David Davis

I read somewhere that the poet Robert Lowell would buy copies of his books to mark up with his red pen. This is the approach I take to DAVID, which I’ve been writing for over four years now. Though unfortunately I can’t delete what’s already been sent to your inbox, I’ve definitely zhuzhed up live posts and even unpublished a few. Because despite my best efforts, I’ve written a lot of crap! Weak theses, tortured sentences, meandering arguments, you name it. (Thank you to everyone who’s stuck it out with me—it can never be said that you weren’t true patrons of the arts.)

Writing well is hard, and I do it very rarely. I know there will always be mistakes and changes of heart; I have accepted that clunkers are a part of my past, and my future, too. And then there are the labor conditions: the compensation I receive for my books, freelance articles, and newsletter is so low that I must subsidize my “career” with a full-time job—which means I am effectively paying to be published. If I didn’t enjoy my work, the humiliation wouldn’t be worth it. But I do enjoy it, and so I wake up every morning, pull my pants on one leg at a time, and get back out there, eager to debase myself once again.

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Not to brag, but this attitude has served me well. It’s granted me the ability to accept that my pristine first draft is actually super busted, as my editor will confirm. It’s allowed me to read good reviews with gratitude and bad reviews (and by this I mean everything from bylines to anonymous tweets) with a modicum of grace. As John Waters wrote in one of his books, “Sometimes you learn from a bad review. Sometimes they’re right—a little.” There is a difference between not caring what other people have to say—an easy default for avoidant types—and caring without letting it drive you to suicide (or homicide, whichever is more your style).

I’ve been thinking about this because while revisiting one of my favorite DAVIDs recently, I edited it so much that I almost rewrote it. I could still feel how right it felt when I first wrote it, and yet it was all wrong—abandoned themes, twisted logic, affected phrasing, unsatisfying word repetition and, at the same time, the failure to repeat certain words in a pleasing way. Red pen, red pen, red pen. Now it’s much better, but I suspect I love it less. Having fixed it, am I still proud of the original? Will I be proud of this version when I come back to it in three years? Can I be proud of anything I’ve done? I guess what I’m trying to say is that pride motivates me, but that it also doesn’t really matter.

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