"WOW!" Response to yesterday's post

As a followup to yesterday's lament, which was originally posted on Facebook,  I received a heartwarming outpouring of support from my fellow writers, many of whom aren't even on my friend list.  Some of the longer comments say "see more", so they aren't complete, but you get the idea. I had no idea ANYONE would respond to this. It's that "I'm all alone in this" thing, which it turns out I am not. I have  copied and pasted these without changing the format, as quite often you get nothing but one solid block of text. This is one of the longer things I have ever posted, but it's important to me that it be put up here to balance yesterday's lament. I also had a chance to tell some writers how I felt about them and their work. I didn't do the usual thing and intersperse photos (as I've always felt big blocks of text are hard to get through). But here are the comments, not quite complete. As Christopher Walken would say: "Wow."

·        Ruth Hill I am wondering why he is bent on criticising you instead of encouraging you. I also do not believe popularity is any measure of the quality of the creative endeavor. I am hoping you can ditch the grouch and surround yourself with

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Margaret Gunning I think writers have a tough enough time trying to deal with editors, critics, etc. without getting it from their fellow writers. It's too bad. But his opinion doesn't carry much (if any) weight with me.

Vera Ingrid Tarman Ruth Hill well said!

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Amber Hayward A real writer doesn't write so that their words will not be heard, a real writer aims to communicate. Otherwise we could stow it all away in closets and feel we accomplished enough. Good grief!

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Margaret Gunning I keep thinking: humans became human when they began to communicate with words. And that began with everyone sitting around the fire in a circle listening to the the Storyteller, mesmerizing everyone with the tale of. . . Oh, wait - take away that circle! A storyteller isn't a storyteller if they need THAT crap.

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Lori Hahnel You don’t need a jackass like that in your life.

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Margaret Gunning Well, he's blocked. It was kind of a shock to receive a tirade like that. And he wanted me to re-title my novel Glass Girl. The novel is about silent film comedian Harold Lloyd. But "girl" was a sort of buzzword in titles a couple of years ago. . . I don't know, everybody's an expert, I guess. (But you're right.)

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Lori Hahnel Good for you for blocking him. What a weirdo.

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Catharine Clark-Sayles This person is not a friend

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Margaret Gunning No, he's not. Not even in a Facebook sense.

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Luanne Armstrong Sounds like a good subject and an interesting topic from you

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Bruce Meyer Hey, you have a right to care. Everyone who is a professional and wants to be recognized has a right to their own barometer for success. Keep writing. Books don’t go away and many begin to sell long after the fact. Austin Clarke felt the same way you d…See More

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Margaret Gunning I'm still hoping for the movie deal! And I still keep writing, this "thing" I work on late at night. . . I don't think I'll ever show it to anyone. But you never know.

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MJ Cates Wanting your work to be read by as many people as possible is not nearly the same as wanting to own a private jet and four houses. Many great writers lamented their lack of sales/recognition (Keats, for example), and your analogy to making something yo…See More

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Margaret Gunning Thank you so much! I posted this because I was trying to come to terms with what happened and, frankly, not get too hurt by it, though it hurt anyway because I used to think this guy was an ally, if not a friend. But his naivete (or perhaps ignorance) …See More

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MJ Cates I mentioned your post to a highly regarded novelist today and he was as offended by your friend's comment as I was.

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Margaret Gunning MJ Cates I almost wish I had kept it, but I blocked him to protect my feelings. It was just jaw-dropping. I have no idea why he'd do this to me, as a fellow writer. To say I wasn't a writer and have never been a writer. Hmmm, I kept a diary from age eight because I felt like nothing had really happened in my life until I had written it down.

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Natalee Caple That is garbage and abusive -- real writers are not all the same and this is just a way of asserting power for the jerk who wrote that. Writers care about reception -- otherwise they would not publish.

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Margaret Gunning Thank you so much, Natalee. Though I seldom comment, I follow your page daily because I admire your sensitivity and honesty and can see that all writers are "up against it" in many ways, including ways which never came to light before. Yes, this guy is a bully, and though he more-or-less behaved himself before and seemed supportive, there was an agenda. I blocked him immediately.

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Natalee Caple Good, that was a set up for more abuse -- I am glad you asserted your boundaries.

