The kind of writer you want to be
Don't be the other kind.
Young writers are often reluctant to ask for help from established writers they know.
Unpublished and unknown, these young writers can be hesitant to ask a favor from a published writer who they have taken a writing workshop, or class, from. Even if that published writer is admiring of their work.
Ask.
When your ship comes in, you can help the next boatload of young writers. That’s how you balance the ledger.
Lamentably, though, I've seen too many young writers who want you to buy their first small press (expensive) books, to attend the local production of their plays, to go to their poetry readings—and you do, often paying full price, even when it's a stretch for you. Even introducing them to their future editors. And so on, all of which you do eagerly, hoping it will help. Then when they begin to have a career, they forget those lean years when stand-up people supported them when very few others did. And they don't help others. They seem to have conveniently lost their memory of those struggling years. And for the help others gave them.
I know such a writer in New Orleans. I know such a writer in New York. I know others elsewhere. The way things go with that sort of thing, those writers may just glide through life taking and not giving back and doing just fine. We all know justice can be fickle and arbitrary. The writer in New Orleans—I bought his books faithfully, went to his readings and plays faithfully. Then, once, I asked him to please come to a reading I was hosting for young writers in a local bar. Not for my work, mind you. His response? “I’m doing my laundry that night.” I still have the e-mail.
The writer in New York I helped get a job that has been very good to him over the years. I once asked him if he could help my daughter—again, not me—by asking a critic to review her work. He’s connected. His response? In so many words, no.
Don't be one of those writers. It's a kind of betrayal to the gods who have been so good to you. Remember how bolstering to your spirit it was to have someone on your side when you were struggling. To have someone believe in you, often when you didn't believe in yourself.
How to be? Be like Molly Peacock. A wonderful poet, memoirist, biographer and editor. She and I were teachers at the same school once. She’s always busy. Nevertheless, I once asked her for a blurb—a comment that is, customarily, one of praise—for a book I had written. She wrote one of the best, most movingly realized blurbs anyone has ever given me—when it meant a great deal to the book’s possible success. I’ve never forgotten that. If she asked me to help her in any way—not that she would ever need that—I would do so at the drop of a hat.
Fortunately, there are others like her. Who understand what even a small gesture of recognition and praise can do for a young writer—much less handing that writer the name of an agent or editor. My old friend, Charles Salzberg, in New York, is another. He's spent a lifetime helping other writers. I know. I was one.
That’s the kind of writer you want to be.
Yes, Richard. I might add, if you have teachers in the past who've made a difference in your writing or writerly journey, thank them in your acknowledgement to your "big" book.
So true, Richard. I met a 13-year-old neighbor yesterday who expressed interest in writing. I gave her my card and asked her to send me something. She writes nonfiction. A future journalist, I asked? No. Architect. I soaked in a little of her youthful spirit and energy and am better for it. Thanks for this moving post.