bloggedy blog: the personal weblog of a music lover and aging punk wannabe

:: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 ::

Thoughts on writing. Jordon Cooper recently posted this great quote about writing from Alan Creech's favorite monk, Thomas Merton. The quote pertains to why we write, and for whom we write. Do we write merely to please others, or to please God? That quote got me thinking about a little bit of doggerel I wrote back in the day when I thought I might one day write something of significance in the literary realm -- ergo, the Great American Novel. I was submitting short stories to literary mags left and right, and amassing a hefty pile of rejection letters. So in a funk of despair over my plight, I penned this.

PUBLISH OR PERISH
(A PRAYER)

If I should die before I publish,
I pray the Lord to take my rubbish,
and raise those dull words from the dead,
that I may be posthumously read.

I pray the Lord will let some lover
of my true genius soon discover
the stacks of pads on which I've scribbled
those words these editors think are drivel

and hie thee up to Farrar, Strouse
or Little, Brown or Random House,
and hurl these words over the transom
to inspired editors, who'll ransom

every penny they can hook
to see my words become a book.
They'll sit in awe of every phrase,
and make sense of my verbose maze.

They'll see beyond my lack of plot,
and marvel at my characters' lot.
They'll look beyond the faults to see
true genius: creativity.

May my words go forth throughout the land,
and bring my widow hundreds grand.
May I whose stories were oft rejected
then be acclaimed and well respected.

And may the editors who spurned my toil
fall in a vat of boiling oil.
Or may they weep and gnash their teeth
when they find what they thought beneath

publication in their petty reviews
are now the stuff of talk-show news.
May the literati, too, cut gashes
on their arms, don sackcloth and ashes,

and repent of how I've suffered plight,
and mourn the loss of such a light.
But if while alive I can complete my mission,
Lord, let me write like Fitzgerald and get rich like Grisham.

:: Andrew 07:34 + ::
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