By: R.H. Nicholson
It is probably not possible for someone to devote a persistent part of his life to writing without contemplating his reasons. Perhaps it started with George Orwell, perhaps not, but it seems that many renowned writers have taken up the cause- to explicate in essay form what motivates them to write and what, exactly, said writing is all about. I am only different in this in that, unlike Orwell, Stephen King, and Joan Didion, who have all taken up this mantel, I am not a successful writer by any usual measure. Although I am published and have been paid more than a couple of times for my work, and although I am highly educated and have taught the craft for more than thirty years, I am, alas, a total failure by comparison. But that failure may, in fact, be exactly what qualifies me to write about writing. You see, I am the other 99%, those who are enslaved to the word but must toil away in obscurity. I am among that wide swath of folks who ache to place words on paper but must do so in near total isolation and with little or no encouragement or support. No one knows (or cares) about our work. Yet we write, just like Orwell, King, and Didion.
I suppose I have known since boyhood that writing was my calling. As a sickly boy, I spent untold hours in my bed concocting stories. I imagined grand locales, created eccentric and colorful characters, and I moved them through soap opera-like storylines with cliffhangers and mysteries and ridiculous twists and turns. Many of my characters became good friends whose friendships sustained me through challenging and difficult times. Later, I was inspired by a handful of dedicated teachers and professors who made me feel as though I could be the next Dickens or Fitzgerald (though never Hemmingway. His paucity of language simply did not speak to me). But, alas, life intervened. I realized one day that I was married and had a growing family that required shelter, food, and education. So my writing career, which, in my head, was an absolute certainty that simply needed to be activated at some fortuitous time, was placed on hold. Of course, the writing continued late at night, but the dream quietly evaporated, like a slow leak in a tire. However, my illicit affair with words burned on and still burns. My keen observational skills have not diminished. My grasp of the nuances of language rages on. I have plenty of stories to tell. I do not necessarily feel “washed up”, simply unrecognized and underappreciated because I have not sufficiently suffered and sacrificed everything for my craft. I have not caught an editor’s eye or filled some untapped literary niche or stuck a cord that lands me on Oprah’s book club list. But I still feel the thrill coursing through my veins. I still delight in composing a powerful phrase or sentence or turn. I still cherish my work. I still create and imagine and construct and compose. I am still a hopeless romantic who believes that what I write somehow matters. I may well die an undiscovered talent, as most writers do. But I will go to my grave knowing that my words sustained me on a level nothing else could. I have created a world unto myself and in that world beauty and justice dwell forever. I long for others to share that world with me (maybe through a bestselling or highly praised work- I am certainly not opposed to commercial success as long as I don’t have to surrender my dignity to gain it). But if they do not, it is undiminished, nonetheless. I am no less successful in that I am a writer, and my work does matter as does the work of so many other undiscovered writers before and after me.