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Patricia Robertson Facebook can be hazardous. As a professional writer, I write for money, an audience and attention. We write to communicate. We need readers to complete that circle. Book sales are driven by timing, subject matter, marketing budgets, PR efforts and the …See More

                                                       

Margaret Gunning I think his comments reflected a kind of purist attitude of "art before everything" (when I know very well he's just as interested in recognition as most other writers). I found this article (link below) many years ago and bookmarked it. It spoke to me and at least made me feel better. I …See More

THEGLOBEANDMAIL.COM

Artists struggle to survive in age…

Artists struggle to survive in age of the blockbuster

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Margaret Gunning I don't agree with everything he says, but it's true that writers feel they have to shoulder the entire burden of the shifting global economy and the way it rules book sales, and who becomes a "best-seller" or even a "seller" at all. There used to be s…See More

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Patricia Robertson Margaret Gunning and Ian Brown's show, too. I remember Gzowski's great interview style. Readers and writers still need to find each other. I'm not sure that poverty is good for your art as Smith concludes. I'd rather have my bills paid so I can focus on my writing. But much of what he asserts about the shifting tides in the industry is bang on.

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Margaret Gunning I think he was being ironic! I just realized Gzowski extensively interviewed Elly Danica, the author of an incredible book called "Don't: A Woman's Word". This was in ***1988*** and he gave it his full attention, and also extensively wrote about the au…See More

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Patricia Robertson Margaret Gunning I remember that book. It was ground-breaking and controversial back in '88 when I was enrolled in Women's Studies at York it generated a lot of classroom discussion. Elly Danica stands out from the period for me, too. Gusty.

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Patricia Robertson "I was interviewed by Peter Gzowski for CBC’s Morningside Show in 1988 after the publication of Don’t: A Woman’s Word. Peter won an ACTRA award for this interview, which was produced by Hal Wake." from Danica's website

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Margaret Gunning Patricia Robertson She was, and is, extraordinary. Women weren't speaking out then, and when they did, lo and behold, it spawned a new corporate entity: the False Memory Syndrome Association (FMSA for short). I say "corporate" because it was highly org…See More

                                

MH Pilk I've gotten up every single day for 19 yrs and cooked breakfast for my kids, made their lunches for both school and home, and cooked dinner. I'm a mom. It's what I do. But if I found that every single day they were scraping it in the trash and walking …See More

                                                       

Margaret Gunning I am loving this conversation! I felt so alone in this.

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Jerry Levy Hey Margaret. I don’t know you other than that we both published with Thistledown. And I rarely post anything on FB. But your post made me write something. I just want to tell you that you have an amazing track record as a published writer. Think about…See More

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Margaret Gunning It took me literally decades to get the first deal, after which I assumed I was on easy street. My first publisher, whom I really liked by the way, and treated me well, told me two things: I had gotten more reviews/more positive reviews than they had …See More

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Jerry Levy So hard to get a book deal. That means only one thing - publishers love your work. You should be incredibly proud of yourself. Not everyone can be a NY Times best seller but likewise, not everyone can write and publish novels. So continue writing, you’re obviously a very, very good writer. And ignore the naysayers (they just might be jealous of your talent)

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Luanne Armstrong It is bloody hard to be a Canadian writer. It's very much a popularity contest. I think frankly that almost every writer in Canada feels left out and ignored much of the time. The great thing is that despite this, we have so many great writers doing an amazing job.

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Margaret Gunning I think you guys may have just saved my life!

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Luanne Armstrong Good for you, Margaret, now I am going to look up your work and maybe order some books. It's also hard when we have small publishers ( mine is Caitlin) and depend on their writers to do all the PR. I am not well enough to run around and do that. So, not much more I can do...

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Margaret Gunning Would you like the link to my Amazon author page? It lists all the novels, publishers, etc. Well, here it is!https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Gunning/e/B001K7NGDA

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Margaret Gunning Luanne Armstrong I think at least one of my novels has been pulped - maybe the first two - because they weren't selling and the publisher didn't have warehouse space for them, so they were destroyed. But there may be a few copies left, and I think Amazon has a few.

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Luanne Armstrong ok -- I'm gonna read up on you anyway. We can complain to each other. I'm fine with that. I don't think there are any real rules on FB yet. There should be. It should be subject to libel and slander and hate speech rules like any other publications. And why people are so rude, I just don't know.

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Sue Reynolds I'm so sorry you had that experience Margaret. When someone tells us how we "should" feel about ANYTHING that complete invalidates the experience we're having. You didn't need to have more shit heaped on top of the way you were already feeling. I'm sorry you're struggling right now.

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Margaret Gunning Oh I don't know, this turned out to be a pretty good day after all! It's the first time I've felt this supported on FB. I appreciate all of it. You make yourself vulnerable when you expose feelings of failure or disappointment in the reception of your work. I find a lot of social media in general is "sunny side up", and that's not of much help.

