I just read a story about Hunter S. Thompson and Ernest Hemingway that made me stop and think. Before I get into that, however, yes. I'm still alive. Still here. And still fighting to publish this god. damn. book.
As you can see, it's not been going well. Not to say I'm unhappy with the manuscript. I know I'm supposed to be--according to every writerish stereotype out there I ought to be all "WOE, my work is rubbish, I must abandon it to fire and start again!"
Somehow, I'm not. Instead, I'm really, really happy with Traditor, particularly now that I've trimmed a bit of the fat. I seem to be the only one who is happy with it, however, and my obsession with getting it published (plus health/job/family issues) have prevented me from paying the attention I should to Damnatio Memoriae. So it goes.
Anyway, back to the H v. H story. Evidently Hunter S. Thompson went to Ernest Hemingway's house to write a story on him. Hemingway shot himself a few years before, and Thompson was supposed to investigate. While there, however, he stole some antlers from one of Hemingway's hunts, which have only recently been returned.
That's pretty much exactly the kind of story I'd expect from any headline that combined Thompson and Hemingway's names. It got me thinking, however, about the "good old days" of writing. It's always seemed to me, in reading about authors, that they were surrounded by other creatives, living charmed lives in which their work was not only read, but appreciated. Something about the H v. H story stuck in my mind, however, and I suddenly realized something I've always known, logically, but never fully appreciated before.
These writers struggled, too. They faced rejection, they submitted over and over, they sent their work into the world only to have it degraded and denied. They went through the same long, painful process I've been slogging through for four interminable years, and they did it again and again and again.
And this is why they drank.
Suddenly, the life of a writer is completely clear to me.
Now, to go finish my latest submission...
