Do Authors Realize Their Talent by Gerri Brousseau

On Tuesday night while channel surfing I happened upon part two of a PBS program about the life of Mark Twain. I have been to the Twain house in Hartford, Connecticut, so even though I hadn’t seen part one of the program, I felt compelled to watch it.

By the time part two began Twain had already met with success as a writer, was very wealthy, and had purchased the home in Hartford. The narrator talked about Twain’s constant obsession with increasing his wealth and his fascination with new mechanical devices. Rather than continuing with his writing career and giving attention to his publishing house, Twain instead invested thousands and tens of thousands of dollars in fly-by-night inventions, which in the end turned out to be the cause of him having to file bankruptcy. As I watched the program and it came to its end, I couldn’t help but wonder why he simply didn’t just keep writing.

The program talked about the death of one of his three daughters, the death of his wife, and the second daughter’s battle with epilepsy. Throughout his life, he suffered from bouts of depression.

Twain seemed to have a need to always be the center of attention and went to such extremes that his eccentric behavior at the wedding of his only living daughter was the last straw for her, and she and her husband moved to Europe.

If you are a writer, you know that it is a solitary profession. However, during this period of his life he was totally alone, and still he couldn’t write. I can relate to having periods in time where the words just won’t come, but for him it was the beginning of the end. Apparently he wrote several partial manuscripts, but never finished them. I felt so bad for this man who at one time had it all. But that’s not the end of the story for him. He did gain fame and notoriety once again and by the time of his death was a world renowned figure having had meetings with the King and Queen of England, Gandhi, and several other prominent people.

It was interesting to see the life of one of America’s most famous authors, but what I enjoyed most about this program was hearing the content of some of his personal letters to his wife and some of his personal musings which were written in the margins of his manuscripts. His tongue-in-cheek sense of humor had given rise to some of our most memorable quotes, and these amusing anecdotes were no less entertaining. So if you do hand write your manuscripts, leave those little musings you write in the margins. One day, someone may find them entertaining.

Mark Twain was never one of my favorite authors, but I do have a new appreciation for him after seeing this program. He was a survivor. He was a writer, a wordsmith. He had a way to turn a phrase that still keeps us smiling long after his death.

This made me think. I wonder if he realized that he had such a talent. I wonder if any author realizes their own talent. Do you think Steven King, James Patterson, RJ Rowling, or Nora Roberts realize how talented they are?

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