During his recent speaking engagement at Wabash College, bestselling writer Dan Simmons recounted how Harlan Ellison changed his life at a long-ago writers workshop just when he was about to give up writing in favor of teaching full time. Ellison read his story and anointed him in that way all young writers dream of being knighted: you are not only a writer, you are a great writer, and you have to continue writing.(In another version of the story, which Simmons told at a brunch at WHC 2000, Ellison said, “If you don’t keep writing, I will hunt you down and kill you.”)
Follow the link; it’s worth a listen, and it’s a great testament to the power of the encouraging word. But here’s where I have a problem with it. Simmons reads from Ellison’s own account of their conversation in which Ellison compares being a writer to being cursed. Your family will resent your craft, Ellison says, because it will take time away from them. But you have no choice. You are a writer, and that means you must suffer.
I’ve heard variations of that line many times. That writers must sacrifice their friendships, marriages, health, and sanity on the altar of their craft to be any good. That good writers are unhappy writers. That they must bleed words.
I am so, so tired of that bullshit.
- THE AUTHOR ARTISTE - April 18, 2013
- Guest Blog by Matthew Warner: NINJAS HERE - September 17, 2012
