BEING TOUGH

GORGEOUS SNOWSHOE TRAIL

This morning I’m sitting in my yellow chair. I’m thinking about writing, writers, rejection slips, the occasional acceptance slip and all that goes with being a wordsmith and just how damn tough you have to be to be a writer. 
Because, if you’re a masochist, don’t mind being uncompensated for most of your work and enjoy rejection, then do I have the job for you. 

DARN BRANCHES

Recently, a friend suggested my writing was similar to Charles Bukowski’s, so I’m going to quote Charles more than once.

Charles Bukowski received an extremely interesting rejection slip.

“Dear Mr. Bukowski:

Again, this is a conglomeration of extremely good stuff so full of idolized prostitutes, morning-after vomiting scenes, misanthropy, praise for suicide etc. that it is not quite for magazines of any circulation at all. This is, however, pretty much a saga of a certain type of person and in it I think you’ve done an honest job. Possibly we will print you sometime, but I don’t know exactly when. That depends on you.
Sincerely yours—-“
Charles Bukowski, Portions From a Wine-stained Notebook

SQUIRREL'S NEST ON SNOWSHOE

I said to a friend who has published a novel and is working on another one that many writers are very sensitive and yet are as tough as nails. They have to be.

​For one thing, there are so many temptations to knock writers off their true path. However, because many writers are tough, they put up a gritty fight. Their dukes are up against the rigid existential explanations many people intrinsically accept as beyond criticism. These soulful questions do not sleep for the true artist.

SNOWSHOE NEST SUSPECT

Stephen King wrote that before he submits a novel to his publisher he gives it to some folks to read and then they give him suggestions on how to improve it and on whether they enjoyed it or not.

​For the average writers, who are almost all struggling, it can be excruciatingly humbling and nerve-wracking to be laying your novel out there. To go from the quietness of your writing room and to plunk the novel down in the public arena, before you have even had a publisher reject or accept the novel. One thing for sure, you should trust the people who you ask to read your unpublished novel.

COWS TREES AND ICE

And what about all the writing contests where the judges can be as fickle as a hen in a seed factory? 

I remember reading the guidelines for one writing contest. It’s demanding wordiness made me think, how can I possibly enter my story when everything has to be so perfect? The entry needed a certain font, particular margins, with no margins for error, we had to use the Voodoo special submission format, it should have absolutely no spelling errors, be grammar error free, we could only use certain paper of a specific size, no lines, be mailed only when the moon was as full as it could possibly be and on and on and so much on and on that I declined to submit. I mean, would they turf a Tolstoy story if it were written on a paper bag?

​But, do you know what the greatest irony was about this call to submit guidelines? In their document was a glaring grammatical error. Find Waldo. It wasn’t that hard.

FARM HOUSE

It’s a jungle out there and the only thing that keeps a person like me writing is that I love writing and I’ll be darned if I’m going to stop writing because a publisher was rude, or a judge doesn’t see my story as being worth a vote or what I write isn’t the in thing, or I write like a working class writer who seldom uses the gold star words the so called cultured folks consider essential.

SUE TEACHING BUSTER HOW TO START A FIRE

Here’s something that not everyone sees. I was in an Ontario library. I looked up my book in their computer system. I found me. And at the top was written, ‘Larry Gibbons, 1947-.

​There’s no way I want to fill in the blank at this time.

BEAUTY IN FRONT OF MY NOSE

It’s ironic, but being unsuccessful in life can be advantageous to your writing. This is one of the koans I’ve been wrestling with since my brain’s first synapse fired off its fledgling electrical impulse.

Here’s another Bukowski quote.

“Pain doesn’t make anything, nor does poverty. The artist is there first. What becomes of him depends upon his luck. If his luck is good (worldly-speaking) he becomes a bad artist. If his luck is bad, he becomes a good one. In relation to the substance involved.”

Charles Bukowski, Portions From a Wine-stained Notebook

ONE OF THE CULPRITS WHO IS EATING OUR MOBILE HOME

What the heck. One more Bukowski quote.

“And the trick is to stay propped up for 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or 90 years yes eyes open while the flies get stuck in the paper and the great paintings are stolen and the faithful wives run off with unfaithful lovers, all to die in the morning, unclasped and cold and kissless.”

Charles Bukowski, Portions From a Wine-stained Notebook

I  always like to end my blogs on a positive note.

GEOMETRIC SNOW