Writing Isn't Easy and You Know It, Mr. Irving!
I am currently reading John Irving's "In One Person." I enjoy Irving, but I realized something today that pisses me off. The last three books of his that I've read, the protagonist is a writer.
I realize that you write what you know, and that maybe having a character who's a writer is more interesting than say, having him or her be an accountant or something. But in all of these books, no mention at all is ever made of the struggle to get published. No, his characters just write, and then two chapters later, they are publishing their third novel. And they are at least making enough money to live on, because these characters never have another job just to pay the bills. Oh, and there are always movie rights.
For the writers I know, the day-to-day struggle just to find time to write is at the core of our lives, as is the seemingly endless rounds of submissions and rejections. The vast majority of us never get anything published, and the majority of those who DO actually get published have a book or two die on the remainder tables with very little notice. Tom Clancy kept his day job at an insurance company until he sold his third novel, because writing is so unpredictable and undependable a career.
It's not just that I resent like hell the implication that writing is easy, that getting published and making a living out or writing is something you just make up your mind to do and — voila! — you're all set! I also resent it as a reader, because how can i trust anything this character is telling me, if he can't tell the truth about what he does for a living? What kind of writer is he that there's no mention made anywhere of checking the mail box anxiously hoping his latest story has been accepted somewhere? Not a rejection letter in sight. And Irving's characters just keep writing and publishing, there's none of the crap of self marketing a writer has to do that makes you feel like an ugly hooker.
I'd been annoyed for a long time the the favorite device of so many movies seems to be, when the heroine has lost a job, gotten a divorce, and she's broke, and has no marketable skills, suddenly at the end of the movie the solution is that SHE WRITES A BOOK! And she's an immediate success! Hooray!
You never see a character in one of those chick flicks suddenly realizing that the answer to everything is go back to school and become a brain surgeon! Why? Because becoming a brain surgeon is hard! It takes a long time! So our heroine will just write a book, and trip over a publisher dying to publish it and promote it and she'll become an instant success! See how easy it is?
But now I'm pissed because I realize there are writers perpetrating this fraud all over the place, and writers should know better! Why does John Irving belittle what he does by portraying it like it's NOT a lot of hard work?
Yes, I'm grumpy from having spent ten hours at a job I don't enjoy when I would much rather be writing. I'm annoyed enough that I may actually write a letter to Mr. Irving and ask him why he contributes to the pernicious stereotype that writing is easy.
I realize that you write what you know, and that maybe having a character who's a writer is more interesting than say, having him or her be an accountant or something. But in all of these books, no mention at all is ever made of the struggle to get published. No, his characters just write, and then two chapters later, they are publishing their third novel. And they are at least making enough money to live on, because these characters never have another job just to pay the bills. Oh, and there are always movie rights.
For the writers I know, the day-to-day struggle just to find time to write is at the core of our lives, as is the seemingly endless rounds of submissions and rejections. The vast majority of us never get anything published, and the majority of those who DO actually get published have a book or two die on the remainder tables with very little notice. Tom Clancy kept his day job at an insurance company until he sold his third novel, because writing is so unpredictable and undependable a career.
It's not just that I resent like hell the implication that writing is easy, that getting published and making a living out or writing is something you just make up your mind to do and — voila! — you're all set! I also resent it as a reader, because how can i trust anything this character is telling me, if he can't tell the truth about what he does for a living? What kind of writer is he that there's no mention made anywhere of checking the mail box anxiously hoping his latest story has been accepted somewhere? Not a rejection letter in sight. And Irving's characters just keep writing and publishing, there's none of the crap of self marketing a writer has to do that makes you feel like an ugly hooker.
I'd been annoyed for a long time the the favorite device of so many movies seems to be, when the heroine has lost a job, gotten a divorce, and she's broke, and has no marketable skills, suddenly at the end of the movie the solution is that SHE WRITES A BOOK! And she's an immediate success! Hooray!
You never see a character in one of those chick flicks suddenly realizing that the answer to everything is go back to school and become a brain surgeon! Why? Because becoming a brain surgeon is hard! It takes a long time! So our heroine will just write a book, and trip over a publisher dying to publish it and promote it and she'll become an instant success! See how easy it is?
But now I'm pissed because I realize there are writers perpetrating this fraud all over the place, and writers should know better! Why does John Irving belittle what he does by portraying it like it's NOT a lot of hard work?
Yes, I'm grumpy from having spent ten hours at a job I don't enjoy when I would much rather be writing. I'm annoyed enough that I may actually write a letter to Mr. Irving and ask him why he contributes to the pernicious stereotype that writing is easy.
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