Believing that my candor was compromised in the past few months I felt unable to write here or anywhere. I want to forget that whole period. It had nothing to do with writing except to choke it off. When that happens, creativity backs up and assumes monstrous forms: worry, sickening fear, stress, insomnia, lack of motivation, negativity; that's the result of no freedom of expression. There was a gorilla in the room and I learned that there are some gorillas I just can't ignore, and that if another one comes knocking I should never ever open the door even a crack.

After being freed from that compromise I completed a draft script of the "Giving Voice" poetry project and submitted it to the group which plans to perform it with me February 28 at the Mad Art Gallery in Soulard. I enjoyed giving the 20 poems different "settings" to enhance the message and impact of each. It was like placing gems in the appropriate jewelry settings. These are poems their authors favored that somehow never got published. I am waiting for feedback on the draft. I hope intensely for the group's approval and cooperation but if I can have only one of those it'd be cooperation.

Next, I got my five best poems out in the mail. They went to Prairie Schooner, which had encouraged me to send again. They now have a brand-new editor after the retirement of editor Hilda Raz after 30 or so years. The policy is still "no simultaneous submissions."

After that I wrote a barrage of short articles that I'd put off, and then had some realizations. One, there is always still time to be great. Two, there is no point in compromising any more. I've already exposed in writing everything I am, and it's easy to find and judge. Like Whitman said, "I contain multitudes." Deal with it. Three, there is no point in making gestures just to be able to say, "Well, I made a gesture." I will either have to foresee an outcome in reality, or it is not worth doing, like applying for jobs 1000 other people are applying for.

8 February 2009

No longer able to pay for things with my good looks, I now barter, performing interpretive dances in the Best Buy in exchange for the multimedia equipment I will absolutely need if I want to sell freelance nonfiction. Nowadays.

Because the future for the nonfiction freelancer is tech. Writers hoping to make money must present editors not only with text but with a package including supplementary digital photographs, video, and recordings (podcasts), all of professional quality. Those are for the online version of the publication. The writer buys this digital equipment & must learn to use it, preferably at a community college. There you can learn techno-speak cheaply and there are labs for editing your digital stuff.

So said veteran journalist Harry Jackson Jr. to the St. Louis Writers Guild yesterday. His talk was fascinating, informative, and discouraging -- JUST LIKE ANY TALK about surviving as a writer. Jackson has survived 40 years in daily journalism by keeping up with technology, working his tail off, and by loving what he does. "If you don't love it," he said, "stay away."

Furthermore: Get a Mac, because it's better for multimedia. Have a specialty such as -- Mr. Jackson's example: "monitoring pharmaceutical companies." And keep up with all the news in this field, research it constantly (do more than google), and treat freelancing as your full-time job.

I attended "The Future for the Nonfiction Freelancer: The Yellow Pad and Pen Won't Cut It Anymore," because I wanted to get my head out of the sand. Well, I put it right back in, and man, is that ever a comfort to me. The only thing I liked hearing was that good writing/good storytelling will trump technology any day.

Teacher evaluations are hard to open and read because they are unanswerable. I can't say, "But--" or "If--"; it's over. There's no correcting, even of the praise ("What you liked a lot wasn't the main thing I was trying to teach you!"). Evaluations go into a semi-permanent file. A student evaluation somewhere says about me, "She wears cheap jewelry."

Even worse, some writer's creative nonfiction features a certain character: Let's say it's you. But unlike a student evaluator, the creative nonfiction writer doesn't judge you by even a vague set of standards; his or her view is totally subjective and piecemeal. The writer "characterizes" you, describing a few of your traits, and, oh God, quotes selected things they claim you SAID. Even if it's a flattering characterization, your gut reaction will be to cringe or criticize. Student wrote about me in a free-write: "Catherine is very organized." What could be wrong with that, you say? Well, she didn't add that I am also very beautiful! I don't believe that anyone who has ever been quoted in print thinks he or she has been quoted correctly. But there you are on paper, exposed to the eyes of strangers, and a mere pawn in the writer's world.

So, yes, real people will feel annoyed and upset when they read what you wrote about them--even if what you wrote was nice. What you wrote won't ever match what they'd write about themselves, if they could; but they can't. Your job as a nonfiction writer: Honesty. And maybe for the sake of peace not presenting your "characters" with a gift-wrapped copy of what you wrote. If they find it themselves they can always say that you didn't know any better.

Author learns that although the copyright reverted to the author after publication, unless it was then specifically registered with Library of Congress, the author's right to this individual article is essentially theoretical. And it's highly unlikely damages could be recovered, for example, in court.

Screenwriters have a union. Songwriters have a union. For freelance writers there’s a National Writer’s Union offering legal advice and grievance assistance to members ($120/year) -- but how many editors would cheerfully “Hire a Union Writer!”? The Author’s Guild offers members ($90/year) much the same support, plus health-insurance deals, but no self-published authors are allowed.

Now read this again and underline every snag, snafu, artificial difficulty, loophole, clusterf---, and cryin’ shame in this true story about our profession.

. . . . Honesty is power. We know this because half our upbringing is learning how and when to put a lid on it. Our culture idealizes honesty, but most of our institutions and social customs are not built on it; instead, they are built to withstand its force. In place of speaking honestly, we are taught to use honesty’s back roads: gossip, kidding, sarcasm, exposé. “Tell us what you really think” is usually only said, these days, as a way to shut you up.

. . .Intimate essays and memoirs and poems serve as antidotes to daily low-grade mandatory dishonesty. My motives for writing intimately, besides the pleasure of telling my version of events, include exploring what happened and why, finding excuses for myself, getting even, and nailing hypocrisy—and I am as honor-bound to nail my own as I am to nail someone else’s. It’s not just a matter of honor, either. If I know I did wrong and in my writing I don’t admit to it, my writing will lack the voltage of honesty.

The personal essay or the memoir provides a portal through which the reader may pay a visit to himself, his real self, the one who doesn’t have to dissemble or lie. Just as an athlete has a moral obligation to not use performance enhancers, the writer of first-person nonfiction is obliged to present readers with an honest record of human experience, not only because it is human but also because honesty itself needs preserving.

On my computer I have stuck a little note: “I have a doctor’s excuse to tell the truth.”

Hidden in that note is a piece of folk wisdom: that the truth is medicinal, that it cures. We believe this so fervently that when we hear a memoirist has lied, we feel outraged, as if we had been given poison instead of medicine. . . .

-Catherine Rankovic, excerpt from St. Louis Magazine essay, Dec. 2006