Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
From the Land of the Lost Blunderbuss
A Writer on Writing
Posted on February 18, 2003 in Writing
I went to a lecture by a writer on how to bring real life into one’s writing. It proved to be little more than a book-signing with a long prologue that was hardly on topic. I didn’t learn anything new except a few plays on words that I wrote down just in case I found the time and the place to stuff them into my fiction.
She got her oooos and ahs, which made me wonder why I was there. In a few week’s time, she told us, her mystery would be reviewed in the New York Review of Books. I couldn’t help but compare us and our attitudes. When I roved around the bookstore afterwards, I couldn’t help but see pile after pile of remaindered novels — former bestsellers — on sale. All parroting the nation’s prejudices in foreign and domestic affairs.
I can’t see a novel on those tables that has my name on it.
On the way home, I commented to Lynn that judging by the political comments she injected, this writer just had to have a fictional world where there were evil people running about. I won’t be able to sell if that is what they are looking for.
Deeper thoughts. The more book signings I attend, the more I think that my writing just might not fly in today’s marketplace. Not in a literary magazine or a small press. So what do I do?
Keep writing.
Second thought: Are there others out there who, like me, find writers who are pushed by publicists to be boring in the extreme?
Third thought: Will being artificially “sick” mean that I lose momentum on all my projects?
Final remark: Thank you, everyone, who reads this letter to the world even though there’s nothing special about me that will turn a New York editor’s head.
