The manifestations of a writing life
While journalists were seldom recognized at restaurants, the literary landscape had also changed. With the smartphone assuming its role as the slavemaster for most Americans, fewer and fewer people now had the attention span necessary to sit down and read an actual book.
When I first started writing seriously in my early 20s, my goal was simple and straightforward: I wanted to be famous.
In fact, I went so far as to make this goal measurable: I wanted to be so famous that I would be recognized at a restaurant while dining. I suppose after being recognized at a restaurant that I would’ve stopped writing, but I never really thought too far ahead at the time.
So I started working toward my goal. I published a few books of poetry and fiction with some small presses then I went to graduate school to earn an MFA. After graduate school, I signed with a literary agent who agreed to represent my first novel.
It seemed like things were really starting to take off in my mid-30s. Then one of my short stories was recognized as a finalist for a literary prize.
The winner of The Norman Mailer Award received $10,000 and a summer stay at The Norman Mailer Writers Colony in Provincetown, Mass. The other four finalists—as I soon found out—received a trophy. While it was a good looking trophy, it was certainly not the same as $10,000 and a free vacation to work on my second novel.
Eventually, my agent couldn’t sell my first novel, or my second, and I was dumped. While I had published a few more books of poetry and fiction through other small presses along the way, book sales weren’t exactly robust, and my prospects of being recognized at a restaurant were growing evermore grim.
I had also grown tired of writing for free. While my first love will always be creative writing, I started taking on more journalism assignments that compensated me with cash, as opposed to trophies.
While journalists were seldom recognized at restaurants, the literary landscape had also changed. With the smartphone assuming its role as the slavemaster for most Americans, fewer and fewer people now had the attention span necessary to sit down and read an actual book.
So I kept taking journalism assignments while occasionally tinkering with my creative pursuits, and after a few years of hacking out columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, I had accumulated a modest nestegg from those writing assignments and the occasional small royalty check.
In December, a few weeks before Christmas, our washing machine broke, and my wife and I had the same gutted feeling most middle-class families get around the holidays after we financially overextended ourselves buying gifts and planning parties.
When the washing machine died, my wife was despondent. “What are we going to do now? We don’t have any money to buy a new washing machine, and we need to clean our clothes,” she said. “I don’t want to depend on the laundromat.”
“I got this,” said the veteran writer.
Now, in my basement, 10 feet from where I’m composing this missive, sits a shiny new washing machine, another physical manifestation of three decades dedicated to my craft.
While I may never be recognized at a restaurant, rest assured, my clothes will be clean.
