James NortonThere are a couple ways to approach this broad question. One would be to answer this: "Why I do write at all?" The reply: "Because, without some sort of creative outlet, I'd go crazy." The great thing about having a creative outlet is that I'm given a second world to explore - a world that's considerably smaller than the real one, a world where I'm the nominal boss.
At best, anyway. Having a creative outlet can also be like owning a doorway to my own personal prison of frustration, but that depends on how the writer's block is coming along. It should be noted that while my own personal prison of frustration is mercifully free of anal rape, it also lacks delicious cornbread. Also, there are no other inmates to talk to. It's pretty self-administrated.
More interesting, I think, is this question: "Why do I write, as opposed to painting, editing movies, sculpting, playing an instrument or composing music? Why the discipline of putting words together and trying to guide readers through an artificial, reconstituted world?"
It seems eerily possible that I came to writing as a result of a very nice thing my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Ludlow, said about a story I wrote. In retrospect, the piece was sort of a knock-off of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," but I'd like to think it had some of my own little flourishes to it.
Mrs. Ludlow - not always the sunniest of teachers - had just chewed out our class about the low quality of one of our creative writing assignments. "Except for Jim Norton - he wrote an excellent story about exploring a magical candy shop." Or something to that effect.
And there you go. I was the exception. I had publically succeeded at something. In 5th grade, I wrote a speech for the Safety Patrols that got me nominated to take a free trip to Washington D.C., sponsored by the AAA. The secret: I'd written a joke into my speech. No one else had thought to do that, and, as a result, I think mine was the only one that really got remembered by my peers, who were doing the voting.
Maybe that's the key: Writing has gotten me stuff. Writing has gotten me friends. It has gotten me multiple free trips, jobs, cash prizes, social advancement, girlfriends and an easily explainable identity. And when all that surface shit goes away, and when there's nothing tangible and physical that will make me feel allright, writing is still there as a way to sort out and understand what's going on, and rise above it.
You can't extract me from the writing, anymore. Were I to stop completely, I would also cease to be myself. It would be an interesting thing to try for six months, but those are six months I don't have.
James Norton is editor of Flak.
-------------------- Tod Goldberg
I once had a real job. Actually, I once had two real jobs. My first real job went something like this:
7:30am. Arrive at office. Drink coffee. Add non-dairy creamer. Turn on phones. Listen to voice mail messages from temps calling out sick from the only job they will ever get from me. Listen to voice mail messages from people who are newly temps and want that one job they will invariably fuck up beyond comprehension, causing them to forever wander the earth unemployed and embittered ˆ first at themselves, later at me, later still at the whole damn patriarchal society. Add sugar. Contemplate Krispy Kreme.
7pm. Leave office. Loosen tie. Bang head against steering wheel. Sit in traffic. Contemplate ritual suicide. Contemplate going back to school and making something of myself. Contemplate what, exactly, that degree in English has gotten me besides a crappy job getting people temp jobs. Go home. Eat Rice-A-Roni. Beg girlfriend to kill me.
Total time at job: Two years.
My second real job was a little better. It went like this:
9:00am or 9:30am or 10am (depending on whether or not I thought we'd be filing Chapter 11 that specific day or if my boss was going to be hung-over or if my main client was likely to call me). Arrive at office of a "direct response advertising agency ˆ which is code for Joint Where Infomercials Are Made, which is code for Company That Subsequently Was Discovered To Be In Cahoots With Its Main Client Over Some Exercise Machines That Didn‚t Work and Possibly Could Kill Small Children, Pets, and Haitian Immigrants and, Additionally, Was Funneling Money To Some Cult In Texas. Listen to voice mail messages from my main client. I'm now an Account Executive with a very fine cubicle and at least one client who is quite angry that his infomercial "The Magic Scrub That Will Make Your Face Break Out in Welts The Size of Cocker Spaniels Whilst Making You Look Twenty Years Younger" is not performing as well as he'd like in a few specific markets. Specifically, he says, "Spo-KANE is 'sucking ass'" and "who the fuck wanted it in Spo-KANE in the first fucking place?" Go to men's room with LA Times sports section in tow. Wait until my cubicle partner Dan finishes his twenty five minute bowel exercise before I can check the scores. Eat a bagel. Yell at some underling because an infomercial I hate and am somewhat responsible for is performing poorly in Spokane. I pronounce Spokane that way it's actually pronounced, unlike my client, because I'm detail oriented, think outside the box, and am ready to throw myself on the mercy of the cult in Texas. Do some office-y stuff, like prepare for Secret Santa week, think about how to tell my boss that when he says "perfect-o" I want to reach my hand down his throat until I can feel his spleen. Make some calls to Ronco. Ask about getting one of those rotisserie cookers for my mother-in-law. Eat a bagel (they're free and provided by the company that is about to be shuttered).
