No Title

"Writing is easy: all you do is sit
staring at a blank sheet of paper
until the drops of blood form on your
forehead."
-- Gene Fowler

A few years ago, while returning to Canada from France, where I had been collecting stories about our longest-serving governor general, Georges Vanier, for a posthumous Reader's Digest profile, I visited my grandmother in England. She was ninety-six then -- a spry little Cockney who read three romances a week and walked at a half-run in a flurry of apron strings.

"Well, dear," she asked as we sipped tea against a backdrop of lupins and hollyhocks in her garden in Sheerness, Kent, "what are you doing with yourself these days? How are you earning your living?"

"I'm a writer, Nan," I answered, a trifle bemused. "I've always been a writer. I thought you knew that."

In a momentary silence between us, my grandmother reached for a cookie and dipped it in her tea. I used the time to think back to France -- to the dusty village of Trosly-Breuil, twelve kilometres east of Compičgne, where I'd spent an entire day interviewing Georges Vanier's widow, Pauline, in her greystone farm house. That had gone well. But later, during a brief trip to Genova, Italy, my luggage had been stolen from the trunk of my rented car in a restaurant parking lot. Losing my clothes wasn't important because they could be easily replaced. My tape recorder, too. But the cassette in it? And my research file, which had taken me several weeks to build? Except for what information I could remember, I was telling myself despondently in that garden, my work was completely lost.

"I know you've done a lot of writing through the years," my grandmother went on, "but I don't mean that at all, dear. I mean, what do you do from nine till five each day? Where do you go? Don't you have a normal, regular job?"

"Yes, Nan," I answered, now with
agitation. "I write. I regularly put words on paper, shuffle them around, play with them, change them -- then sell them."

"You do what?"

"I write. I sell words -- in magazine articles and books."

"But is that really work?" my grandmother asked.

Such assessments of the writer's craft are by no means uncommon, even from those who one day aspire to master it. All too often they perceive putting words on paper as far too romantic an occupation to be work in the ordinary sense of the word. Nothing, I can assure you, could be farther from the truth.

In fiction, the writer is a free bird who retires at will to an attic, pours himself a scotch or two, then dictates his pearls of wisdom into a tape recorder in a flood of the deepest, most tragic nostalgia. Sometimes, he summons his secretary to take them down in shorthand, type them, then rush them off to the publisher, who is waiting eagerly, of course, because these pearls are "money" pearls that will make both him and his author rich.

In reality, however, things are very different. Admittedly, the writer is still a free bird who may come and go at will, but since there's probably not a person alive who can produce a polished piece of writing of any respectable length without researching it, angling it, focussing it, tailoring it, agonizing over it, then changing it endlessly to try to make it better, he's more of a rare bird. In this sense, he does work that is far from ordinary, and certainly not romantic at all. And if quality is his goal, it promises to be incessantly hard into the bargain.

The most oft-published writers you've seen between book covers or in our better magazines, would doubtless agree. Theirs, they will tell you, is a tough, arduous profession in which idle dreams or silly notions have no place at all. Writing is made of intricate details, sprawling complexities, long, fatiguing hours of research and typing, and a relentless pursuit of saleable ideas. "Every writer, without exception," the eminent American psychoanalyst Dr. Edmund Bergler once said, "is a masochist, a sadist, a Peeping Tom, an exhibitionist, a narcissist, an injustice collector, and a depressed person constantly haunted by fears of unproductivity."

I wouldn't go that far. Nor, I think, would my colleagues. Most, though, would probably confess to having anguished a lot from time to time. The intensity of their job is one thing; wondering how, when, or if their next assignment will eventually arrive, is another. When writers are sometimes narcissistic, then, it may well be to camouflage their masochism. What else but masochism would cause them to follow a profession which is precarious at best, and which demands resilience, optimism, and stamina to fight constantly diminishing odds?

But writing is much more than this -- with a decidedly happier side. It is also rewarding and interesting, offering an abundance of challenge and variety. One Vancouver writer I know makes a respectable income from planning and producing company newspapers and selling articles on Canadian and American history, nature, and conservation. Occasionally she writes on pet subjects, too: sports, health, and handicrafts. A friend in Montreal, meanwhile, works successfully on a desk in her basement laundry room, of all places, producing trade paper pieces, fillers for larger magazines, and items for various government pamphlets -- all between helping two companies prepare reports and public relations handouts and write speeches for their senior executives. She gets enough jobs to keep her afloat from one year to the next.

