HAVE I WORKED HARD ENOUGH; HURT ENOUGH…?
December 5th, 2006
As my dad once reminded me, Buck Owens played every weekend in the same Oakland club for 18 years before he became an overnight success. And I know John Grishom’s tale of being rejected 26 times for his fist novel. But one of my writing idols, James Lee Burke has to hold the record. Happy birthday Mr. Burke.
It’s the birthday of novelist James Lee Burke, born in Houston, Texas (1936). He’s best known for his series of detective novels featuring Dave Robicheaux, an ex-New Orleans policeman, Vietnam veteran, and recovering alcoholic. Burke’s novels have been compared to those by master crime novelists like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.
Burke started writing stories when he was in fourth grade, published his first story when he was 19, and wrote his first novel when he was 23. Half of Paradise (1965) was published just after he finished graduate school, and it got great reviews.
Burke wrote a few more novels, but none of them sold well. He fell into depression and alcoholism. He had finished a book called The Lost Get-Back Boogie, but he couldn’t find anyone to publish it. He collected 93 rejection slips for the book over a period of 10 years. He worked as a newspaper reporter, a land surveyor, a social worker, a forest ranger, a teacher, and a truck driver.
He later said, “I reached a point … where I didn’t care whether I lived or died.” Finally, in 1985, The Lost Get-Back Boogie was published by Louisiana State University Press. The novel is about a released prisoner who goes to live on a Montana ranch with the family of one of his friends from prison.
It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Burke’s novels have been successful ever since.
And I whine about being at it for a measly 10 years.
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, most authors like the idea that they have written better than the process of writing.
Because I had thought about it in the past and you mentioned it at just the right time for me to remember it, I took part in namowrimo. Now that I “have written” and have what I think is a mildly competent piece of work, I have to decide what to do with it.
When I think about the editing work that yet needs to be done and the seemingly insurmountable task of finding someone to print it on paper, writing the first 50,000 words seems like it was no big deal.
Shalom Ryan,
When the writing is good it’s like the best sex ever. But sometimes you just have to grind it out.
B’shalom,
Jeff