Okay, I know I promised this blog post last week, but sometimes life gets in the way.  Better late than never, though—right?

Anyway, the idea for this topic came to me after a post that I put on one of the Writer’s Boards earned me an embittered “tongue lashing” by a few fellow writers.  Writer's Boards can be brutal at times, even though (I thought) their primary purpose is to offer mutual support, encouragment and amicable networking opportunities.  Just me being naive again, I guess.

Here's the gist of what happened:  My editor and friend, Catherine Rudy, runs a very small independent publishing house called “Wolf Pirate Publishing.”  Catherine is one of the most gracious, philanthropic, and munificent people I’ve ever met.  She shares her time and considerable talent generously with others and has a genuine love of literature. She has a quick wit and a somewhat sardonic perspective on life, and her skills as an editor are, in my opinion, unmatched.  Like many small publishers, her business has floundered amid the crashing waves of economic turmoil.  Still, her passion for literature and her desire to promote talented writers and their work, has not waned.  Although her publishing endeavors have fallen a tad short (or perhaps because of that fact), she has decided to defy the odds and undertake a very unique venture called “The Wolf Pirate Project.”

In brief, the Wolf Pirate Project offers authors of contemporary literature a real opportunity to sharpen their skills, polish their work and perfect their craft while providing writers and readers a unique forum by which to connect and interact.  The idea for the Project (a non-profit endeavor) arose from Catherine's genuine desire to encourage literacy and bring readers and writers together in an appreciation of literature as a worthy form of art.  The Project hopes to accomplish this goal in part through creative writing courses and through its writer’s workshop (the latter designed to take talented writers through the entire pre-publication editing process—this is the workshop that shaped TURN OF THE SENTRY into a publishable novel).  The Project seeks to encourage reading skills and help to promote reading as a viable form of entertainment in a society that has largely lost touch with the simple pleasure of a good novel. A love of reading develops early in life, and consequently, the Project seeks to focus on young (middle grade) readers, helping to foster a genuine passion for reading by providing material that will inspire and engage them, rather than bore them to tears.  Towards that end, the Project is developing a reading text book which will (hopefully) be used by middle grade students and young adults. 

Which (finally) brings me to the point of this blog post.   Catherine is seeking submissions for inclusion in the textbook.  She is looking well-written short stories of all genres.  The catch, however, is this:  since this Project is a nonprofit (charitable) endeavor that is just now being launched, there is no money available to contributing authors.  In fact, Catherine is operating at a loss in order to get this project up and running, shelling out a good deal of money from her own pocket to see it through.  Many people find this incredibly hard to believe (i.e that someone would care enough about a charitable project that they’d be willing to lose money on the deal) and when I posted a request for submissions, explaining that this is a non-paying project (although the author would get full credit for the story, retain all rights, and hopefully receive some positive exposure), Catherine (and yours truly by association) got blatantly accused of “taking advantage” of talented writers by refusing to pay them for the work that they do.  Some of the comments got downright nasty.  

Hmmmm….interesting.  Apparently some writers don’t feel that they should contribute their writing—the sweat of their brow, their product, their primary source of bread-and-butter—for “free,” nor did they believe Catherine and The Wolf Pirate Project are on the up and up, suggesting that perhaps they are hiding buckets of money in the back room, looking only for slave labor that they can later cash in on.

It’s natural that people, writers included, want to get paid for the work that they do.  Hell, I do.  Writing is often hard and tedious work.  It's my craft, my trade, my vocaton—of course I hope to earn money doing it.  But aren’t there times when a writer should consider contributing their talent towards a worthy cause without the expectation of monetary compensation?   Isn’t it, to some degree, our responsibility to do so? 

I was a lawyer for 17 very long years before retiring to pursue my more peaceful existence as a writer.  For two of the states in which I was licensed, it was a requirement for every attorney to log in a certain number of “pro bono”  hours—that is free legal representation purportedly for the good of society.  In the state where it wasn't a requirement, it was a very strong suggestion.  In New Jersey, the Court assigned pro bono cases to you, whether you liked it or not, and you were hard pressed to get out of it, no matter how busy your schedule was.  The theory behind the pro bono requirement was that lawyers had a specialized skill, and should be obligated to use that skill for the good of others and to "give back" a little to society.  Sort of legistated morality.  Granted most lawyers make a ton more money than writers, but should that matter?  Shouldn’t the same principles apply?   I’m not saying that a writer has to put him or herself in a financial bind by obligating themselves to an overload of pro bono work, but if a writer has a well-written  short story from which middle grade students can benefit, is it so terrible to ask that the writer submit the story for publication in a text book without the expectation of payment?  After all, they keep the rights to the story and are entitled to sell it elsewhere.  In fact, I maintain (probably against popular opinion, and at risk of being labeled a radical, an extremist, a socialist, a communist, a flaming liberal, or a dozen other less endearing terms), that every person who has a talent or skill of some sort (and that, believe it or not, includes ALL of us) should be obligated to, on occasion, use that skill or talent for the betterment of society without expecting monetary compensation.  There.  I’ve said it.  Now go get your pitchforks and flaming torches.  It doesn't matter.  I believe what I believe, which is that this world would be a much, much better place if we all took that concept to heart, and voluntarily contributed our time and talents for the benefit of others.