I, on the other hand, prefer to concentrate on fewer but larger assignments that take more time and pay considerably more. Occasionally I might write a corporate speech or a short piece for a specialized magazine, but most of my work entails crafting articles of between 3,000 and 5,000 words for large consumer magazines sold on the newsstands.

To do it, I've needed to be versatile. Long ago I recognized that writers who specialize rarely ever make steady livings from their work. Those who do are usually highly regarded experts in politics, consumer protection, personal finance, or law. They are both knowledgeable and so intensely hooked to their fields that they rarely need to step into another. The most successful, however, are industrious men and women eager to apply their natural curiosity and need for diversity to numerous different topics, thus considerably increasing their chances of being published in almost as many different places.

Over the years, I've grappled with countless important social issues without knowing any more about them initially than what I had read in a newspaper or heard on radio: the tragedy of teenage suicide, the plight of the unemployed, the anatomy of labour unrest, the dreadful scourge of illicit drugs, the ugliness of prostitution, and the values of parole, all of which have touched hearts and minds in every corner of our land. I've written articles, too, about animals, inventions, music, and crime, not to mention essays on rivers, mountains, death, and sex, and have ghost-written for members of Parliament and academics on such varied topics as their life experiences and great moments in sport, and their views on television violence and the inadequacies of IQ testing in our schools.

Like others who have chosen a similar path through writing, I've built up a prodigious bank of personality profiles on the way. This includes pieces on the photographer Yousuf Karsh, the jaunty, Irish flautist James Galway, actor Donald Sutherland, opera tenor Jon Vickers, and actress Kate Reid. I recall sipping whisky-sours in a Toronto hotel with ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev one week, then nursing an orange juice backstage at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry the next, while researching an article on Canadian-born Country singer Hank Snow. Bandleader Guy Lombardo spoke to me in an Italian restaurant on Manhattan's 46th Street, boxer Sugar Ray Robinson in a London pub. And that wizened old Indian, Chief Dan George, granted me a five-hour interview in his Vancouver hospital room following major hip surgery.

Within only eight days, I once flew to balmy Los Angeles to interview singer Paul Anka, then went directly to snowbound Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, to talk to an electronics expert for a piece about citizens-band radio. Just as rewarding was a 300-kilometre drive from Thunder Bay to remote Geraldton, Ontario, Canada, to profile a seventy-year-old garage clerk named Ted Tarkka, who had spent nearly half his life as his town's Santa Claus, volunteer fire chief, and unpaid "veterinarian," tending neighbourhood pets, and wildlife struck by vehicles on the Trans-Canada Highway or left injured by indiscriminate hunters in the woods. And how could I ever forget travelling to Truro, Nova Scotia, to interview a twenty-three-year-old school teacher named Maura Cameron who gave up her summer to drive sixteen severely handicapped teenagers, nearly all of them confined to wheelchairs, on a cross-Canada camping trip?

As appealing as they may instantly seem, however, journalistic excursions like these should never tempt anyone to quit a full-time job and plunge obliviously into the business. There is too much to consider first. Being a self-employed writer -- a freelancer -- means being your own boss, with both the advantages and the problems this can entail. On the one hand, of course, freelancing is being free to work when you want to, when only you feel the time is right; on the other, it requires the judicious scheduling of assignments so that working time is always properly apportioned and never lost. Time, after all, is the freelancer's most valuable commodity. Used well, it can make writing enjoyable and reasonably lucrative; applied badly, it makes writing a thankless chore, a drudgery, and this inevitably shows in what the editor gets to see.

In the course of coping -- or trying to -- some freelancers have become rare breeds, let alone free birds. The most successful, it seems, are those who have adapted. Those who have not, struggle. "I don't love writing like you do," says one disillusioned writer I've known for many years. "I simply like writing because it saves me doing other things I've tried and hated, like teaching school and selling encyclopedias."

He talks with incessant fervour about producing articles for small magazines, the bulk of his output, and threatens one day to reveal himself as an earth-shaking novelist or playwright. But he does little to realize either. His greatest talent is inventing the most diabolical excuses for not writing at all. In so doing he has become walking testimony to the tongue-in-cheek confession of American comic novelist Peter De Vries -- "I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paper work."

Every morning, my acquaintance jogs to keep fit, does crossword puzzles to expand his vocabulary, and plays chess with a retired physicist to sharpen his mind. He then suddenly remembers that the blank paper he fed into his typewriter the previous night still awaits the beginnings of his magic touch. So, at around midday, he returns to his office to work. No. Wait. That's wrong. He then goes for lunch and, to avoid facing the blank paper on his return, decides a little more research is in order and saunters to the library to do it. On his way back, he stops off for a drink, ostensibly to help him put his life in order, gather his thoughts, and plan his story.

