Chekhov started his career as a doctor. When he began to write, he was pulled in two directions until his short stories started selling and he was able to be a full-time writer. Later, when reflecting on that period, he wrote of how difficult it was to "serve two masters."
To keep things going economically, to provide capital and time to invest in my writing, I research and publish information technology reports. It's been my primary career for over 25 years, but I really wish I could devote all my efforts to my novels, plays, screenplays, essays and poetry. (yes, poetry, but I will not publish it until I'm dead and gone!).
I was complaining about how serving two masters scatters my mind, how it frazzles me and prevents me from going all out as a writer. But a friend of mine listed all of the horrific life situations many famous writers overcame, and as he went, I realized, really, I ain't got it so bad. I mean, I live by the Pacific Ocean and also have a place in the beautiful mountains of central Mexico. In the last year or so, I've been to three Cuban cities, seen plays on Broadway, went to Las Vegas, San Felipe, La Paz, Cancun, Puebla, Chouloula, Ensenada, and seen bullfights in Tijuana, Mexico. My compatriot writers had it pretty tough: John Fante went blind and dictated his last few books and screenplays; Thoreau and Walker Percy had tuberculosis, which weakened them, causing Percy to write mostly lying down, and sending Thoreau to an early grave; William Burroughs was a lifelong heroin addict; Carson McCullers spent her life in depression; Hemingway was most assuredly bi-polar and an alcoholic, as was Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Bukowski, Capote, Tennessee Williams, Kerouac and many others; Poe was a flat out nutcase; Wilde was sent to a cold, damp prison, even Shakespeare was a pothead.
So you just have to play the hand you're dealt, and do the best work you can. And the craziness, the strain, the strife and struggle can be a great influence on the art itself.
3 comments:
As of this writing, not only am I slightly drunk, but mired in deep depression so excuse whatever follows. Reading this entry has lifted me in asmuch that you are right - through pain comes absolute raw expression. Myself - I too have travelled and suffered and the mental toll has made me reclusive and distrustfull of everyone I meet. Borrowed Flesh is selling okay - but it's not the money, it's the recognition. I keep saying "The next one, maybe the next one." Perhaps all we both have to do is wait and just keep writing, right?
Hate to nitpick, but Fyodor Dostoevsky graduated as a military engineer, not as a doctor.
Oops! I was thinking Chekhov, but wrote Dostoevsky! Thanks anon.
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