DIE WRITING, OR DIE TRYING?

Who wants to die writing?

A yes answer means one thing: Death is a metaphor.

Unless it’s s sudden death and they keel over on their keyboard, no writer dies writing.

But something does die in a writer who does everything they can to succeed before giving up.

Who’s ever done that?

One comes to mind.

Although several people in the literary world felt his writing skills were praiseworthy, Toole’s novels were rejected during his lifetime. After suffering from paranoia and depression due in part to these failures, he died by suicide at the age of 31.

John Kennedy Toole’s book Confederacy of Dunces was not one of the failures, eventually.

Toole served in the Army for two years at Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico, teaching English to Spanish-speaking recruits. The relatively light duties of this job left him plenty of free time, and he was able to complete a draft of the novel that would become A Confederacy of Dunces.

After completing his manuscript of A Confederacy of Dunces, he sent a copy to Simon and Schuster for it to be published. He considered it a masterpiece. Though the publisher initially was excited about the novel, Simon and Schuster ultimately rejected the book.

Following Toole’s suicide, his mother sought out author Walker Percy and insisted that he read A Confederacy of Dunces. After finally relenting and reading the manuscript, Percy fell in love with the book. It was published in 1980. In 1981, Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

If your plan is to die writing or die trying, is a Pulitzer Prize waiting?

Don’t bank on it, unless you have a mom like young John’s.

His mother, Thelma Ducoing Toole, was a dominating woman who, convinced that her son was a genius, sheltered him and rarely let him play with other children.

Writing Permission? Who Gives It?

Learning to write is like learning to play guitar. For one, you pick up an instrument; in the other you are the instrument.

One part of the process is picking yourself up enough to start placing words together that make sense to your mom.

Mom was important to Toole, and an important part of Thomas Wolfe’s work. So was higher education. Both men had advanced degrees from Ivy League schools.

One of them checked out with mental health problems, the other took a bad turn in Seattle that got worse, but left a huge shadow.

Both died in their thirties, which is old for a teen, but not too old for people in their sixties.

If you’re a writer, how old were you when you said, “I’m a writer?”

If you’ve made that jump, how old were you when you said, “F#ck it, this is a waste of time.”

Read that again and know whoever said it to themselves have succeeded. They may feel like they saved themselves and won’t die writing, but something important died.

“Who Said You Could Write?”

That’s the question my dad asked during an testy conversation. It sounded like an accusation.

The question alone might break the will of a less prepared writer. At the time I was a twenty-two year old Army veteran signed up for an English degree from the University of Oregon.

My experience to that point included taking advice from teachers, coaches, sergeants, and professors.

Teachers: I won a prize in a high school English class for a one act play that I still have.

Coaches: As a wrestler I cut weight and got pounded four out of five seasons. One season I competed at normal weight.

The numbers were 178 lbs, 165, 191, 177, and 180 lbs.

At 191 I was a state champion and all-American.

Sergeants: “You will be the best soldier the Army has ever produced,” turned into, “Tell the captain what he wants to hear, not what happened.”

Professors: “I’d like to see more work on this story.”

I was off and running when my dad asked, “Who told you you could write?”

Writing advice: You don’t need permission, you need a goal, then the will to finish.

If you get questions about your die writing goals, be patient

You can die writing about cancer.

Or, die writing about a broken heart.

Even better, ditch the morbid fascination and keep working, keep writing.

The best answer to my dad came decades after he passed when my brother forwarded a batch of letters written to his parents.

Those letters came from Korea where the young Marine was doing war work, then from San Diego where he trained new Marines.

The man was a writer working on trying to understand the life he found himself living.

That’s what writers do.

This is the life we’re living today.

Along with complications.

My writing goals got updated recently with advice to rewrite the book I’ve worked on a few years.

Which brings the hard truth of any writing: You need to love your story because you’ll eventually hate it, then love it again.

Now ask, “Do you love the writing process?”

Read some John Kennedy Toole and Thomas Wolfe and ask the same question about them.

I’ll be busy transcribing my Dad’s letters home. He loved it.