A few weeks ago, a Classic Peanuts comic strip ran in the Sunday paper featuring Snoopy and Linus playing a game of catch with a little red ball.
Linus throws the ball, Snoopy walks out casually and retrieves it, then spits it out into Linus' hands.
Linus then throws the ball again as Snoopy watches dispassionately. He, again, walks out, retrieves the ball, and adds a flourish by spitting the ball out, then turns around and bounces the ball of the heel of his foot and kicks it back into the hands of Linus.
It is then Linus states the unspoken (and oftentimes unseen) obvious.
I have my own similar version of this philosophical nugget by stating "it's hard to know what is 'good,' but it's easy to know what is 'bad' when it comes to all forms of artistic expression."
To be honest, I've been called "brilliant," "talented," and "a genius," and all that.
But, frankly, I don't believe a word of it. And the instant I do is the day I lose my objectivity. I also don't consider myself an amateur by any means, although I will refer to myself as simply "competent."
Now I've seen both the competent and professional in action. I was once approached by someone who is a competent amateur (at best) and I've approached the professionals.
The truly professional are still writing papers and theses in the university system, but the truly talented I've seen are the ones who are not writing. (You know who you are.)
Then there are those who are amateurs, and nowhere near truly competent. Sure, they can string the words together in a coherent form, and one day they could very well elevate themselves to competence, but they've listened to the praise their works received and went forward far too soon.
It's sort of like Trevor Kane's statement in Jimmy Buffett's novel "Where is Joe Merchant?" Her quote follows:
"That is bad writing at its best," she muttered aloud. "They all come down here thinking they're Hemingway. That's what's wrong with the fucking world these days. Nobody wants to put in the time it takes to be legendary. Mythology is not fast food."
-Trevor Kane, pgs 118-119
Jimmy, and Trevor of course, are absolutely correct.
And this person I speak of came to me approximately this time last year, having tracked me down through various means, proclaiming he'd just published his first novel, heard I was pretty much "the best" (in other words, "the only") screenwriter in town, and wanted my input on adapting his first release for the big screen.
My first response was "how'd this guy find me?"
I ignored his written request, too concerned over having been "found" when I prefer to maintain a certain amount of solitude out here in these vast stretches of land. I'm only well known in the local city, and only one person there has the slightest amount of contact information on me: my home email address.
Given this, I was truly concerned this was some kind of scam, because I certainly don't encourage these kinds of happenings.
Then I called my contact in town. Well, that was the starting point. He stated everything I'd expect him to: that I enjoy my "privacy," that I rarely head towards town (unless necessary), and other precautionary tactics, but he did not give out any specifics of where I live or such.
Then this recently published author must've performed a background search (the potential of which thoroughly annoyed me), and found my mailing address.
At least he didn't find the phone number. It is an unlisted number, after all.
But his letter was polite and, after conversing with my contact, I let it all slide. I officially began communicating with him by means of email, and said I'd buy his book and let him know what I thought.
It took some hunting, but I found it -- a self published work that barely scratched the 100 page mark.
Uh oh.
I read it anyways.
Actually, that's not true - I let a friend read it first to see what she thought, and then I'd read it.
Her opinion of it was...less than glowing.
I still read the book, ignoring her comments, because I might've seen it differently.
After finishing the final page a few days later I realized something terrible: my friend was absolutely correct on every count.
There was very, very little going on in this novel.
The Prologue was the best of it, yet it lacked historical accuracy, a very troubling thought to me as he proclaimed the "Trail of Tears" ended at the Arkansas River which it, in fact, did not.
He'd relocated the final stop for dramatic effect, and then tied it in with a few other historically somewhat accurate moments in the location's recent memory, and tried to blend it all together in what became a maudlin attempt at redeeming the city for its past sins.
The biggest strike against this was the fact that it was, by every stretch of the phrase, a "creative writing project." It read like a collegiate assignment, it had all the vitality of one, and it garnered the absolute praise of those who he shared a class with, such as "it reads like a movie," which is, of course, what led him to me.
I'll give him this much: the basic elements were there. It just needed fleshing out. A damned good fleshing out, over the course of maybe a year, and not the treatment he'd given his pet project, which consisted of just a month.
I know this because it said so on his website. He seemed incredibly proud of this fact.
Knowing all this, and the fact that "were-kangaroos" showed up at the end of his "novel," I still sat down and worked out the structure of what the movie might've been. I also took to the local book shops, searching out volumes on Native American magick, rituals, and culture knowing full well that his 100 pages was, as it was written, take up forty minutes of time on screen.
I also explained this to him diplomatically my concerns were these: it's a start, it needs to be fleshed out, but to be perfectly honest, no one wants to see a sort of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" offering in, of all places, Fort Smith Arkansas.
He replied diplomatically as well, stating that he didn't need a ghost writer, would share the script writing credit with me 60\40, and that I'd get the appropriate amount of residuals should the movie get made.
Things went downhill from there quickly.
Meanwhile he was going forward with the other two parts of his written trilogy, and I had a decision to make: I could devote all my time and creative energy to someone who hasn't fully reached the status he believes he's at and work within his parameters (while not getting paid for it), or I could just cut him loose and get back to my own work that needed a sizable amount of attention itself.
Given all I'd learned about him, his project, his level of expertise, I decided it would just be best to bid an amicable goodbye now and get on with my life, which is what I did.
I also then went to my contact in town and said "please, don't ever send him to me again"
Some time passed and I managed to track down his eventual sequel, and I thumbed through it briefly. It was thicker, nearly 200 pages, but it suffered the same faults as the first installment.
I have not searched for the third.
Sometime during this entire mess I tracked down the publishing house that accepted his manuscripts -- it was a self publishing house (which is fine), but when I told my friend this (the one that had read the first book), she laughed out loud and posed the question "he paid them to publish it?! That's the literary equivalent of tying a pork chop around your neck so the dog will play with you!"
And she was right.
But I tried to approach the whole situation with more optimism, I gave it a C Average rating, saying "this part here was very good," "this part needs work," and so on.
I also suggested he'd gotten ahead of himself by not waiting, and deliberately taking the time to polish it.
He wanted none of that, and continued to listen to those who said it was truly monumental, and he must've felt he was doing me a favor by saying he'd share the workload and the salary with me.
All one can really say about this is "it takes more than a month to write a book."
Also, don't listen to those who praise you. The reverse can be true for those who offer you constant criticism, but this seems to be more of a gray area at times, unfortunately.
I look back at the those projects I worked on in my creative writing course ten years ago, and double over in pain at the sight of them.
I'm still working on projects I'd declared "finished" five to seven years ago, knowing quite well that I can make them better, and that I must before I promote them.
Ultimately, I am the only one who can judge my work the most effectively, and that's only because I can say "the story is finished, there are no more potholes to fill in."
Once I fix those, then the general population can claim it's brilliant or that it sucks because, frankly, it's all subjective.
I won't say my works are good, but I can say (at the very least) they're not bad. And that is the highest self criticism I can offer.
I've had the great fortune of being made to take the time to truly work on something. Fate forced me to stay patient, stay objective, and I once railed against it with enough anger and pressure to form diamonds out of thin air, but Fate was right and I see that now.
Thank God, too.
I would've self destructed if I'd made it to Hollywood ten years ago.
