Serious writing and popularity
August 28th, 2005 by Bill
It’s been ages since I’ve posted something, so I thought I should post this - although it is not related to business writing or Web writing but the business of writing. Novels, scripts and that sort of thing. I posted this as a comment on Citizen of the Month, one of my recent favourite blogs. It’s in connection with the post there called I Wanna Be Taken SERIOUSLY!
As a writer who desperately wants to be taken seriously (but only after the mortgage payment is made), I sympathize with those writers who have the same desire. But it has always struck me the only sure way of doing this was to die - preferably at an early age.
Sadly, dying young is no longer an option for me. The blush of youth has metamorphosed into blotchy red spots pocking a pasty complexion and a W.C. Fields-like nose from one too many benders. Still, dying under mysterious circumstances may be an option.
The one hitch to it all is the dying business. The will to fame can’t overcome to the will to live. I suppose the reality is I’m just not a genuinely serious writer, just a wanna-be.
I recall way back in what seems like the beginning of time the singer-songwriter Jim Croce. He had a pleasant song or two on the radio. (I think even Frank Sinatra covered his "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.") He was quite popular but at a middling-star level. Until he died. Then, it seemed everyone discovered he had been some kind of quiet, affable genius. Some spoke of him in the same breath as Lennon-McCartney. I remember thinking at the time, "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown? Genius?"
Personally, I’ve always liked my conception of Shakespeare - a working schmoe who wrote what was popular. It has always seemed to me, no matter how lofty his placement in literature now, at the time he lived he was essentially a writer of what was popular.
I admire anyone who can get something completed - a novel, script, whatever. It’s harder than most people think. If they can complete something that’s good, even better. And if they can make a living at it - now that’s really something.
Besides, most people who judge merit based on popularity or obscurity wouldn’t know a good work if it walked up to them and shat on their boots. I feel blessed that my own tastes allow me to enjoy the popular and the obscure, the tragic and the comic, the light and the heavy. Those who can’t have a limited number of choices. Mine’s as vast as the world.
Frankly, people who decide to read/not-read something because it’s Chick-Lit, science fiction or some other category are idiots.
Update:
Two things … First, another drawback to the dying method of achieving popularity is that some other s.o.b. gets to collect your royalties. Second, in case it isn’t obvious, I ain’t planning on dying anytime soon. My tongue is in my cheek here.
Tag: Writing
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