There Can Be Only One (On Being A Writer, Part III)

"Everyone and his brother wants to be a writer, you know."

The words were out of my mouth before I could consider their implications, before I could decide if I really intended the not-so-veiled contempt they revealed. If I really believed in that contempt.

Not too long ago, I graduated with my MFA in fiction from one of the myriad programs that have emerged to foster writers' dreams over the past ten years. The school itself sponsors a literary magazine and the literary magazine sponsors a short fiction contest-- for which I am a reader. Each summer, short story submissions arrive in my in-box in batches of 20 and I have two weeks to read and return them to the editor who will then move them up to the next round of evaluations or cast them into the slush pile. Now, writers far more able and well-known than I actually end up selecting the prize winners, but me? That's right: I'm the gatekeeper. And I take my responsibility pretty seriously. My job is to pass on the best of the best. My job is not-- most decidely-- to appreciate the personal investment and work ethic of every writer. After all, this is REAL WRITING. This is what matters. There is money to be had by the best writer of this contest and a certain degree of writerly clout. A contest winner is always published. The winner of this competition may well make the leap from a nobody with a word processor to somebody with a word processor AND a credit to his name. Have I mentioned already that this is serious business?

I was explaining all of this to a pair of brand new colleagues (I'll call them M. and J.) from the Genesee Valley Writing Project. We were strolling in the direction of lunch when we got into a conversation about writing and publishing and I mentioned that I was a first reader for this contest. That's when I said it (probably with a roll of the eyes): "Everybody and his brother wants to be a writer, you know." In the moment, I thought nothing of my observation. I didn't mean any harm by it. And I do, by the way, read a murder of bad stories some summers. J was quiet for a moment before speaking: "And we're here with the National Writing Project being told that everyone is a writer."

I like J. Not only is she an experienced teacher who obviously loves the kids she teaches, but she's an informed professional, someone who is thoughtful about education. So when she noted the irony of my statement juxtaposed with the rhetoric of the NWP that I'd already spent the first week of our program espousing, I was immediately embarrassed that I had so summarily dismissed the efforts of the competitors whose work I read. I attempted to amend my comment, to place myself in a more favorable light. "I know it! Isn't that crazy?!" I cried, "We tell people that everyone can write and then we tell them that only a particular type of writing is acceptable." Except I am the one telling these poor, hopeful suckers that the stories they're trying to tell are unworthy.

And, as Hamlet observes, "There's the rub." I enjoy writing myself but then I feel as though for it to be legitimate I have to get it published and I subject myself to the same pressures-- and disappointments-- as the competitors whose work I am asked to judge. I am constantly caught between these two worlds. I want to nurture students' writing, but I have to grade it.  I want my students to love writing, to believe it is personal and valuable and an opportunity for expression that gives them deeper insight into what it means to be human but I also want them to be able to compete-- to get into those 'good' schools, to get the jobs they want, to effectively research and argue their ways to success. It feels sometimes as though I not only wear different hats, but that they sit on completely different heads. There's the academic, standards-driven, literary establishment brain and then there's the expressive, creative, head-in-the-clouds noggin. And even though I tell myself that my core values lie more with the latter, I am beginning to suspect that I live most of my writing life in that former head.

This afternoon I will read the first twenty entries for the fiction contest the competiton master e-mailed to me earlier this week. I will read them and I will sort them. Sometimes I will not go beyond the first paragraph. If the story is not good from the get-go, I know it will never win and I don't pass it on. I am instructed not to waste the panel's time with mediocre submissions. After reading for the contest for three years, I am attuned to the kind of work the magazine expects to reward and I can often recognize a competitor after the first sentence. Some of the writers have not taken enough time to hone their craft-- to even proofread in some cases-- and those first sentences and those first sentences can be a hard read. Occasionally I will read ahead, engrossed in the story despite the fact that the writing itself does not measure up; it is clunky or inappropriately unsophisticated or lazy. These are the stories that really kill me. They are, at the same time, both wonderful and awful. The writer just needs more practice in shaping her ideas. Some of the stories are gorgeously written. Their sentences sing and I continue reading, lured by the beauty of the language or the vividness of the voice, but these stories are like confections-- they tempt but do not satisfy. Like many fashion models, they are lovely but vacuous.

Despite my criticisms, however, I love reading them-- even the bad ones. I try to imagine the writer settled in his writing space, hunkering down before the word processor to feed his dream. I know how hard it is to craft a story and I have the utmost respect and admiration for the perseverence and, yes, ego, that a story requires of its maker. Many of the stories are manifestations of their writers' lives. The men often write of war, the women of divorce and broken families and despite the fact that these submissions are fiction, I know they are true in the ways that good books are true even when they happen in places like Narnia or the Shire. What I do wonder is why these writers feel compelled to submit this very personal work to a contest for judgment. It puzzles me and it forces me to confront some of the duality I experience in my approach to my own writing. These people obviously want to write-- some for very cathartic reasons. Why do they need others to validate this writing? Why do I? Especially when, as the Highlander exclaims when he beheads another poor sucker seeking immortality, "There can be only one!?"