Alas, I’m afraid that many in our society have a bit of selfish streak that prevents them from engaging in this kind of overt "sharing and caring."  At the risk of sounding like my mother, I see a lot of the "what's in it for me" mentality reflected in our younger generation.  I’m not even talking about our teens and preteens so much as I talking about the 20-30 something crowd.  And I've seen it among my colleagues to an alarming degree.  Maybe I’m not looking in the right places or meeting the right people, but as a "for instance," 9 times out of 10, when I talk about the mission work that I do with my church (i.e. spending my own time and money to fly to Louisiana to help strangers rebuild their houses, or spending a Friday afternoon serving lunch to homeless people in my area), I get the most puzzled looks along with some version of the question, “what do you get out of it?”  Not everybody, mind you—some people get it.  But many do not.  And it is this same attitude  that causes some writers to go ape-shit on me when I suggest that they actually submit one of their stories for use by a nonprofit project without getting paid.

Maybe I’m totally wrong.  Maybe every author should demand top-dollar payment for each and every quality piece of writing they produce.  Maybe, as some of  my critics have pointed out, it is attitudes like mine that keep writers trapped in the cycle of slave labor, where they routinely don’t get paid nearly enough for the work they produce.   Maybe I’m just too naive and altruistic for my own good, and it is people like me that are perpetuating the problems so prevalent in the literary industry and perhaps even society as a whole.

Or maybe not.

I don’t know. 

But I do know that I have never woken up at 3 a.m. unable to sleep worried that I’d given too much away “for free;” to the contrary, I wake up wondering if I've done enough.  Money, in my view, offers only a fleeting illusion of security and while it may be a necessary commodity to live in this world, there is oh, so much more to this life than the “almighty dollar.” And if I resign to only give of myself—my time, my talents, my writing—only in exchange for a few pieces of green paper….well, that’s what I really consider “slave labor.”     

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

A.M. Boyle

P.S.  I apologize if this Blog post is “too long” for your taste (yes, I have been criticized for that as well), but writing is my most comfortable mode of communication, and I wasn’t aware of any regulations limiting the number of words I choose to use to express my opinions.  Thank you for sticking with me, though—I hope it was worth the extra cup of coffee.

PSS:  If you want to read more about The Wolf Pirate Project, and explore the workshops and creative writing offerings that are available, visit their website at http://wolf-pirate.com/

                                        

Let me start this post with a disclaimer.  Everything in here is just opinion.  More specifically, it is my opinion as it pertains to writers of fiction, such as myself.  None of this is based on science, statistics or medical evidence of any kind.  Nor is any of this meant to apply to that rare and admirable breed of writer who takes on the challenge of non-fiction.  So, all that being said, feel free to read on.

The other day, I posted a quote on my Facebook status that read, “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." ~E.L. Doctorow.  Although Mr. Doctorow probably meant the quote to be taken as tongue in cheek, it really struck a chord with me, and I found myself thinking about it a little more deeply.  After a bit of reflection and self-analysis, I decided that the quote is, to some extent, true.

You see, growing up, I pretty much thought I was nuts.  Not in the cute, “oh you’re just a little wild and crazy kid” kind of way—rather, in the “you are certifiably insane and ought to be locked up” kind of way.  You see, I had a cast of characters living inside my head.  Not the scary “Sybil” variety, i.e. they didn’t pop up at odd moments and take control of my life.  It was more like a television set had been implanted inside my head, and I had instant access to some really cool shows.  I could turn it on or off anytime I wanted, and I lived vicariously through the characters who had fascinating lives of their own within this hidden world.  I had quite a cast at my disposal, and whenever I was bored, angry, frightened, anxious—or sometimes just because—I would simply turn to whatever “channel” I wanted and retreat into another world filled with drama and adventure. I’d sit for hours, staring at nothing in particular, just letting it all unwind inside my mind.  It came in very handy at school when the teacher was babbling about something I couldn’t care less about (and they wonder to this day why I still can’t do long division correctly).  It came in handy when, as the youngest of five, my viewing preferences for our one and only television really didn’t matter.  It came in handy when my mother would make me go to bed ridiculously early simply because she needed the peace and quiet; It came in handy when my parents dragged me along on endless appointments with realtors and home builders and financial institutions in preparation for their major move from New York City to “the Country.”  You get the drift. 

Back then, I didn’t worry about it.  I was a child.  Children were supposed to play pretend.  To me, this was just a form of pretend.  And, on occasion, I would even slip into one of my characters, find out what it was like to be him or her.  It was all in good fun.  But as I got older, progressing through my teen years and into young adulthood, my cast of characters, rather than diminishing, actually grew, with more spin-offs than “All in the Family,” and plots so complex I had to make a flow chart to keep up.  I had figured out by then that these “mind games” I played were not a common experience shared by my peers or, if they had been, were abandoned along with childhood.  Consequently, I began to feel that perhaps there was something not quite right with me.  I tried several times to stop the constant parade of adventure going on in my head, but when I did, I found that I truly missed my characters.  I felt cheated, and it would put me in a foul mood.  Ultimately, when boredom and frustration reared their ugly heads, I would fall back on old habits.  It was like an addiction. 

