After a hiatus of ... well, quite a while, the boys and girls of L.I.T.E.R.A.L. have come up with the latest writing prompt.
Q. "What will make you truly feel that you’ve made it as a writer? Seeing your byline? Holding the book in your hands? Seeing it climb up the charts? Your first book launch? What will finally get you to tell people that yes, you are a writer?”
That's a very good question. It's right up there with "What will make you feel you've succeeded in life?" Where "life" is the question, the answer certainly isn't making the first loan payments for your car, house or condo unit. Certainly it's not marrying one woman you love-- though there was a time I'd thought that was enough.When the question is life, it's very tempting to go whole hog on your wish list of accomplishments and accolades, the stuff you have to have before you can really tell yourself, "I've arrived." Or, "I've really, really lived."
When the question is writing, it's also very tempting to go whole hog on the answer, to raise the brass ring so high that looking at it makes you dizzy. I already know I'm a writer. I'm just not a very good one if whatever I write doesn't move the people it's supposed to move. The problem is that everyone else is also a writer as soon as he authors his first badly written grade school composition. And here's my brass ring: until my writing does the impossible (bring about world peace, raise the dead, create a universe from scratch) or the highly unlikely (cause a violent and bloody revolution, win a Nebula), I will always be filed under "everyone else."
Sadly, no one's that good, on purpose. Karl Rove had maybe a quarter billion in funds, think tanks, copywriters, Fox News and he still couldn't deliver a win for Mitt Romney.
...
If I lower my goals to realistic levels and still allow myself to dream, though, then I'll settle for the following indicators, for now.
I'll know I'm "on the road to being made" if I can write a straightforward novel or story where my characters are real, not convenient stereotypes or only simple mouthpieces for my politics or philosophy (cf Ayn Rand's John Galt). F. Sionil Jose accomplishes this in Ermita with Ermi Rojo and Rolando Cruz, but they are still, primarily, mouthpieces in the greater dialogue among the themes of Jose's novel.
I'll know I'm made when someone I don't know quotes me because he finds that my ideas (and therefore, my writing) makes sense to him.
I'll know I'm made when I'm as well-known for writing and related endeavors as Ian Casocot, Third Domingo, Arnold Arre and Carl Vergara. This of course will never really happen, but a man can dream, can't he?
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