Absolute Gentleman

It’s difficult for me to admit I’m getting older, or to accept it with any kind of grace. I have always been like this, though, especially with respect to my writing. The easiest way not to get anything done as a writer is to pick your favorite writer, figure out how old he was when he published his great works, then reflect on how old you are and how far along you have come in your writing. Are you ahead of his pace? Is there still time to write that book and endure the twelve to twenty-four months it would take for the publishing house to release the book? Can you get away with calling yourself a late-bloomer? Kerouac published The Town and the City at 28. Bad news for me. The good news ? He published On the Road at 35. This was encouraging until I turned 35 and hadn’t published anything more than a handful of my stories in literary magazines.

This psychosis is the best way to disappoint yourself with absolute nonsense.

Despite only publishing in small, but ambitious and hard working magazines (Another Chicago Magazine, 580 Split, upstreet, et al.), there was a time my work was on the desks of the editors of Esquire, Playboy, and The New Yorker — placed there by an agent and getting special consideration. No, the stories were never published, but neither were yours. Mine got personal attention, as did my full manuscript from big publishers like Random House and Vintage and Simon & Schuster. I say this not necessarily to brag, but in an attempt to convince myself, now 39, that where there was once hope and promise, there still can be. I can still do it if I choose to, regardless of how old I am.

To further these insane behaviors, I texted my wife some frantic instructions to search through my cardboard writerly archives in our attic back in western Massachusetts and find, in the piles of rejection emails and letters, the one letter to my agent from some major editor that read “His work is reminiscent of Ray Carver’s.”

Jennet, my wife, told me she was amazed by how many letters there were, and how many of them contained specific, personal, and sometimes lengthy notes from editors and publishers about the promise of my work.

“So you were impressed,” I asked her. She said yes.

I need to find that letter, because I need to tell you the editor’s name, and I need to hold onto that shred of a reminder that my work once meant something. This guy: he didn’t say, “Hey, this guy reads like Raymond Carver…” He said “Ray.” He called him Ray. The people who knew Carver did not call him Raymond, they called him Ray, just like this guy. Are you understanding what I’m saying? Can you feel this completely?

So, naturally, I bought Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life, a beautiful biography written by Carol Sklenicka. I love reading this book because I feel some sort of kinship with this man. It doesn’t matter that it might be false. It doesn’t matter that you think I might be silly in thinking any of this. All that matters is what I think. I need this right now, and you’re going to let me have this.

I hate the idea of annotating books I read for pleasure. Books I teach, or facilitate discussion with? I have no problem highlighting, writing notes, anything.

With this book, however, I find myself writing notes, journal entries, blog topics, diatribes, and personal admonitions in every little bit of white space I can find. Something about the contents — something about Ray Carver’s life (That’s right, I called him Ray — I can call him Ray), and how close I feel to it, is pushing me to write again. It’s commanding me to write without regard to what the end result will be. I haven’t had this feeling in a very, very long time.

The first bit of jottings have to do with the idea of saving your work. Lame writers who are deathly frightened that they will never be able to produce anything remotely good again will often save their “best” stories for the best possible publications. In other words, if a publication of little note expresses interest in your work, you’ll send them a story or essay just good enough to satisfy them, while saving your alleged masterpiece for when Esquire comes calling. Writers have the right to choose the fate of their particular creations, but it doesn’t mean it’s not completely paranoid and presumptuous.

Carver never really seemed to do this. He just kept writing. Yes, it seems that he was concerned about where his work went, but never to the point of it stopping his production. There wasn’t one particular piece he held onto for dear life because he had ten or twenty in the works right behind it.

A couple of writers come to mind when I think of this. Nance Van Winckel is a writer from the Pacific Northwest and a former teacher of mine. She always told me that publication never stopped her production. She received hundreds of rejections. Yes, hundreds, because she’d constantly send her stories and poems back out (revised) as fast as they were rejected. The result: a ton of publication credits in the country’s most prestigious literary magazines and several published books.

The other person I think of is Stephen Dixon. He has authored twenty-nine novels and short story collections, and he seems to care not a bit about where his work is published. He just keeps generating new material, constantly, and is so confident in his production that he’ll allow any particular story, essay, or novel excerpt to fall anywhere: small university lit mag, major glossy that publishes fiction, fledgling online mag. It doesn’t matter.

I am 39 and I care a little bit less about how old I am and where I stand as a writer than I did an hour ago. I’m not going to be frightened anymore, and I need you to know, whoever the fuck you are, that I’m just getting started.