Ben Tanzer: “But how does one get a piece on the show? Or even meet Ira Glass who I understand rests in a cryogenically sealed chamber between shows? I imagine one could lurk outside the studio or Ira’s home, though again please note that I am not a stalker, and that the charges to that effect filed by NPR’s legal office here in Chicago did not stick. One could also submit their work, which I have done, but how well does one’s actual work reflect their wit, timing, and ability to move the public to tears, joy, and maybe even arousal in the space of one sentence? Not well my friend, not my work anyway.” (via Pete Anderson)
Category / Writing
The Successful Writer
The successful writer knew he was a success because the checks kept coming in and everybody told him that he was a wunderkind. He knew he was a success and he wanted you to know it too. Because this was what successful writers did. He knew this, even if nobody has passed along a manual. The curious bubble, once so spacious during his great climb to the top, involuted. The little people became littler. He had less patience for half-formed opinions, in part because they reminded him of the half-formed opinions that he had kept away from publicists, journalists, and, in particular, other successful writers. He believed that the time for growing was not at an end exactly, but certainly going to occur on autopilot.
Only his family and closest friends knew the truth. They tolerated the successful writer, and they were obliged to keep printing the legend so that the successful writer would remain successful. His innovations became derivative. His stories became more commercial. Book tours permitted him to work on his persona, to hide the disguise. He didn’t need media training for this. The gestation came naturally.
He had stopped challenging himself after the third novel. He had merely banged out sentences after the fifth, relying upon the editor to massage his copy. And who would know really? They didn’t print the editor’s name anywhere in the book.
His advances had accrued enough for him to purchase a home in upstate New York. And by the time his wife had abandoned him, losing patience and shedding tears over what had become of the ambitious young man who had dared to go into the writing racket, he had enough left over from his better half to finance a bacchanalian midlife crisis.
There was additional lucre in the public appearances. The offers by universities to teach. The publishers put up more money for hotel rooms and other expenses that they could write off. These were fringe benefits. He was enough of a successful writer to live off his books. But he took these ancillary gigs anyway. Because a successful writer doesn’t stop being a success.
Some young readers weaned on the successful writer’s early work met the successful writer and were seduced by him. But they begin to see through his incurious and almost mandatory bonhomie. And the successful writer soon saw himself parodied in literary circles by not so successful writers who would, in a decade or so, find this kind of success if they kept down the avaricious path and valued the small pecuniary rewards over the words.
When the successful writer died, there was a big funeral and many newspaper articles. He was declared irreplaceable, a legend, other words and terms of art often confined to the obituary page. But in ten years, half of his books were out of print. Aside from an occasional reference in a review, the literati stopped mentioning his name. A few writers — mostly friends of the successful writer — tried to restore his reputation. But the successful writer could not find the same success during his lifetime. The smaller people he scorned, who had real talent and who had thrown it all away on booze and heartache, were now the successful writers. It was a pity that they had not lived to see this.
It is a cycle that repeats over and over. There are, of course, exceptions. But this is why success should remain a fickle measure always in the company of skepticism.
How About Splunge?
At the Chronicle of Higher Education, Rachel Toor examines creative nonfiction and insists that “we can come up with something better to call ourselves.” (via Kenyon Review)
Pay the Writer
Brian Farnham, The Biggest Deadbeat Editor in New York
As Choire Sicha reported back in September, Brian Farnham, the editor of Time Out New York is not a big fan of paying his freelancers. And that includes me. I wrote a profile piece for them in July, but didn’t get payment for it until four months later. And the only reason I was able to effect payment that quickly was through persistent emails and phone calls, going directly up the ladder to Farnham. I did, after all, have rent to pay. Farnham made repeated promises about the check coming from Chicago. This never happened. And after several communications from me, his staff had to cut a check from the New York office — something that the TONY cronies had previously told me was “impossible” — and I had to go down there and pick it up at their office. Because given the constant misrepresentations, I didn’t trust them to get my address correct.
A few weeks after another piece I wrote for them ran, I sent an email to find out what the status was on this second payment, thinking I might experience the same four month return time and receive similar misrepresentations from the TONY offices. I never received a reply. I followed up two weeks later. The Editorial Coordinator wrote back telling me that she was “checking in with our accounts payable department to find out when your check will be cut.” I left a voicemail asking for more specifics. The Editorial Coordinator hadn’t bothered to inform me in her email that, oh actually, “the financial director is on vacation this week.” I fired back a forceful but reasonable email, telling them that I would call their office “every day from Monday on — with equitable and reasonable intervals, I assure you — until we resolve this dispute, until we have a definite answer, and until there is a check in my hands.”
This afternoon, I got a phone call from Farnham. It was an effort to try and shake me up. I had experienced this approach before by bullies in high school, but hadn’t seen much action in my adult life outside of bars and law firms. “How dare you!” he screamed at me repeatedly over the phone. “Who do you think you are?” These were lines out of a bad melodrama. I responded with facts. I pointed out that I was not the one who had allowed four months to pass before the last check. I pointed out that I was not the one to let two weeks pass before replying to a payment query and repeated that I was completely understanding of a delay in payment, if only the efforts were communicated in a forthright manner. “You’ll get your check,” he seethed, sounding like a frat boy who can’t get a new pledge to hand him his beer bong.
When it was clear to Farnham that I could not be shaken up, that I would be polite but not kiss his ass (apparently, I was the asshole for being a professional and following up on payment), this infuriated the man. So he followed up with an alpha male threat that I “would not write for Time Out New York or any other magazine I edit.” Perhaps because of his Everest-sized ego, it apparently hadn’t occurred to Farnham that I’m not a fan for writing for publications that don’t honor communication, much less timely payment. Every place I have written for has always communicated with me in precise and reasonable terms, communicating to me when a check is late and being honest in every way. Most people, I believe, are kind and reasonable. “That’s fine,” I said, “I have no interest in employing my professional services for fucking deadbeat douchebags.” He hung up. A coward and a bully to the last.
I should point out that I think Michael Miller is a fine and demanding books editor. Because of this, I was happy to arrange the Sacks profile with him on short notice, getting a copy of the book the day before I had to interview the man and staying up during one twenty-hour stretch to read and prepare and ask Sacks questions he hadn’t been given before. So on this note, I regret the developments.
But if you are pondering writing for Time Out New York or any publication Brian Farnham is involved in, I present this anecdote to reveal just what you might be in store for.
You see, a writer is as much of a professional as a plumber, a barista, a lawyer, or a doctor. They have rents to pay and mouths to feed. Why is it then that so many want to screw them over?
[UPDATE: Emily Gould is a sweetheart. And for what it’s worth, Farnham had his deputy messenger me the check this morning.]