So it goes. Several days later, as his deadline looms, our disorganized, jaded freelancer musters up enough steady heat to write in one long, frantic burst through the night, biting his fingernails, chain smoking, and swearing at his cat. For the most part, his stories are clear and informative, but uninspiring to read. And no sooner has his name appeared above them, than he goes for another drink -- to celebrate. "You wanna know something?" he says to friends. "There's this tremendous egoism about writing something so good the editor can't resist printing it! But I sure wish he'd pay more. Writers work for peanuts, for godsakes. It's one helluva buyer's market!"

On that score, he's right. In one given year, the busy, self-motivated freelancer is very lucky to dream up and sell twelve articles at an average fee of $1,200 for each. Considering that these pieces would run to between 2,000 and 3,000 words and generally take a month or so to produce, the magazine writer deserves every cent he or she makes. All too often there is no payment for preliminary research to develop ideas, or "kill fees" for stories that don't pan out. And while large consumer magazines pay considerably more, reimburse phone bills, and cover travel expenses, competition to make their pages is so high that they remain beyond most freelancers' reach. To exist, then, and afford vital fringe benefits like health insurance and pensions, most writers must grab whatever assignments they can and hope that these will quickly lead to others.

But that's not all. The business is notorious for its slowness, often to send cheques and nearly always to acknowledge ideas for articles or books, however good they may be. Reasons for this vary. On small magazines, the editor might be the lone in-house writer, frequently expected to leave office work undone while he goes out on assignment. On larger magazines, where decisions are made by groups of editors at monthly story meetings, the reasons are similar. If too many editors are vacationing, attending seminars, busily doctoring manuscripts, or travelling the country to recruit new contributors, those monthly meetings are convened bi-monthly. Sometimes, particularly during summer vacation time, they are postponed indefinitely, leaving the writer dangling, wondering, and waiting. Thus there's irony in these sample letters which, believe me, are by no means uncommon:

Dear Author: I'm so sorry we kept you waiting nine weeks for a response to your two latest suggestions, but we're short-staffed. Now we're in a bind. Can you stop what you are doing and tackle one of them for us by the end of this month so we can slot it into February's line-up?

Or:

Dear Author: We regret having kept you waiting six months while we sent your book proposal to market research. I'm pleased to say, however, that this appears to be working in your favour. We will have more definite news soon. Meanwhile, can you take on another project? We have a book for which we must find a writer by the end of next month.

All is never lost, though. As a University of Toronto Press executive once wrote to me, "Publishers move with the awful solemnity of the elephant rather than the lithely leap of the dikdik, but, thank God, they get there in the end."

They do, and this is one more excellent reason why serious writing is far too fulfilling to be shunned. As long as there are magazines and publishing houses there will always be chances of work, whether it be for full-time writers, specialists in one given field, or occasional contributors happy to take on the odd piece that may come their way. "If you really believe in something, dear, and think it's for you," my grandmother used to tell me, "take time off and do it. But try not to starve."

To ensure that they don't, the majority of freelancers combine writing with other jobs. The woman in Vancouver, for example, is a part-time nurse. A writer I met on assignment in Kenora, Ontario, also pilots an Ontario Provincial Government helicopter. I know
freelancers who are doctors, lawyers, librarians, and clerics. Many others, like myself, teach -- not always for the extra money, but so they can legitimately escape those long, reclusive hours at the typewriter.

Yes, writing can be intensely lonely, too. It is "a solitary occupation," the prolific American author Laurence Clark Powell once told a Yale University audience. "Family, friends and society are the natural enemies of a writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking." Needing quietness and solitude is one thing; it's another, however, to toil endlessly behind closed doors with only yourself to talk to. If you were working in a busy office, of course, you would find other people are constantly around to assist you by making a phone call on your behalf, helping you add a column of figures, or by checking your files. But when you write, no one can help out. Only you know what you want to say and how, and with what kind of texture and tone. Only you know the direction of your research and how it can be used to its most potent effect. Fleeing the typewriter to exchange thoughts and ideas with other people, then, becomes a welcome diversion indeed.

Not long ago, while teaching an evening course on magazine writing at John Abbott College in Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, I made a point of asking why each student was there. Many, it transpired, had never written before but sought the encouragement to try. Some were newspaper reporters, public relations executives, or technical writers who wanted to broaden the scope of their skills. A few, however, were young, aspiring fiction writers shrewd enough to know that the novel, with its themes, plots, sub-plots, and parade of finely-etched characters, is such an intricate art form that it cannot be taught. It relies almost exclusively on natural, in-born talent.

