The Aspiring Writer

I started as a freelance writer when I was a spry young man, aged twenty-one. I am now in my late fifties—fifty-six to be exact. Don’t tell anyone my real age though: I’ve been forty forever so far as all of my friends know: I keep turning the same age repeatedly, but they haven’t seemed to notice. That, or they’re too kind to correct my foolish guise. It’s likely the latter.

For decades now, I’ve been working on a peculiar novel. Peculiar even to me, though I am its creator. It is simply about a man who wants to be a great man. He wants to win a Pulitzer, and yet he never does. He continues writing his precious book even after the death of everyone dear to him: his wife, his three darling children, his ex-wife Martha, who he had some illicit rendezvous with long after their relationship ended unbeknownst to his wife, and even a few after he became a widower. It’s an autobiographical account, but fiction serves as a manner of disguise: It hides the ugliest bits of the truth and shines a light on the brighter parts of my story. It paints me as a good man even though I am anything but and, mostly, it poeticizes the many losses I have suffered in an attempt to gather them together into something beautiful. Something worthwhile. Worth all of the pain. I hope it is anyways. It is difficult for an artist to separate himself from his art, so I couldn’t really tell you, objectively, how my work would fare in the marketplace. All I can say, however, is that I’ve been pounding out words for decades now, trying to string them together in the right way.

You might wonder how such a poetic soul as myself—a dreamer—earns his living. I couldn’t tell you how I’ve survived this long, to be honest. I’ve almost been evicted at least three (five?) times, and yet money made its way into my pocket just before it was too late on each occasion. I managed to pay the rent in a grubby apartment each month. I still live here now, though I miss the creature comforts these days much more than I did when I was a young man: The air conditioning rarely works and the heat is stifling. The water goes cold every other week and I have found myself wishing I was rich. Very, very rich. So much so I’ve even considered becoming a banker, just to move on with my life.

Despite all of this, the novel keeps calling my name. It’s simply entitled The Man. True enough, I suppose, and mysterious enough as well, though I worry it’s not entirely captivating. It wouldn’t be, that is, if I ever were to attempt to sell it. I’m nearly finished, and I’ve decided to continue dedicating myself to my written work despite my poverty. I believe in my art, and I ghostwrite freelance articles each week to make ends meet. They pay the rent, though barely. You’d think I would have given up by now—pursued a more practical vocation—yet I have not. I continue to hope, probably in vain, that my novel will someday be recognized. It is my first one, after all. It will be, I mean, once I finish it.

***

With shaky fingers, I manage to type up some emails and query letters to various indie presses, attaching my completed manuscript to each one. I wait for months to hear an answer. For what seems like an eternity, I receive nothing except radio silence.

One Saturday morning, as I drink my bitter black coffee echoing the state of my soul at the moment, I open my email, expecting to see no response. Yet there it is, from Sunday Press.

Dear Thomas McKelson,

We have read your manuscript in full and were entirely floored by its spectacularity. It is wondrous. We would be happy to publish it, after a few edits of course, provided you grant us certain creative liberties when it comes to the cover choice. We would keep the bones of the story the same and would insure we maintained your voice, which is simply marvelous, intact. Thank you for your submission! We look forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Don Voltaire

I couldn’t help but be in shock. I nearly spilled my coffee all over my keyboard, but caught it at the last second. This had been decades in the making…decades. I had not anticipated anyone would find value in it except for myself, though I had hoped desperately to receive an email such as this. I put my coffee on the kitchen counter to avoid any clumsy mistakes on my part, sat down, and replied in writing with laser focus, acknowledging my acceptance of the agreement, trying to sound as calm, cool, and collected as humanly possible.

After this came what I suppose was the usual process: seemingly endless rounds of editing, though I was grateful they did not entirely change the course of my tale, and a few versions of the cover, none of which I was too fond of. We finally settled on a shadow of a man wearing what looked a fedora over an off-white background. He was standing on some sort of ground. It was a bit dull for me, but they wouldn’t budge and I was just happy to finally be getting my novel published, so I went along with it.

***

The Man was published. I had been waiting for this day for an inexplicably long time, and yet it felt somehow anticlimactic, until it didn’t.

Over the course of the next few years, my dreary novel became a #1 New York Times bestseller. I found myself doing television interviews where I shared my journey leading up to this point.

I was a successful, published author. The royalties started rolling in!

Finally, after all of these years barely scraping by, I had made it.

I am now a very rich man.