Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

I want to go out on a limb and respond to some of the comments that expressed frustration with publishing and my comments about credentials and so forth. First, I really do get the pain associated with being on the margins or feeling marginalized. As most of you know, I’ve been knocking my head against the Hollywood sign for decades. And I’m fairly certain I will go to my grave without any of my scripts being made, I’ll never be in a writer’s room, and certainly never collect my Oscar for which I have many speeches prepared. I always tell myself I’m going to quit and yet I keep writing. That is my choice. Most people break through by working in the industry and working their way up. I didn’t do that. It’s a disadvantage. So be it.

If you don’t get an MFA, work in journalism, attend writer’s conferences, publish in literary magazines, pitch essays, etc. then you are at a disadvantage. Think of it this way. You pick up two books in the store. One has blurbs on the back, one by a writer you admire. The other is blank. The first book has an advantage at the cash register. If I get two submissions in a day and one writer has a writing prize and a couple of publications and the other has nothing, the first submission has an advantage. It’s also true that the title will grab me as well as the first line and paragraph. All the credentials and referrals are not going to get your work accepted if it sucks, but it will probably get looked at first. But tons of crap gets published, you cry. Yes, this is also true. How do we explain in? My mother always said, that’s what makes horse racing. To each his own. There’s no accounting for taste.

When I was an editor, a project was brought up at the editorial meeting. It sounded amazing and we all read it for the following meeting. I was out that week, but the following meeting I asked, “Whatever happened with that treacly piece of shit?” I was told that the editor acquired it for a tidy sum. Awkward! I invoked my mother’s horse racing metaphor. Well, that treacly piece of shit sold millions of copies and spurred a cottage industry of similar books.

Quit if you must. Quit if you can.

Tell me your dreams.