Confessions of a Failed Fiction Writer

As I was hiking along the Meramec River (St. Louis, Castlewood State Park), I mulled over a sort of memoir concept that I’ve been thinking about for over a year now.  The only thing stopping me is that I know I will expend lots of time, energy, hard work, getting it as perfect as I can and it will go nowhere.  That is the crux of the story.  As I near 60 (I’ll be 58 next month), I have to accept that despite writing fiction for forty years, my “success” has fallen short of my ultimate goal — to earn enough from my fiction to pay for the cost of writing the next story.  In short, to make a living, however meager, from my writing.  It’s a dream I’m sure many of you have.  I know I could list all my accomplishments, including the Pushcart Prize nomination, but that would merely be my rationalization for failure.  Now I’m at a point where it is hard to justify writing anything.  Hard to justify an addiction that has cost more than it has benefited.  You may have the same problem.  You may… perhaps we should create a self help group.  Fiction Writers Anonymous (FWA).  We can sit in a group and talk about our effort to avoid making literary allusions, avoid the rabbit hole.  Whoops!  Sorry. 

At our age, looking forward, looking to see if it is worth writing a “memoir” about failure, knowing how much work it will be, makes it difficult to start.  Don’t tell me about the joy.  I’ve had plenty of that.   But it’s sort of like having sex with someone you will not respect afterwards.   It’s like creating orphans.  It’s like investing in poverty.  Is it better to work hard at being a financier, drink a lot, and at least help others with your money?

 I very seldom post blogs without doing any rewrite.  Perhaps this one is a good expample of why I shouldn’t.

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