My latest essay on RTÉ Arena is about the writer stereotype.  Have a listen here or gander on for the full text…

Making it as a successful writer

I’m going to let you in on a little secret.  Not all writers have a cat. They don’t all drink coffee either. There’s the odd turtleneck but that’s a shame most of us carry at some stage in our life. The domain of the writer can be soupy with stereotype and myth. The classic underdog tale is a popular one, bestselling author initially rejected by umpteen publishers, out of work when the news of publishing finally came, possibly living under a motorway bypass. Often, the stories surrounding the writer can become as fictional as the work they produce.

There is the overnight success article that fails to mention the fruitless years of learning the craft. The author who doesn’t believe in editing.  The tale of the classic novel completed in less than a month minus the boring details of all the failed drafts that went before.

Anybody who has ever signed up for a writing course or workshop will have encountered the famous six word story – For sale: baby shoes, never worn. One of Hemmingway’s finest works we are told. But the truth is Hemmingway never wrote the work at all. It seems to have started out as an advertisement in a Brooklyn newspaper in 1921, ‘Baby carriage for sale, never used’, only to make several appearances in altered states before being attributed to Hemmingway in the 1990s, thirty years after his death. In reality, you could say it took multiple writers a number of decades to write the piece.

I suppose there is romance in the legend of the genius writer. As there is in the idea of the writer as an adventurer. Certainly, a lot of scribes still reel off a list of exotic places they’ve travelled to on their Bio. But there is a financial cost to the act of discovering oneself in Kathmandu or writing poetry naked on an island in the Mediterranean. The image of well educated, comfortable writer has formed a large part of the stereotype.  It’s pretty difficult for most to aspire to a career in writing when the finances are not there to back them up.  Besides, aspirations can be collective and based on experiences or the perceived experiences of those of a similar background.

The online environment can be a more economical tool for writers to reach larger audiences, the likes of blogs and online journals bringing a diverse blend of people into the literary mix. It would be nice to think that this will naturally bring varied writers and stories into the mainstream. Because In arenas where diversity is not contrived or over-emphasised, it doesn’t need to be constantly defended or debated. It works as a challenge to stereotype merely by existing as fact.