The Author's Handbook

17. Coping with the Writer's Life

17 Coping with the Writer’s Life IN THE DECADES WE’VE PRACTICED OUR CRAFT, WE’VE MET a great many would-be authors. As each eager aspirant approaches us for advice, we wonder if she’ll be someone who makes it or one who drops out somewhere along the way. We can’t predict fame or fortune and don’t expect anybody ever will. Some start out so pathetically ill-prepared, we wonder what malady paralyzed their teachers. But even some of them learn the craft of writing with incredible ease once they see the need for it. Others start out with the gift of spinning flawless sentences and quotable paragraphs but they never learn to put related passages end to end. Saddest, to us, are those who have an obvious flair for writing and have learned the craft well, yet can’t cope with the personal and social hazards of an author’s life. There are many hazards not often revealed to the reading public. Even writers don’t always learn the whole truth about writing colleagues until they’re gone. Two close friends who died a year or two apart come to mind. Each wrote a great many major magazine articles and successful books; you’d know their names if we mentioned them. Both lived in fancy New York suburbs, but there the similarities end. Their stories in many ways exemplify the extremes to which a writer’s lifestyle and self-image can carry him and his family. We’ll call the first author Karl. For as long as we knew him, he drove the same powder-blue Ford; it had become his personal calling card like Truman Capote’s roses and Tom Wolfe’s white suits. His house had been paid for years ago, he nurtured an old portfolio of blue-chip stocks, and he kept so much cash in the bank that his bankers took him to lunch periodically just to stay on his best side. Yet he was paranoid about going broke, as had happened to so many writers he’d watched. His wife complained bitterly about what a tightwad he was. He rarely entertained and never traveled outside the United States unless he could do it on assignment. Yet his will endowed a prize for writers and his widow lived comfortably on the interest from what he invested “to take care of her after I’m gone.” Karl was eager to steer young writers down the straight and narrow. He proudly showed them how he jotted down every fact and anecdote onto 3 × 5 cards, which he spread out on his king-size bed when it came time to organize a book or article. “That way it goes 1, 2, 3. You can’t work any other way,” he’d warn, “or you’re going to start procrastinating.” Procrastination was his biggest 203 sin. Though he always met his deadlines, we knew when he was working against a tight deadline because he’d always phone the few of us who were a local phone call away and talk for hours to put off the dreaded confrontation with that first blank sheet of paper. Underneath his gruff, mostly no-nonsense exterior, Karl was the softest touch around for any writer with a hard-luck story. Some paid back their debts. Most didn’t have it to pay back and, out of embarrassment, avoided Karl forever after. It prompted him to tell us, “I hate when someone asks to borrow money because I just know I’m going to lose a friend.” To his dying day, Karl blustered and bragged to colleagues. To intimates he revealed that deep down, despite all his success, he still felt he was an incompetent hack. Konrad, as we’ll call the second writer, drove only the current model of the flashiest car. But he drove into more than his share of concrete abutments because he always took Johnny Walker along for the ride. He was the life of every party and if nobody had a party scheduled, he’d throw one. Konrad could sniff out a story halfway across the world, which was where he’d always rather be. He roamed back roads and bayous looking for unique material, but when he found it his fingers would freeze up. Konrad couldn’t make deadlines. Still, he managed to keep signing contracts and grubbing advances from book and magazine editors. One time, the muse told Konrad he couldn’t write...