Inadequate

What an odd remark.

Harlan Ellison, a literary genius celebrated many times over in the area of science fiction, was once considered, by his English teacher no less (how many of us have had awful English teachers who didn’t know a wit about writing?), to have the least amount of creative talent. “You’ll never amount to anything,” he told him in so many words. Or something like that. Harlan took this as a personal challenge, and upon being published, mailed his old English teacher every time he sold a piece of literature. By the same token, he’s admitted to discouraging writers that he didn’t feel had a chance to succeed or were woefully inadequate in skill. Given his roots, it’s ironic that he would use the same critical device on someone else.

It seems a bit cruel, but for those who know nothing about Ellison, it’s right in character. Perhaps he thinks this is the best way for a struggling writer to succeed. After all, that’s what happened to him. When told that you’re a failure there are two ways to react: accept the words as gospel and find something else to do with your life, or make it your personal crusade and battle till your very last breath until you have proven that you are both an intelligent and successful writer.

I, however, have a different take on this. I can’t stop the music from playing in my head. No matter how hard I try, new ideas keep sprouting up, and eventually words spill out of me like sweat from pours, sometimes in small chunks and often raining down in thousands of words. So for someone like a Harlan Ellison (how far it is to fall from that pedestal!) or an underpaid English teacher who obviously couldn’t make it as a writer (how many of those do we have?), being told that I should find something else to do with my time is merely an annoyance. These words will keep coming, even if the entire population of the earth threatens to skin me alive and feed me to the wolves.

It’s not a person’s place to tell someone else what they should do with their life. Even though we think their struggles are futile, if one wants to take a shot at becoming a full time author, why shouldn’t they? It’s their call (or calling), and it’s not up to us to make up their minds for them. This is the pursuit of happiness, and who knows? They might invest the time to learn the rules of grammar, become better read, and get the practice they need to be a decent, if not a highly successful, author.

Another thing that struck me also relates to this. Harlan came out of the pulps, a day in which authors were paid a penny a word for their writing, and could survive by writing a slew of short stories. Some of what was published wasn’t exactly classic literature, and was vomited out by scores of authors using house-developed characters and well-known plot structures. It’s easy to argue that many of the pulp writers probably weren’t very good and wouldn’t amount to anything.

Of course, one’s skill set can change appreciably when he or she is tasked to write in volume. Practice helps tremendously, and many great authors came out of the pulps, to the surprise of few. While technique must be mastered to make practice more effective, the truth is one will get better if they simply write more and more.

Which leads me back to the main point. If we refrain from being douchebags, isn’t the best advice to study the rules of grammar, and read and write as much as you can, as often as you can?

Practice does wonders for one’s ability to compose and put down thoughts. The more one does this, the more coherent they get. One’s first works are never their best; can anyone claim otherwise?

Of course, you can practice until your eyeballs pop out of your head but you won’t reach your full potential unless you strive to get better each day (a notable admission from my proposed advice). If you do everything in your power to get better, you will improve. Take your lofty goal, break it down into manageable chunks, and you will succeed regardless of how complicated, half-baked, illogical, ill-advised or exhaustive your plan is.

Whether Harlan’s teacher was right or wrong matters little. At one point Harlan wasn’t the best writer in the world, but he chose to do something about it. Revenge was his motivating factor, and if that’s what it takes to fire you up, then by all means, behave in the same black-hearted manner that he did.

But keeping a feud alive and hatred in your heart is neither wise nor healthy. Instead of using that time to get back at those that wronged you, why not use it to write fresh, engaging material that could earn you your next cup of coffee? Personally, I want to be a prolific writer, so the idea of wasting a single moment on something as trite as revenge is out of the question.

Yes, success is the best revenge, but so is ignoring the black holes in your life. Might it feel worse for that ridiculous English teacher if he or she found out, second hand, that you went on to become a great writer and you won’t even acknowledge them? Might it also be satisfying to know that that very same person is still working the same dull job, while you’re living the life of your dreams?

So yes, telling a person that they have absolutely no talent at what they do, no matter how bad they are or how much they enjoy it, is a pitiful waste of breath. I’m going to keep on writing, the world be damned. If no one wants to buy my work, so be it. I’m not forcing anyone to buy it, and I’m not entitled to make a single dime off of it just because I put it up for sale. I will get better the more I publish; I do not need to hold personal vendettas in order to play out my dark fantasies. I’ll just put them in a book and kill that bastard off.

The words keep coming, and if I don’t write them down, they’ll drive me crazy. The same stories keep coming back, begging for me to put them down. It’s my gift, or more precisely, my condition. I don’t feel normal or well unless I do a certain amount each day. It’s kind of like how a runner feels when they’ve slacked off and know they should be running. Eventually the body heals up and is ready to go despite the day’s hectic schedule.

It isn’t right to criticize unless the person that you’ve given advice to hasn’t acted upon it. Then, by all means, rip them apart. Your time means something and if someone comes to you seeking honest improvement and does nothing with the gems of wisdom that you’ve bestowed upon them, there’s no helping them. One must responsibility for their own actions or they won’t advance. Yes, writing is challenging, but that’s no reason to be lazy or give up. It’s a way of life. If you’re not willing to put in the effort to succeed, perhaps you shouldn’t call yourself a writer.

They say a writer is one who writes and an author is one who has written. Every day when I look in the mirror, I want to be able to tell myself that I am, in fact, a writer. I’d rather be a doer not a dream. Active rather than passive. What’s the point of rambling about books that don’t exist when I have within my power the ability to realize them?

I’d rather get my hands dirty than chip around the edges. Jump into this with your whole self, your whole heart. The more you resist, the more you hold yourself back.

To hell with what anyone says about writing, myself included.

Just write.

It’s not as if your English teacher is going to show up at your house and stone you to death with your words.