6:00pm. Leave office. Loosen my baseball hat (casual office - you know how ad agencies are). Bang head against steering wheel. Sit in traffic. Contemplate ritual suicide. Contemplate going back to school and making something of myself. Contemplate what, exactly, that degree in English has gotten me besides a crappy job working for an advertising agency that peddles Infomercials. Go home. Eat Rice-A-Roni. Beg wife to kill me.
Total time at job: one year.
That why I write. That's why I'm a writer.
Tod Goldberg is the author of two novels, Fake Liar Cheat (Pocket Books) and Living Dead Girl (Soho Press). His short fiction has appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including The Sun, Other Voices, and Oyster Boy Review,and has twice been short listed for the Pushcart Prize. He writes the award winning weekly column GOLDBERG in the Las Vegas Mercury and has edited two forthcoming travel books all about the city of Sin.
-------------------- John Scalzi
I write largely for the following five reasons. I suspect most writers write for the same five reasons.
1. I write because I can. I'd like to say I torture myself for my craft, but really, I don't. Writing is the easiest thing I know how to do, which is why I do it; doing anything else for a living involves real work, and I don't want any of that. I was fortunate that I realized early on that I was good at writing, since it allowed me to focus on doing that and getting a lot practice, instead of casting around trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. In terms of what I wanted to do and be, it was the path of least resistance. Now, to be clear: I am not the best writer out there. But writing is what I do best.
2. I write because I get paid. Despite the efforts of television, we remain a literate society. Our world needs words, and people to string them along in a comprehensible fashion. And if you'll pay me to do it, I'll generally be happy to do it for you. As a full-time freelance writer, I'm not a snob about the work I do; in my time I've written everything from 100,000-word books to one-word slogans for online ad campaigns. Whatever works. I have a mortgage and a child to send through college, not to mention a wicked video game habit. I write for money. Dr. Johnson would be proud.
3. I write because it's fun. Well, and it is fun. It's fun to expound on a whole bunch of subjects, to write stories, to think up clever lines, and to basically geek out on the English language. Even the supposedly dry ad copy and other corporate writing I do is fun, to the extent that it's a challenge to write well in a particular format: Composing a clever line of text that is constrained to a certain character length is very much like writing in a particular poem format (although, admittedly, most poems aren't exhorting people to, say, purchase shares in a mutual fund). Writing isn't always fun -- sometimes, like any sort of work, it can be a drag. But most of the time, it's the most fun you can have typing.
4. I write because I have an ego. People write me e-mails telling me how much they enjoyed something I've written. Women who I've just met laugh at things I say and suddenly see me as marginally more attractive (I'm married, so it doesn't do me any practical good. But who cares?); I even got a girlfriend in college because she was impressed with the way I wrote (I had other flaws, alas). TV shows occasionally book me to show up and spout off on a topic, which thrills my mother-in-law to no end. Because I write, more people know of me than I know personally. You may think this is a stupid reason to write, and I wouldn't deny that. On the other hand, I dare you to be sitting somewhere and have someone you don't know come up and say "I just wanted to let you know I like what you write," and not crack a little smile.
5. I write because I want to be remembered. I'll be dead one day, hopefully not anytime soon, and it'd be nice after I'm gone if someone remembered that I existed. One way to do that is to leave a nice long paper trail they can follow back to my life and how it was lived. I don't mind if it's not a lot of people; if it's just some great-great-great-granddaughter tromping through the family archives for a school genealogy project, that's good enough. So if you're that great-great-great-granddaughter and you're reading this now: Hey, there. Nice to meet you. Would you mind cloning me back into existence now? Being dead really stinks. And I have some more writing to do.
John Scalzi is the author of the forthcoming Rough Guide To The Universe, and the author of the groundbreaking shareware novel, Agent To The Stars.
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