Re: how to get published
Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Sat, 25 Sep 1999 13:24:12 +0100
'... It's hard to write with no hope ...'
Anyone who feels he has any choice in the matter
probably shouldn't be trying to write. The experience
of living produces various illnessess in all of us. Some get
asthma, some develop coronary infarcts, some go mad
& some develop the compulsion to write. It doesn't depend
on encouragement, or the realistic prospect of being famous.
It's just there, like the bloody weather, & there's not a thing
anyone can do about it.
Regarding your Doris Lessing story. I'd be amazed
if anyone was tempted - de novo - to publish her nowadays.
She enjoyed a certain mournful vogue in the days when
a CP membership card & solidarity with idealists like
Robert Mugabe would admit you to the pink parlours
of Hampstead. But, so far as I know, no one ever actually
read her for pleasure. If any aging idealists do still buy
her books it must surely be to set on the shelf beside
the chianti-bottle lamp & the poster of Che - poignant
reminders of a long lost youth.
You're quite right about me though, Colin. Years of toiling
away with my fellow crazies have rendered me grossly
insensitive to another's pain. Perhaps even, as you say,
perversely sadistic in my enjoyment of it. But there you go.
It's a tough old world.
Incidentally, '... sad desire to merely say ...' I know it's OK
to split the old infins these days & only the pedants make
a fuss. But. Just say it over to yourself a few times.
Are you really happy with it?
Scottie B.