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Sue Reynolds Well that's making lemonade! Happy to hear of your resilience

                                                   

Margaret Gunning Sue Reynolds A lot of it is age, I think. Being a senior has its points. The pension cheque is great!

Go into the arts

Cool and creepy: the wonder of Facebook

There is so much about social media that pisses me off that I often don’t know where to start.

I don’t even do Twitter. I’m not likely to start doing Twitter because of all the negative things I hear about it, the way it has gone sour, the way people attack each other. The Steven Galloway debacle is a case in point. Margaret Atwood casually swiped at a huge sector of the literary community, calling us frail maidens on fainting couches, claiming that firing Galloway because of his chronic sexual abuse of students was a “witch hunt” and “McCarthyism”.

Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet.

It gets worse, but it’s morning and I can barely get my brain around what I want/need to say. I’ve always had problems with people cadging sympathy on Facebook: “oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter that I'll have a migraine when I pick up my Giller Award tonight”, “Sick this week, don’t know how I’ll make my five-week holiday in Greece”, etc. There follows a chorus of sympathy, dozens of comments: “Oh, Diddums, just take care of yourself and I am SURE you’ll be in those Greek isles running around in your bikini before you know it.”

And then there is the “PLEASE, everyone. I am nearly at the 5000 Facebook friends limit and need to pick those last few precious spots myself, so don’t try to friend me! You will only be disappointed. I am so, so sorry, I know it's a hardship for you. But these last few names are absolutely crucial for the promotion of my next novel and might get me a spot on Ellen.”

Yesterday I saw “why do we only get to see posts from, say, fifty of our friends among the thousands we have?” As if it would be possible to see posts from 3500 people a day.

Such problems!

I know there are other things, but the one that is bugging me most right now is “I’m taking a break from social media, guys”. I see this one over, and over, and over again, and NOT ONCE has the person actually taken a “break” of more than two days. Recently it was a woman harmed by the Steven Galloway affair – bruised by a former friend who lit into her for thinking Galloway might actually have done some harm.

I can see this, can see being hurt. I’ve been hurt over and over and over again on social media, and in life. But what she said next, “I’m stepping back from social media for the rest of the year,” was remarkable, because somehow reality changed and the months of November and December collapsed down into two days, which is how long it was before she went back to posting on Facebook every day. But these posts may not even have counted: if she only posts three or four times a day, and the posts aren’t too long, is she somehow, mysteriously, still “taking a break”? Or was it all due to that Greek chorus of voices begging her to come back? Anyway, I am cynical enough now that I kept an eye on that situation, and it went exactly the way I predicted.

Am I in a sour mood? I don’t know. In a December mood, I guess. I’ve had worse. Lots worse. But this is the time of year one’s psyche adds it all up, and - BAM. I wonder what it has all amounted to.

I don’t know why I do Facebook anyway, except to put time in. It’s grey and wet out there, lousy even for taking a walk, and I am “behind” on Christmas preparations which I do not want to make.

I have people in my life, yes, precious and few, and given my family history it’s a good thing I’m not being treated like a punching bag every day. It was unlikely I would ever help co-create something this amazing (though there are those who’ve claimed it just dropped into my lap, undeserved). In truth, I would not change anything about it, or them. But they are growing up, growing away from me steadily. I am no good at loss.

Call it reality. I can’t take a break from life (then come back to it in two days!). It just keeps lumbering along. Already, atrocious things (I won't say what, but you already know) are seemingly normal. We have to do this, I guess, to stand it, to keep trying to enjoy our lives. I enjoy what I can; I honestly do, but they are all such small things.

Facebook reminds me that I will never achieve the big things I dreamed about for so long, though others did, and do. They endlessly shimmy around in their bikinis, Giller Prize in hand, to remind me of it.  Holidays. Awards. New babies. New friends. Exotic recipes that always turn out. And never a family fight. Never an alcoholic in the family. The smooth shiny facet is always kept turned towards your “friends” - but who knows what is on the other side.

Must be kind of exhausting, when you think about it.

BLOGGER'S NOTE. While thoroughly disgusted, and wondering whether I had already posted the Abbie poem and not wanting to look it up (but no one reads this anyway, so who cares), I stumbled upon something remarkable.

I cut this image out of the TV guide, the paper one I mean, back when it still existed. This was probably around 1990:

And I kept it, not knowing the provenance of the picture at all. I couldn't find anything about it, though it haunted me. It was in an ad for some sort of Billy Graham-like religious crusade. I put it in a book somewhere, not able to throw it out but not knowing what to do with it, and that was all, until it emerged again 15 or so years later, and I scanned it.

