for publication. I find it preposterous that I am judging fiction while I am still too cowardly to send out my own.

I guess I’m just going to have to become an asshole.