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Easy as A-B-C

October 15, 2007 on 2:26 am | In 2007, Dara Lyon Warner, Elaine Klonicki, Freelancing, General, Observations, Writing | No Comments

They say adversity builds character. Frankly, I think I am quite enough of a character, thanks, and Adversity can just trundle off and find somebody else to pick on! That said, it strikes me that adversity also builds writers.

Nora Ephron – whose writing I have loved for decades – found the inspiration for her novel, Heartburn, in the decline and fall of her marriage to Carl Bernstein. Another writer whose work I have enjoyed is David Eddings. His “About the Author” blurbs illustrate Elaine Klonicki’s opening remark in “Walk Like a Duck” (October 12, 2007), listing some of his former occupations: military service (Army), grocery clerk, college English teacher. Having served in the Army myself, and come close enough to the other two, I can attest to the tribulation they engender. John Steinbeck tried to establish himself as a free-lance writer in the 1920s – and failed, returning to his native California, and continuing to write. His books were well-loved by English teachers and students alike (including those in the 8^th grade), as well as by the ubiquitous “they”: He won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature.

How many of us, as angst-ridden adolescents, have not put some of the frustration of those years into words? Granted, at least some of them are nothing but bad poetry, but they express what we felt as best we could at the time. For me, it was around 1969:

You say you know me.

But have you ever lived months,

Years of your life, being

With a thousand people every day –

Yet still being alone?

You say you know me.

But have you ever stood on one side

Of a wet cardboard wall

With the rest of the world pushing on the other

To trample you when it breaks through?

You say you know me,

Though you have never known the things I’ve known.

You know my face.

You may know what my name is.

But you don’t really know me.

You see? Bad poetry. The thing is – whether they include contending with an inadequate income while we try to convince potential employers we have brains, talents and skills, or putting on a brave face to keep up the spirits of a family member with a serious illness – the obstacles we overcome every day add to what we have done, and therefore, to what we can do. Conveniently, they also provide fodder for our pens or – more commonly these days – our computers.

Say, Adversity, maybe I can use you for something after all…but do you really need to be such a bloody enthusiast?

- Dara Lyon Warner