And then.

I found this, just now, just this minute! This. Is. The. Same. Puppet. It popped out at me on Google images while I searched for disaffected, desolate illustrations for this post.

Years, and years, and YEARS later, this anonymous, strange, unknown thing is now called "Cool Creepy Marionette". That is ALL I can find about this exquisite work of art. On site after site after site, the same image, replicated. 

It HAS to be the same! Even the eyes, even the mask, even the position of the hand - it's all the same. But why can't I find out anything about this except "cool creepy marionette"?

It's because the internet no longer cares about the provenance of anything. It's some sort of ultimate global Communism, everything held in common, nothing owned, least of all works of art that someone actually made - carved - imbued with a soul.

All I know is, this marionette, which looks fairly new, isn't new. In fact, I don't know how old it is.  It means something. Maybe if I keep digging, and digging, and digging, I'll find out - but I don't think so.

I don't know how to feel about this. In part, it filled me with amazement and joy - here he is again! Rediscovered: our puppet of sorrow. But then I wondered where he came from. Another lost boy? And does anybody besides me really care about it?

Writers have their hearts ripped out

Since I finally figured out how to use the video camera, mainly to photograph all the wildlife in the back yard, I'm experimenting with other stuff, mainly ads for my doomed novel, The Glass Character. Maybe I'll have fun with it; maybe I won't. I like the idea of the screen beside me, and the fact these are silents means I can blather on as much as I want. I know what it is to be rejected (stomped into the ground a few hundred times?), so this scene spoke to me in particular.

Should we be more like the States?

Over the past several weeks, I have been trying to sort out what I saw in New York City, especially in The Cloisters, the brilliant collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art's Medieval Collection. I have come to the conclusion that even though none of the museum's collections was American (how could it be?), it was genius of them to recognize genius in
others. This is a key cultural failing of Canadians (sorry to say but it is true). Until we learn to recognize genius in others we will not be capable of recognizing genius in ourselves and our own works and we will remain a second rate culture dominated by cliques and second rate conversation among those who are merely self-serving. It is time we took that conversation to a
different level. Rather than just patting ourselves on the back, we should ask why we are patting ourselves on the back. Rather than just saying that our poetry is good because it has been promoted and discussed in trade journals, we should be asking ourselves why something is good, what made it good, and how it could be better. We aren't pushing our brains enough and because of that we're casually accepting things merely because they appear on bookstore shelves or because they've been reviewed in publishing journals. That isn't culture. That's just marketing and we need to recognize the 
difference.

Those brave words were posted on Facebook by one Bruce Meyer, a much-published poet who has his ear to the ground on all matters cultural (and NOT just Canadian culture, folks!). I always pay a lot of attention to what he writes, because he comes out and says things the rest of us tiptoe around while we keep our mouths safely bandaided shut.

I don't think this is a screed against CanLit or anything else Canadian, except perhaps its insularity and near-desperate attempt to prove to itself that, yes, in spite of all the evidence, it DOES have a thriving arts community not dependent on constant handouts to survive.

OK then, what if it's true (which it is, largely) and artists DO need government funds and/or constant scrambling on social media in order to go on? The problem is, someone has to name the problem first or it continues to worsen through denial. I've been re-reading the brilliant works of Margaret Laurence, and what I see is work that speaks for itself, with a quality of greatness that does not exist any more. I don't know how much schmoozing writers needed to do then. Maybe a lot. But I don't think it was the main event. Laurence, after all, was widely quoted as saying, "Don't be a writer in this country unless you absolutely have to." (And that was in the 1960s, an era when Jack McClelland took manuscripts home in his briefcase to personally read in bed.) In The Diviners, Laurence's most autobiographical novel, Morag is portrayed as a "successful"published author barely scraping by while she raises her daughter on a pauper's income.

Canada has always suffered from chronic low self-esteem in every area. It's no secret why. We live next to this giant, the elephant that at any moment might roll over and crush the mouse. We have approximately one-tenth the population of the U. S. spread over a much wider geographical area, consisting of concentrated blobs of population punctuating vast stretches of nothing. We are a much younger country, nearly a century younger, so that we have had a century less time to establish ourselves beside this heaving, seething superpower. Until fifty years ago, we didn't even have our own flag.

