WHY I STILL DO THIS SHIT

The following is a speech I delivered to the C3 Writers Conference this past weekend. It is not a transcript, and does not include mid-speech digressions or the Q&A which followed after.

Thank you for that wonderful introduction. I know what many of you are thinking. “He’s not as pretty as Christopher Golden.” Well, you’re right. I’m not. I don’t know anyone who is as pretty as Chris Golden, except for maybe GI Joe with Kung Fu Grip or Bob Villa — both of whom Chris bares a striking resemblance to. 

Regretfully, Chris couldn’t be here tonight because he’s got a case of the gout. I didn’t even know people could get the gout anymore. That’s like an old people’s disease. It’s 2013. We’ve mapped the human genome, Voyager has exited our solar system, and we’ve landed a robot on Mars. How is gout still a thing?

In all seriousness, though, Chris felt terrible about not being here, and I am very honored to speak to you in his stead, and to share this stage with Jeffery Deaver and John Gilstrap.

As you know, I’m a full-time writer, by which I mean that writing is my main source of income and how I provide for myself and my loved ones. I’ve been doing that for about 14 years now. My commute is great—from the bed to the coffee pot to the computer. I get paid to make up stories and people give me money for them. Not a bad gig. Usually. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Writing is a hard way to earn a living, and the costs are high.

I’d like to lay some of those costs out for you.

I have been prolific to the point of nearly 40 books, and have been lucky enough to keep my work in print to the extent that I receive royalty checks for various works each and every month. I’ve also had books turned into film, adapted for comics, and more. I’ve been on CNN, Howard Stern, a documentary on the History Channel, and a trivia question answer on an ABC game show. My readers include rock stars, movie stars, stand-up comedians, professional athletes, a few politicians, a few more porno actresses, and even a daytime soap opera diva. I am one of the most popular horror writers of my generation. I say that not brag or sound arrogant, but to set the stage for what I am about to tell you. Despite all of those achievements, on average, I make between $40,000 and $60,000 per year. Sometimes it’s a little bit more. Sometimes, it’s less. That’s an average. Not exactly big money. Those of you who want to be full-time writers look shocked right now. Those of you who are already full time writers are nodding your heads vigorously in acknowledgement. As a full-time writer, my finances will always be in this state of flux. It can be scary and harrowing and tough, but it’s one of the things that comes with this gig.

As a full-time writer, I have no health insurance, and I can’t afford monthly health insurance premiums on my own because, as a public figure, my lifestyle is well-known and health insurance companies simply laugh at me when I inquire about coverage. I’m not alone in this. Writers have been dying sick and poor since the days of cave painting.

There’s also no 401K. No retirement. Warren Ellis once said, “Writers don’t retire. They just die…” There’s a lot of truth to that.

I won’t retire. I’ll just die. I’d like to think that I’ll die in my sleep, surrounded by loved ones rather than gunned down at a book signing by my very own Annie Wilkes, but the latter is always a possibility. Writing is a solitary act, but publishing is public. We’re part of the entertainment industry, and just like any other entertainer, we attract our share of crazies. My own encounters with stalkers are well-documented. These people exist, and the Internet and social media make it easier for them than ever before to fulfill their unhealthy obsessions with us. As a result, I am mindful of what personal information is out there.

I’m also mindful of the toll full-time writing can have on your relationships. Writing has cost me two marriages. I say writing, but it was really communication. That sounds ironic. Writing is communication, but communicating to your readership and to your partner are two very different skill sets. It’s easy to tell my audience about zombies or giant worms or satyrs. It’s harder to talk to a partner about the pressure of deadlines, the stress of fame (because even a little bit of fame can be a very fucked thing), how it feels to live under a public microscope that examines and often takes issue with everything you write, the paranoia and self-loathing that creeps in when everyone seem to want something from you, or how utterly demoralizing it is to not have a weekly paycheck, health insurance, or a 401K to provide for your family. In my case, I should have tried harder to talk about these things, but I didn’t have it in me, because after 8 hours of writing each day, I was emotionally and mentally exhausted and unable to talk about it.