So I kept it up, eventually surrendering to the notion that this was simply a part of who I was, and it would never go away.  Besides, it caused no harm that I was aware of.  Still, I told no one about this secret world I had invented for fear that they would confirm what I already suspected—that I was certifiably insane. 

Time passed and, as the stresses of life eventually took their toll, I ended up across the desk from a psychologist, trying to resolve unresolved grief while grappling with a childhood that was less than stellar.  In the course of these deep and confidential conversations, the spirit moved me to finally confess my treasured secret.  With a mix of trepidation and relief, I told my psychologist about the cast of characters in my head, and the constant intrigue and companionship they had provided over the years.  He nodded and smiled and asked a few questions until finally, gathering my nerve, I asked him, point blank, “So, tell me, does that make me crazy?”    With a look of bemusement, he sat back, looked me straight in the eye, and said with a chuckle, “You’re not crazy.  You’re a writer.”  He then proceeded to tell me of how several other confused writers had come into his office at one time or another, wondering, too, if they were crazy for experiencing the same phenomenon I had just described.

Apparently, I was not alone in my affliction after all.

I simply hadn’t had the brains to figure out that what I was imagining in my head needed to be put down on paper.

And so a writer was born.  I sorted through the reams of stories backlogged within my psyche and shuffled through the mob of characters I’d created in order to find those most suitable for this new project.  And when I found just the right ones (actually, the most persistent and vocal of the bunch), I sat down in front of a keyboard and let them tell their story.  I never intended to have anyone read what I was writing, but wrote solely for my own enjoyment.  It gave life and breath to what had been trapped for so many years in my mind, and that alone was strangely gratifying.  I gave my characters free reign, and they guided me through an adventure that later developed into my debut novel, TURN OF THE SENTRY.  I never used an outline, and never told my characters what to do.  I was just the transcriptionist.  If I had to describe the sensation, it would be like turning on your favorite TV show, and writing down everything you heard while trying to describe everything you saw.  Some days it was quite a challenge, and I struggled to keep up and find the right words without getting in the way of the story.  But each day was exciting in its own right because I never knew for sure what was going to happen, and I never knew how or when it would end.  And as I continued to tell their tale on paper, the other characters in my head quieted down, lulled by act of the storytelling.  They didn’t disappear, mind you, but their zeal was quelled slightly by the inherent promise that one day they, too, would have their turn.

So what is my point in relaying this bit of personal trivia?  It is two-fold, really.  First, in my humble opinion and as I see it, a person does not learn to be a writer.  Sure, you can learn all the rules that pertain to writing—you can learn about the parts of speech and sentence structure, and rhythm, and tense, and all that stuff you read about in creative writing courses.  There are formulas for developing and outlining a story; formulas for creating believable characters; formulas for writing natural-sounding dialogue; formulas for developing plots and subplots; and so on.  But a person does not learn to be a writer by following the rules anymore than a person learns to be an artist by doing a paint-by-number project.  The urge to write—the compulsion to write—is inborn.  It is woven into the very fabric of a writer’s soul.  It springs from their heart, their being, their very selves and, in fact, it is a part of their very selves that they commit to paper when they write.  Which brings up my second point:  Despite my therapist’s assertions to the contrary, it is my firm and honest belief that writers, for the most part, harbor a sanctioned form of insanity. I believe every true writer of fiction is a little insane, albeit a socially acceptable form of insanity. 

The need to write is based upon a strange, persistent and sometimes disturbing compulsion to escape into an unseen dimension—another realm, if you will.  For every writer of fiction, there is some part of their psyche that is detached from the world around them and tethered somewhere else.  Writers have the ability to retreat into another world at will.  It’s not an escape from “reality” per se, since the world created by the writer is, for us, real to some degree.  Rather, it is a passage into an alternate world, and by describing that world on paper, its existence is somehow validated, and that part of ourselves which remains there, even during those hours when we are going about our lives in the “real” world, is validated as well. 

If you have this “Writer's Gene,” as I call it, it does not guarantee you’ll produce a best seller—hell, it doesn’t even mean you’ll produce something worth publishing.  What it does guarantee, however, is that you will write.  You will have to write.  You will be unhappy—even miserable—if you don’t and you will never feel completely satisfied until you do.  And I can practically guarantee you that those books that you’ve read that are really, really good—you know the ones I’m talking about: the ones you can’t put down, even when it’s 2:00 in the morning and you’re dying to get some sleep; the ones that stay in the back of your mind long after the last page has been turned; the ones that you will pick up again and again, just to relive the experience—those books were all written by someone harboring the sanctioned insanity of the Writer’s Gene.