Publish or Perish: It's Not Only for Academia, Part 1
I am the daughter of an obsessed writer. My father, a math
teacher by vocation, a writer by avocation, brought me up
believing that writing is a fine passion and that the highlight
of a writer's life is being published. He gave me his love of
the English language, great literature and great writers. He
instructed me on the importance of realistic dialogue, creating
characters we remember, and good plot twists. I was drawn to his
typewriter before I could spell. In fact, one of our memorable
photographs is of me at about age three, kneeling on a chair at
the table where he wrote. My little hands are poised above the
keys of his sturdy, black Underwood. My expression is thoughtful
and fixed. By the side of the Underwood is a bottle of Schaefer
beer.
When I was a child, I breathed in my father's passion for his
own writing and being published. Before I was old enough to read
his stories, I filled the manila envelopes with his manuscripts
(the onion skin carbon copies ceremoniously filed away), pasted
on the stamps and, holding the precious envelope in one hand and
his hand in my other, walked to the mail box where together we
slid the envelope into the slot. Then the wait began, ever
hopeful, for the news that his story had been accepted. I'm not
sure I knew what would happen when it was accepted, but I knew
it would make him, and thus me very, very, very happy.
Invariably, what happened, of course was that the manuscript was
returned. I felt his dejection as if it were my own.
"Don't worry, Daddy," I remember telling him. "When I grow up,
I'm going to put all your stories into a book and publish them
myself." It was a palpable dream for me.
When my father died, he left suitcases filled with short
stories, only two of which had been published, both in Esquire.
In addition, he'd written three novels about a private eye named
Michael Oliver O'Toole, who remained his companion during his
final years in a nursing home. Even when my father couldn't
remember who I was, he talked about Michael Oliver O'Toole.
This durable friendship with Michael Oliver O'Toole is one of my
favorite memories of my writing father, and I have come to the
conclusion that it is better to have a friend like Michael
Oliver O'Toole than the memory of signing a fat publishing
contract.
I wonder if Dad would agree with me.
I'm not so sure he would. He wanted so desperately to be
well-published. He wanted fame and fortune and, I believe, felt
terribly despondent for not having had them. He was a victim of
the 'publish or perish" syndrome as surely as if he'd been a
college professor.
I am as much heir to those longing as I am the recipient of his
love of writing. The disparity between these two inheritances
has made for a lot of angst in my own obsessive drive to be
"well" published.
I did publish, often, well and once very, very well. I was
thrilled that my father was still alive when I sold my novel
Petersburg to Putnam for a lot of money. I usually don't talk
about the money I have received for my books, and surely doing
so seems antithetical to a column such as this; however, the
memory of what happened because of the sale is vital in my
memory and cannot be told without reference to the dollar amount
of the sale of Petersburg. For as if by the kindness of the Muse
herself, even though my father lay lost in a fog of dementia, I
was able to make him understand. Leaning over his bed in the
nursing home, I said over and over, "Dad, I did it. I sold my
book for $250,000!"
Finally, he turned to me, his blue eyes more vibrant than I had
seen them for a long time. He opened them wide to show delight
and his mouth formed a big O shape. "A quarter of a million
dollars! OHHH!" His smile was wonderful. For that moment, I had
my father back--he'd even, amazingly, translated $250,000 into a
quarter of a million! But the light soon vanished, the O of his
mouth deflated and he turned away. He was gone, lost behind the
shroud of Alzheimer's Disease.
I was ecstatic though. I'd gotten through to him. He'd
understood. I'd done it! For me and for him. Fame and fortune
were on the way. Nothing was going to stop me now.
But it did. Several months later,
I proposed my next book to my editor, a novel set in the Middle
Ages and she said, " Don't write this book, Emily. You don't
want to follow up Petersburg with something like this. It will
never sell. No one wants to read a book set in the Middle Ages."
I wrote it anyway. It was a book waiting to be born. In one
way--commercially--it has been difficult. Although I had a
couple of near sales, I haven't yet been able to sell the novel.
(Although I now have an agent who is very excited about its
sale) Were these rejections difficult for me? Anguishingly so.
Am I sorry I wrote the novel? Absolutely not. Mistress of the
Labyrinth had to be written. For me. I would be sad if I had
never written Petersburg; however, I would not be the person I
am today--a person I am very glad I uncovered!--if I had not
written Mistress of the Labyrinth. (I further explore my
experiences with Mistress of the Labyrinth in my book, The Art
of Fiction Writing.)
Through the journey I am taking with Mistress of the Labyrinth,
I have come to understand that a far truer aphorism than
"publish or perish" is "write or perish". Am I free of "publish
or perish"? Not completely, I still have days when I cannot face
going into bookstores or bear to read a highly regarded best
seller. There are days when I lament, "Why me? Why isn't my book
published?" But those days are increasingly more rare. In my
heart and my gut--it is my mind that sometimes has trouble with
this--I feel that the journey I take in being a writer is far
more exciting and valuable than the experience of being
published. Which is not to say that I believe it is unimportant
to be published. When one of my students completes a story or
book, I do everything I can to help her or him find a publisher.
And I still hope that Mistress of the Labyrinth as well as the
novel I am currently writing will be published. However, I no
longer fear, as I once did, that I will give up writing and fall
into hopeless depression if this doesn't happen.
If being published were the main reason that we write, then
very few of us would be writing. (It is my suspicion that today
writers far outnumber readers.) Yet many writers are haunted by
the feeling that the only way to gain validation as a writer is
to be published.
"If only I were published, my husband, wife, children, I
myself, the world, my high school English teacher, college
roommate, ex-boyfriends, etc. etc. would take me seriously."
"If only I were published, I would quit my job and write full
time."
"If only I were published, I would ___________." (You fill in
the blank.)
And when we are published, as exciting as it can be, the
experience rarely lives up to our expectations. As Anne Lamott
says in Bird By Bird, "I tell you, if what you have in mind is
fame and fortune, publication is going to drive you crazy. If
you're lucky, you will get a few reviews, some good, some bad,
some indifferent. Don't get me started on places where one is
neglected..."
To this, I would add: When we hand over our validation as a
writer to the industry of publishing (which today is,
by-in-large, hopelessly incompetent both as judges of good
writing and as business people) we hand over our creative
passion, and are in mortal danger of losing our connection to
the joy of the journey.
Part 2: The Journey of Being a Writer Is the Biggest Payoff of
All!