THE GAME

By: Dianne Taylor aka catta   {Published}

I don’t remember ever wanting to be anything but a writer. While my girlfriends played with dolls and dreamed of becoming mommies, nurses or school teachers, I wandered off with my Big Chief tablet and a fistful of sharpened pencils and wrote about - writing. Oddly, I shunned the creative writing classes in high school, terrified I wasn’t good enough and too shy to risk humiliation by submitting my work for critique. My English teachers praised my poems and encouraged me as much as I would permit. My education was cut short and I didn’t complete high school. For many years I didn’t write a word, keeping a mental notebook of images and phrases I gathered while in a hostile but colorful environment. Though those were tough times, I am grateful now for having the opportunity to experience life, light and dark. I watched and listened - and learned.

The winter of 1979 was especially bitter. I was living in a mobile home at the edge of four hundred acres of woods and creeks with a man who was gone most of the time, Cudjo, a Chow/Lab cross, and a beautiful little black Chow I named Shastah. I had no TV, no telephone and didn’t drive a car so, stranded and bored, I began to make up stories to amuse myself. This proved an interesting pastime but was far too easy so I increased the challenge by rhyming my stories. By Spring, I had over three hundred of the pesky things, some of which I thought weren’t too bad. Curious, I became a member of a local poetry association. I forced myself to accept an invitation to one of their monthly meetings where each poet was asked to read a sample of their work.

I chose a long poem I had just finished and shook like a willow in the wind as I croaked out the words. There was a pause when I finished. Then everyone applauded politely and someone else took their turn to read. I sank into my seat just grateful to be anonymous once more.

After the meeting, a tall man came up to me, grinning like a used car salesman upon first approach. "Have you ever thought about publishing your poetry" he asked. In truth, I had not and told him so, adding I thought it was too expensive an endeavor. His smile broadened. "How about if I pay you?"

And so began a long and mutually profitable relationship with Ted Parkhurst, founder and CEO of August House Publishing. Three books of story poems later, I am here to tell you I am one lucky poetess. It doesn’t happen like that very often, this business of getting a publisher’s attention. I am ashamed to say I didn’t know this and didn’t fully appreciate my good fortune until Ted began booking me to speak to various writers groups across the South. I heard horror stories about lost manuscripts, walls papered with rejection slips and nasty letters from editors. All this from writers whom I thought were very good; mostly students but some individuals with considerable talent.

I began to assess what I was hearing and spent as much time talking to budding writers as I could about their experiences with publishers and editors. I passed on what I learned, listening and getting feedback from everyone from high school teachers to University Administrators and the end result wasn’t pretty. I dealt primarily with poets but what I heard crossed over into most areas of our trade. And the bottom line was this: unless a poet was "connected" at a very high level or had numerous degrees to his credit, you could pretty much give up any aspirations of being paid for your work. The best you could hope for was the inclusion of your poem in some obscure, hand-printed publication or, if the gods smiled upon you, a spot in some vanity press’s anthology for which you would be asked to pay premium rate. I was amazed. Then I got mad.

No one expects carpenters to build homes for free. It would be the height of absurdity to wander into the Lexus plant and demand someone give you a car and smile while they do it. Yet, for some reason the majority of us who write give away our work every day. Speaking from an editor’s point of view, I know it would have been possible to pay for each poem I used in my column. No one could have retired to Bermuda on the money but it would have been an incentive, perhaps. But the State newspaper for whom I worked made it very clear I was lucky to get any cooperation from them at all. Don’t even ask for money, not for poetry! I got around that little detail by sponsoring contests each month; a "gimmick" which turned into optimum advertising for the paper. My poets didn’t make much but it sparked some interest from people who would have, perhaps, never given a thought to sending in submissions.

Through my membership in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, I was privy to many other contests and competitions which I passed on to my readers. Happy to be showing poets how to make a little money with their work, I was therefore stunned to learn I was the object of much disgust among my own. And this is when I made the discovery that we, as writers, may well be our own worst enemies.

I never would have believed a poetry editor could receive hate mail but I sure did. And they gist of it all was this: by showing how poetry could pay, I had, in effect, "sold out". By not aspiring to the lofty standards which scorn payment for "art", I had dragged the holy profession of poem-writing into the literary gutter. Better to be poor and proud than to actually take money from those who could not possibly, in ten lifetimes, understand the torment of a poet’s soul.

Huh?

I have never been able to comprehend how writing somehow transforms a regular person into some kind of martyr; how the ability to put express oneself well in print makes one superior to the unkempt masses. Writers are people. No more and certainly no less. I don’t have to tell you that. Communication is our forte’ and we all have something to say, albeit in different styles and abilities. To be so grateful for the chance to be in print that we would gladly hand over our hard-won manuscripts with no thought of compensation is not only sad, it is unnecessary.

If you are a poet, call your local library and find out when and where the next poetry society meets in your area. If there isn’t one, start one. The same with writers of other genres. If you love what you do, if you want to help others love it, make it come alive! Don’t be afraid of constructive criticism and be kind to those who ask your opinion. Enter contests, sponsor contests - DO something to encourage writers to come out of the shadows and, most of all, be proud of what you do.

If you are a new writer or new to the Internet, listen up. The people who inhabit #The_WritersClub on IRC are smart, compassionate and stand ready to help you learn about your hobby/profession. There is a wealth of information to be gleaned by a visit with any one of the people who you will meet. I would have given anything to have had the chance at this place when I was beginning my career.

I don’t know everything about writing but I do know about people. There are some fine ones here who are eager to assist and, maybe most important of all, are just as eager to listen to you. Published or not, educated or, like me, self-taught, you have something to say. #The_WritersClub is the place.

Write on!

Catta

BEGINNER'S LUCK