I worked with a ‘famous’ writer once – a fellow who had been recommended to me by an editor who thought this writer would be the perfect analyst for my work. It might have been true, except that this writer was so busy self-promoting and making money elsewhere he kept forgetting to look at the pages of my manuscript – the same 20 pages we ‘worked’ on for over six months.
The worst of it happened when, for three of the months when I didn’t hear from him at all, he finally replied to tell me that the skylight in his New York brownstone had suffered a crack and that, wouldn’t you know, my chapter, which was sitting three floors below on his glass coffee table, was soaked through to the point of illegibility. I still have his letter, which he might just as easily have sent two months earlier by email.
I’m not talking about just any writer, either. I am talking about a writer who has won prizes so big you couldn’t shake a dozen sticks at them; a writer whose novels have been turned into movies; a writer well-known on seven continents. (Just goes to show you that talent doesn’t necessarily lend itself to character.)
Don and I were by turns so annoyed and so amused by this man’s b____s____ that we spent half of our time cursing up one side of the wall and back down the other, Don smacking big red handprints into his forehead, me walking the long hallway on Gilmour Street, the dog hot on my heels. The other half of our time we spent laughing.
Years later, I still haven’t published the novel. I haven’t quite (almost, but not quite) finished. I was never very good at accessing anything in the first place, and I wouldn’t have even known about this other possibility, this great writing mentor man, had it not been gently thrust upon me by a kindly editing expert, a woman I inadvertently met when I was studying in Timothy Findley’s class. (That’s another story entirely.) And I probably don’t need to tell you that this sort of negligence can put a damper on a woman’s self-confidence.
Anyway, I am not sure what I am trying to say, except maybe that
- It is always better to be honest. If you are too busy to complete a task, or if you lose interest, just say so. Free yourself up, and your waiting student (whomever), which will then leave both of you open to new exchanges.
- The writing is in the doing, not the done. It’s the road you take that is interesting, not the motel at the end of the drive (unless it has a vibrating bed of course, which used to amuse my mother and I no end in those Edmundston and Trois-Rivières stopovers).
- Don’t be selfish. Think of the people along the way who have helped, or tried to help, or wanted to help, you. Imagine the joy you will feel from lending your hand, your heart, your ideas.
- Don’t be a Pollyanna. Just because one kind person recommends your work in an excited way, do not assume that the next person in the chain is going to care one whit. In fact, sometimes the very person who is going to care least about your work is another writer, the person who is (technically and metaphorically) paid to care most.
- If at first you don’t succeed…figure out what it is you want and go after it – or leave it alone if going after it is not what you want. Some of the finest, most talented individuals haven’t a lick of interest in being published, recorded, taped or printed, and are happy just driving along at a steady pace, sometimes stopping for gas and a Mars bar, other times speeding straight on out of sight. They couldn’t care less about a final destination, where the adventure stops and the hard work of living begins.
No matter what you choose to do, however, if lying is your only recourse, try something more believable than the skylight story. There are so many viable options: a cerebral aneurysm; an incorrigible child; foreclosure on your home; a lengthy book tour; seasonal depression; a marriage break-up; hysterical blindness; anal fissures; a sudden allergy to reading – or even, when all else fails, that old stand-by: “The dog ate your homework.”
"It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.” ~ Homer Simpson