Like the poets, librettists, song writers, and playwrights who filled the hall with them, they were wise enough, too, to extol the virtues of the magazine article as being, perhaps, journalism's most exacting form -- and an excellent start for larger writing projects to come. One man, a former reporter-photographer who had spent many years in Africa, knew this all too well. He had written for numerous magazines but now wanted to know how to marshal his research and refine his prose so he could write his autobiography. Aged and etched with deep, hard lines, he contrasted sharply with a
wide-eyed young woman of seventeen, fresh out of school.

"I'm here, sir," she said, "because I want to write for Chatelaine."

Tactfully, I like to think, I told her that writing for Chatelaine was a worthy goal. For the moment, however, it was a shade too ambitious -- that she would be wiser starting on a smaller scale by producing five- or six-paragraph pieces for a local paper or a small magazine, building up credibility and a portfolio of tear sheets, and graduating to more challenging work later. All good writing, I explained, appears so deceptively simple, particularly the short article in our better magazines, that a lot of amateurs are lured into thinking they can craft similar pieces without experience, practice, or skill. Since each of these is usually learned on the job, it's always better for beginners to write as much as they can so long as it's within their interests or abilities -- something they can handle with relative ease and see published on one or two attempts.

"Please don't try to make Chatelaine until you're really ready," I told the young woman. "That way, the rejection slips you're almost certain to get won't dispirit you before you've even begun. Try to understand the high standards a good magazine imposes on its writers and meet them so as to build your reputation. But don't aim work at top editors until the time is right, until you can really consider yourself a pro." I'm glad to say that she heeded the advice.

From that course's two-way discussions emerged one fundamental philosophy: Our best writing is usually accomplished when we enjoy doing it -- when it's fun. For me it generally has been, and there are numerous other freelancers who marvel that they've carved livings from something that would otherwise have been a hobby.

Most memorable to us all are the people we've written about. Characters are to writers, after all, what actors are to theatres. They will forever amble through our lives by the scores, each with a message or some special advice, or as attestation to an achievement that will never cease to inspire. Through writing, we get to know how others live and what urges them on. From Ted Tarkka in Geraldton, I learned the real value of our wildlife and how much emptier we would all feel without it. In his slow, measured cadence, Chief Dan George explained the real issue of native rights. In Pincourt, Quebec, a school principal named Henry Wohler, who devised a rig so he could teach a boy born without legs to ski, showed me selflessness and kindness at its best. With his wheelchair marathons, through the poetry he tapped out on a word processor, and from his determined academic studies, Paul Legault, a young Ottawa man rendered quadriplegic in a high school football accident, gave me insight into the authentic meaning of courage.

The most applicable perception of all, though, emerged from a casual chat with the lean, callow man I met while waiting to interview The Beatles at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens in 1966.

"Have you been here before?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said. "Once."

"And do you like The Beatles?"

"Yes," he said. "I have to like them. I'm their manager."

His name, of course, was Brian Epstein. Not only had he discovered the group, but he had refined it, packaged it, and marketed it worldwide. Like many people of my generation, those long-haired boys from Liverpool's drab, forbidding back streets appealed to my musical senses only when the years had rolled by and some time after that conversation. So standing in that corridor, normally the lone territory of hockey players, my questioning was not entirely out of place. "Can you please explain to me, Mr. Epstein," I asked, "what exactly it is The Beatles have got?"

"Yes," he replied quickly. "Discipline. Discipline must form the basis of all creative endeavour. Without it, all the entertainers, artists and writers in the world would be totally lost. Their labour would be utterly useless."

By writing's very nature, with its contacts, wide-ranging subjects and feedback, it opens doors, deepens knowledge, broadens horizons, creates visions, forges opportunities and makes writers infinitely more sensitive to their surroundings. We become astutely aware, for instance, of when the world works well, and also when it doesn't. Often, perhaps too often, we presume to possess magic powers to promote change. There are times, maybe, when we might all heed the advice of Isaac Bashevis Singer, the old, Polish-born master of Yiddish prose, who said that a good writer was "basically a story-teller, not a scholar or redeemer of mankind." For all this, we tend to roll boldly ahead, airing pet peeves and exposing truths because, as people -- as one of Edmund Bergler's injustice collectors -- we feel, think, and care.

Wherever we are, though, those of us who write for a living unhesitatingly agree on one thing: Our sustained, painstaking research, the permanence of words, and the toil and frustrations of setting them down, all combine to give writing a unique character and enduring appeal.

On Being a Writer

By Adrian Waller