THE DARK SIDE OF WRITING

The act of writing can be a wonderful experience, one filled with challenge, satisfaction, ego-enhancement and other extremely positive and productive feelings.

However, there is a dark side, too. After the writer has crafted a 'something,' no matter what that something might be, the next step for most writers is the step of getting that something published. Enter the dark side.

For years, I thought that one wrote, submitted the product, sat back and-if the product was meritorious-the product got published, or on radio, or on TV, or on the movie screen. Wow! Was I ever naive. A particularly strong element feeding my innocent stupidity was the more than ample evidence that a great deal of non-meritorious material was getting into print. Surely that meant that deserving material would-almost automatically-be accepted.

In recent years, the horror of the dark side has slithered from behind the veils of my ignorance. Time and time again, I have heard how difficult it is to get even-handed consideration for one's work. First, there is the matter of finding and agent. Here is where the old 'catch 22' enters in: You can't get an agent unless you have published; you can't get published unless you have an agent.

Second, there is the matter of the agent's efforts getting consideration beyond those in the various industries whose job it is to say 'no,' without any consideration of the merits of the work.

The experience of John Kennedy Toole comes to mind. He tried for several years to get his "Confederacy of Dunces" published. One particularly 'dark' editor dangled the prospect of publication before Toole for a long time. Finally, the editor panned the book savagely. Toole committed suicide. Only untiring efforts by Toole's mother finally got the book into print. It won the Pulitzer Prize!

Among writers that I know, equally morose tales abound. These people are honest, hard-working, dedicated and creative writers. Do some of them get in print sometimes? Yes, they do. But the hell that they have to go through, most of the time, to get into print speaks volumes about the dark side of writing. The bottom line, profits, all-too-often drives the industry.

The dark side notwithstanding, writers will continue to write. Material, good and bad, will get into print, on the radio, on TV and into the movies. That is the carrot that relentlessly drives writers, in addition to the self-satisfaction 'pull' of sitting down before a blank page and crafting words into something that never, until that moment, existed. Whether we like it, or not, the dark side exists and we must live with it, fight through it and, occasionally, conquer it!

Empires come and go, including publishing empires, but the written word-sometimes-becomes immortal!