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Pity the Writer Who Wins an Award, Contest, or Anything Else
It’s all about winning, isn’t it? Winning brings fame, fortune, and leisure, but is that all it brings?
People think writers either have charmed lives or lives of constant torment because of their inner demons, both would be wrong perspectives. Writers may produce because they love it or, as one poor fellow I heard about, had to produce to keep a criminal enterprise from kneecapping him for unpaid gambling debts. Initially, they told me he produced one sleazy book a month and then they upped it to one a week. I don’t know how the poor guy survived or if he did.
Few consider the difficulty involved once you’ve achieved some degree of fame. Yes, there are those like Joyce Carol Oates, who seems to have books, plays, and films, flying off the page even while sleeping (joke here), and others, like Lydia Davis, who is another truly prolific writer, or even Margaret Atwood. Frankly, I don’t know how they handle their fame unless they find solace in the hefty bank accounts their production has garnered for them. But I jest.
They must have moments, where all they want is a few days, weeks, or months of solitude when they can watch butterflies flit from flower to flower or birds fly in murmurations in the sky. I guess Stephen King and J. D. Salinger had the right idea: live far away and become…