Writing has also cost me friends—both from before I became a writer and after. Childhood chums, pissed off that I mined so much of our lives for fiction. Friends from High School and old Navy buddies who I no longer had anything in common with, who assumed that just because they saw my books in stores or my movies on television that I must somehow be wealthy and hey, could I lend them a few dollars or help them get published or be the dancing monkey and star attraction to impress all their friends and family members with at their next Christmas party. Fellow writers and peers, people I’d started out with, who perhaps grew resentful as I grew successful.

So, that’s what writing for a living is like. I hope I’ve painted a romantic picture for you all. Thank you, and good night.

What? What’s that? Why do I do it? Why do I still put up with this shit, rather than getting a proper job as an IT professional or an HVAC technician?

Well, there are several reasons.

I continue to do it because the rewards are unlike those of any other profession I know. And I continue to do it because I can’t do anything else. I can’t not write. I’ve always liked my friend Tom Piccirilli’s description of this condition: If you’re stranded alone on a desert island, and you spend your time writing stories in the sand with a stick, then you’re meant to be a writer.

And I do it for the young mother who contacted me on Twitter, and told me that her infant son had a brain tumor, and she was living at the hospital with him, and the only thing that kept her going in those long dark hours were my books. Apparently, she read through my entire backlist during that time.

I do it for the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere who get so excited when a new book comes out. The soldiers who nicknamed everyone in their squad after characters from my books. The marines who started a Brian Keene book club. The airmen of Whiteman Air Force Base’s 509th Logistics who pooled their own money together and had a beautiful award fashioned for me simply because my book donations had boosted their morale.

I do it for the parents who’ve told me that Dark Hollow helped them grieve the loss of their child, and helped them talk to their significant others about that grief.

I do it for the readers who’ve told me how Ghoul helped them come to terms with their abusive childhoods.

And the dozens of single or divorced fathers who told me that The Rising made them rededicate themselves to their kids.

And the dozens of inmates who write me letters saying they never liked to read until they got to prison and discovered my books.

I put up with this shit because somebody has to do it. Putting up with this shit is our job. To quote Faith No More, “It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.” As writers, we are here to communicate truths that everyone already knows on some instinctual level but are unable to voice for themselves. It is our job to give words to those truths. We’ve been doing that since cave paintings. Our job, regardless of whether we are writing crime or horror or science fiction or westerns or romance or any other genre, is to examine the human condition. To say to the reader, “Hey? What you’re feeling right now? It’s okay. We all feel it.” As writers, we must go beyond Conservative or Liberal, Republican or Democrat, Christian or Muslim, Jew or Hindu, Black or White. We must transcend politics, religion, race, sexual orientation, nationalism, patriotism, and every other fucking ism and communicate the one thing we all have in common — our humanity. What it is to be human.

Can people really remember every contextual detail of their first kiss–how it felt physically and emotionally? Can they really remember the sound of the voice of a long-dead relative? Can they remember what it’s like to be five years old, and your entire world rests in your mother’s arms? They might think they do, but they don’t. The details get blurred. That’s just the way the human mind works. The details are lost — until we bring them back again. This is what we do. This is why we put up with this shit.

99% of the people who read our books are kind, gracious, genuine people just like ourselves. On days when the royalty checks haven’t shown and another publisher has screwed me and another critic has savaged me and I have to go to the free clinic because I don’t have health insurance—it is the readers who keep me going. Fans and readers can be a source of strength and solace. It’s a nice, symbiotic relationship. They get us through the long hours spent writing. We get them through study hall or their lunch hour or their commute or their bad marriage or incarceration or tour of duty or abusive relationship or their loneliness. And that is a noble thing.

I don’t believe we choose to be writers (or musicians, painters or any other form of the arts). I believe we don’t have a choice. But if we can touch one reader, enrich their lives, entertain them, distract them, or help them articulate something they’ve desperately wanted to say for themselves but didn’t know how, then we’ve done our jobs and done them well. And that is so very worth it. It’s worth more than all the costs I mentioned before combined.

So, let’s get to work.