This guy I went on a date with ages ago who is now genuinely a good friend of mine is a fairly well known writer, has published a few books, is a creative writing professor at a good university, but every time we get together he talks about how much of a failure he is. He makes very little money which is a big stressor, and even though he is consistently published in magazines like the Kenyon review, is getting into prestigious residences, he is unhappy with his life’s progress. I always tell him to quit this attempt to make money off of his writing and to go work in a bar because he will make more money and his relationship to writing would drastically improve, but he feels like his youth and opportunities to do anything else already escaped him. (He’s 39). I adore him, but find it so interesting how most of the successful writers I know are so married to this made up system. The MFA, the awards, the agent. Writing is an act of courage, it’s not a job. He agrees with me but sees no other way. He knows writing could never be a job and to ask your writing to be a job is to shamelessly participate in its death. I so wish he would free himself, but instead we get coffee. We take turns editing each other’s things, I talk him off the ledge about his current novel, and then we don’t see each other again for 5 months.
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