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At the end of part one of this post, I asked "Am I the dupe of a snobbish literary education?" It's a snobbishness that encourages one to be picky about the definition of good writing, not just what is good writing but also what type of novel may be called literature, who deigned to publish your work, whether you have an agent or schlep along sending work to the slush pile. This is sad.
It's very sad because unlike many writers currently being published by what the snobbier literary critics would call hack houses or worse--print on demand and vanity presses--I, frozen with a bout of literary paraysis brought on by good-taste rules, have failed to do the one thing all novelists must do: finish my novel. Any novelist who's fiished a book, good or bad, trumps me.
Rejecting the temptation to make excuses for my failure to finish, I think that I suffer from too much navel gazing, omphaloskepsis, which includes partly the self-pressure to write it right. I am the victim of my own worst imaginings, the sucker of fear, and more than likely systemic pessimism.
In part one I gave a big clue to my malady, leaving readers with video of Sesame Street's Don Music, "Oh, I'll never get it! Never!"
Part of my problem has been that in my head I recall the stories of novelists like New Orleans writer John Kennedy Toole who wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning book, A Confederacy of Dunces.
The title derives from the epigraph by Jonathan Swift: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." (Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting) [Wikipedia]
If I believed Swift's quote for myself, that I am a genius in a confederacy of dunces, and could confidently assign every naysayer to that confederacy, I probably would have written more than one novel by now, and if anyone called my body of work "bad," I'd huff and say "Those who can do. Those who can't become critics." But in my heart, I don't believe that. I think art, all art, should have a standard.
If you read my comments to LoveBabz on my post regarding a distrust of self-publishing, you'll get an idea of the magnitude of my ailment. Jane--possibly Friedman of Writers Digest--left a comment and probably has it right: I'm the kind of writer who feels the need to be vetted by the publishing industry. But this need still doesn't explain why I haven't finished my novel, why I've put blogging and other types of writing and work ahead of my supposed first love?
It's not fear of criticism because I've sat through some brutal writing critiques. I think it's a trap in my own convoluted thinking, fear of wasted time--possibly the fear and depression that gripped John Kennedy Toole--that a life's work may mean nothing.
In my 20s I learned that Kennedy's life as he knew it was a tragedy. He wrote this wondrous book and sent it around to publishers who rejected it. One day, he killed himself. It was his mother and a Loyola University professor, Walter Percy, who managed to get the book published. Then comes the praise, the Pulitzer, when poor Toole was long ago dust.
His story stuck with me in the worst possible way. Instead of internalizing it as the lesson "persevere because a change is gonna come," I think I let it burrow down as, "Don't waste too much time on anything that's not a sure thing." Or was that my father's voice in my head? He's the man who talked me out of attending the Academy of Dramatic Arts after I was accepted, saying "Theater is not practical. Go to school and get a real degree to fall back on." From that I surmised "Always go for the sure thing."
Is it me and the fear of looking like the dreaming fool?
It's me. I see me even as a young mother, feeding my baby girl, and watching Sesame Street, me identifying with Don Music, the poster boy for "It'll never work."
A friend who's written at least eight books, including one novel, told me one day, "Nordette, you need to stop worrying. Your mind leaps ahead to every potential road block. You over-analyze. Don't think about whether anyone will buy your book. Finish your book."
That was three