Our history has also been vastly different, dull by some standards. Robertson Davies was once quoted as saying, "Historically, a Canadian is an American who rejected the revolution." No rocket's red glare, no bombs bursting in air, just an endless "we stand on guard, we stand on guard".  I do not know one single individual who owns a gun, and in my entire lifetime have only known two (an antiques collector and a cop). I doubt if this would be the norm in the States. You do not see articles published in magazines here telling you (quite seriously, like a fire drill) "what to do if someone has a gun to your head". We have no "right to bear arms" in our constitution. We don't "pledge allegiance", an idea which to the Canadian mind seems very strange.

Am I claiming that as a nation we are morally or perhaps ideologically superior? Sometimes I wish I could say that. On the other side of our peaceable ways seems to be a woeful mediocrity. We can never keep up. I'm a Canadian and I love my country. But art is being drowned in the mad scramble for commerce, to "win", to sell copies, to be "a success". If you aren't, you feel a particular kind of miserable guilt and woe, not to mention an isolation no one should have to feel. You're not "in", you're "out", and the solution is to work even more feverishly to gain admission, to crash the gates. And yet if you say any of this out loud, you're anti-patriotic, hate Canada, hate the arts and just don't understand how it really works. Any time I've tried to write about this, I've been "corrected", shown the ropes, or told, "well, none of that applies to ME, I'm doing just fine" (so, by definition, I must be a loser).

Am I saying we should be "more like the States" (a sentiment which is always both praised and reviled)? No, I am saying we should be more like ourselves. Celebrating only the tiny tip of the vast pyramid which is the arts community in Canada is not going to do it. Imitating the States is not going to do it, because we are not the States.  I am not knocking Americans; my husband has travelled extensively all over the United States
and insists that the vast majority of people he met were warm and welcoming, perhaps a damn sight more warm and welcoming than the average chilly Canadian. Dissing Americans across the board annoys him no end.

I wonder how to transcend all these useless stereotypes, to begin to listen and respond to those powerful inner voices that drive us to create. It can be argued that art has always been elitist, that only the strong survive, etc. But it's a circular argument. An elitist system won't admit any new members, becomes smug and stagnant, and thus even more elitist. Those who need to create are shoved out into the margins, the badlands of existence. Then it's "oh, well, you know what artists are like, they're a crazy lot." The suicide rate among poets is staggering, but also part of the stereotype of crazy writers who for some reason can't cope.

And yet, and yet. I do wonder how many magnificent artists are out there, or HAVE been out there, who refused to play the game and thus remained in total obscurity, unknown to any of us.

It's my blog, and I'll lament if I want to/need to. If I can't, things are even worse than I thought. So often, when I try to express a thought or feeling that comes from a deep part of me, I am clapped down (especially on Facebook, and especially by Canadian authors!). I had an example of this the other day that made my head reel: why must we fire on each other like that? Why the unspoken, unacknowledged status wars, which if you talk about them at all seem to get a reaction of, "Oh, you're not promoting your work vigorously enough"? The unquestioned assumption is that you're clamoring for a higher spot on the totem pole we all clutch for fear of sliding down on top of those unfortunate underlings. If you're not winning the unacknowledged, futile war for ascendency, you're just not playing the game right.

I am saying the game needs to be chucked out altogether. Can't be done? Nothing can be done if it's never ventured or dared.

I can do nothing at this point but quote an old, old song by Joni Mitchell. I am not entirely sure of the message. It has echoes of the Civil War, but below and beneath that, it may be speaking of the uneasy relationship we have with the giant that constantly threatens to erase our identity. But spare a thought for this: they never set out to "erase" anything. They are simply being, huge and turbulent, while we cringe and continually wonder who we are.

And so once again
My dear Johnny my dear friend
And so once again you are fightin' us all
And when I ask you why
You raise your sticks and cry, and I fall
Oh, my friend
How did you come
To trade the fiddle for the drum

You say I have turned
Like the enemies you've earned
But I can remember
All the good things you are
And so I ask you please
Can I help you find the peace and the star
Oh, my friend
What time is this
To trade the handshake for the fist

And so once again
Oh, America my friend
And so once again
You are fighting us all
And when we ask you why
You raise your sticks and cry and we fall
Oh, my friend
How did you come
To trade the fiddle for the drum

You say we have turned
Like the enemies you've earned
But we can remember
All the good things you are
And so we ask you please
Can we help you find the peace and the star
Oh my friend
We have all come
To fear the beating of your drum

Order The Glass Character from:

Thistledown Press 

http://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/genre/Fiction/the_glass_character_p580.cfm

Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Character-Margaret-Gunning/dp/1927068886/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395534131&sr=1-1&keywords=the+glass+character

Chapters/Indigo.ca

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-glass-character/9781927068885-item.html?ikwid=the%2520glass%2520character%2520margaret%2520gunning&ikwsec=Home