In the coming weeks, I hope to make a habit of talking to artists in the Portland area about their work. As a struggling writer in a world full of struggling writers, I’m seeking answers to the big question: why do we do it? What makes people that might otherwise appear entirely rational (okay, we’re talking about artists, so that may not necessarily apply) get up every day and engage in the mental equivalent of banging their collective heads against the wall, all for a future that practically guarantees a lifetime of rejection and the added bonus of veritable poverty? Is it the encouragement of others in the formative years? Sheer pig-headedness? A mood disorder of some kind? In a country where people are most often defined by their occupations (and in America, an occupation is only that if it pays), where does the struggling artist fit? And how does an artist go from barely getting by to making some kind of reasonable living from his or her work?
Recently, I was able to spend an evening chatting about some of these questions with Lewis Robinson, a Portland resident and professor in the USM Creative Writing MFA. Robinson’s first collection of short stories, “Officer Friendly and other Stories” was published in hardcover in 2003 to nationwide critical acclaim; the paperback edition was released last spring.
The New York Times Book Review said of “Officer Friendly”: “Robinson has that rare power . . . to make a setting breathe, to invest it with a vitality that seems as authentic and intense as the pulse beats of his characters.”
So, how does a writer in his early thirties who, like many of us, grew up the product of a broken home in Maine, achieve the level of writing that merits such high praise? Over a martini at Rosie’s Bar, Robinson provided some background on his writing career, and shed a little light on what sets him apart from the thousands of young writers struggling to make ends meet in America today.
According to Robinson, he had “secret designs” on becoming a writer as early as middle school. He did a letter exchange with EB White, writing to the famed author and receiving a response that showed him, “there’s a real, compassionate person on the other side of this book.” In his senior year of high school, Robinson had an English teacher who encouraged his work; from there, he went on to study Literature at Middlebury.
Right out of college, Robinson got a job working as assistant to the popular novelist John Irving, then moved to New York and earned a position in the publishing house Ballantine Books.
“It wasn’t really until I got to New York that I realized that no one’s listening… No one’s waiting for you to succeed.” Those were dark times, when Robinson was forced to reevaluate what, exactly, he wanted from a career in writing. The publishing game itself was “baffling” – the young writer read a number of manuscripts as part of his job, and was continually stymied by the choices editors made on which books to publish.
“I remember distinctly looking out the window and feeling like, ‘my life is passing me by,'” Robinson said. It was at that point that, against the advice of concerned friends, Robinson did the unthinkable: After a year at Ballantine, he quit his job. “Everyone advised me against it – ‘Imagine what this will look like on your resume.’… But I was so juiced to quit.” The writer went from his desk job with the literary elite, to driving a truck for a company in New York that specialized in moving art pieces. He worked there for two years.
The biggest benefit to having the truck-driving job was the hours: Three twelve-hour shifts made up the workweek, which meant that the rest of Robinson’s time could be devoted to his writing. While wages weren’t the best in the world, the writer persisted, setting rules for himself: “No booze out (at local bars), one movie a month, one meal out a month, no leaving the city, because all of those things got so expensive… I felt totally suffocated, but I also felt like ‘In order to make this work, I’ve gotta follow this.'”
Which, I believe, is where we come to the key to success. Talk to any dancer, any actor, any artist of any kind who has had a modicum of success, and you’ll find someone ruthless about maintaining a schedule and making rules to accommodate his or her art. After New York, Robinson studied writing at the University of Iowa; but it was the discipline he’d learned outside of school that facilitated his success both in the Iowa graduate program and as a working writer. Today, Robinson continues to adhere to a strict writing schedule every day. From about eight to one, the writer says that he focuses on “new stuff” (he’s currently working on his first full-length novel), and then will spend the afternoon revising.
So what has the fact of being published changed for him?
“I guess it’s a little different now that I have a book, but it’s the same old challenge – it’s still about finding meaning… some of the financial constraints are different, but what does it mean that I spend five hours a day in this quiet, imaginative place away from the world?”
At the end of the evening, Robinson told me that he’s gotten a new car; we ventured out into the streets of Portland for a viewing. For some reason, I expect something… reasonable – pretty, but nondescript. A Volvo, maybe. Instead, he leads me to a monstrous, silver boat of a car – an ’85 Caprice Classic; the kind of car that feels like a universe all its own when you’re barreling down the highway. It’s not flashy enough to be considered mainstream cool, necessarily, but it has a certain quirky American pathos about it that makes it that much more appealing. Not unlike Robinson himself.
“Officer Friendly and Other Stories” is available in fine book stores near you. Run out and buy a copy right now – come on, you know you want to!