And Frank Kept Singing Anyway: Why Write Against All Odds?

by Reni Roxas

It’s bad enough that you want to be a writer.

Consider the obstacles.

First, you must face the terror of the blank page. Will you submit to the terror, or will you attempt to make something out of nothing, with the audacity and power of a god?

You, a god? Sure, why not. Pick up the pen. Pound the keys. See what happens.

Okay, so you try.

You begin.

You begin to write, often without a clue where you’re going. Nobody puts a GPS in your hand. For a destination all you have is a vague idea of a white house with a soft light in the window. With a lump in your throat you get in the car and start driving. It’s raining mules and donkeys, your windshield wipers are swishing madly to and fro, the road ahead is thick with fog, you are cold and miserable, and all you want to do is reach the house with the soft light in the window. Along the way are many detours, many witches who whisper to you to disembark and come away and play. If you are stubborn, like I am, you drive on. If you are unprepared, as I am, you run out of petrol and join the witches. I have done both.

Now let’s say you reach the end of this thing you’re writing. You don’t know what the heck you wrote but you feel it’s time. Up ahead you see an off ramp and you take it. But therein lies the second obstacle. Another challenge awaits beyond the off ramp, because now the real work begins: revising and rewriting. You have ceased to be a writer. You are now an editor. So you roll up your sleeves and don your editor’s cap. You begin to edit.

Editing is agriculture. You whip the plow horse to charge ahead, digging deep furrows into the work, that cabbage heads and tomatoes and tulips may bloom. Rewriting is key. Rewriting is key. Did I say that rewriting is key? Yes, therein lie keys to the kingdom! The seeds you scatter take root. You water constantly. You also pray for rain. You pray for a rich harvest. At some point, as you’re heaving and plowing, you feel like you are really chasing a butterfly over the very fields you have planted -- that perfection you want is ephemeral, mercurial, the kingdom contained in the butterfly.

But you know deep down it can never, ever be perfect. “Everything is a draft, always,” said the writer Charles Baxter. Still, you try to make your story the best it can be.

Then, when you are so sick of looking at what you’ve written, you go to your writing group and share the piece. The piece has become a part of yourself, the very best and worst parts of yourself, and sharing it with other human beings is letting down the shield. You feel vulnerable but also brave. Looking around the room, you realize that being with other writers is a communion. They -- these kindred spirits -- are bringing work to share, too. They are laying their blood and dreams at your feet. And so, all of you read, debate, opine. Then you go home to rewrite.

Fast forward in time, which can take anywhere from a day to fifteen years, when you feel that this thing you’ve written -- the piece -- this fragile, living work fashioned out of nothing -- is something -- gulp (the lump returning in your throat) -- you’re ready to share with the world.

With eyes shut and a trembling finger, you hit SEND.

You wait. And you wait. And, and --

And the world…surprise! The world doesn't want your words.

Not just yet.

Maybe the world isn't ready for your words.

Or maybe out there is a plethora of publications so vast, it will take a lot of perseverance and patience before you find an audience for your work.

So you wander through a wilderness of rejections. Rejection. Rejection. Rejection. This may go on indefinitely. And one day you could say chuck this, I have a life, I’ve run out of groceries and I have other, better things to do with my time, and you go and play with the witches.

This Sisyphean cycle of writing, sending, and being rejected can go on a long time.

But.

Still.

Nonetheless.

You want to be a writer.

And to be a writer, it’s not enough to persevere, you must endure.

Somebody once described writing as a completely miserable affair where one floats under an icy sea, sees a hole in the ice, and swims to the surface for a gulp of air, only to be swept under again. That is the life of the writer. You float along, trapped under the ice until you spy the next shaft of light, swim towards it, bring your face up to the surface, breathe. If you’re lucky, right before you’re dragged under again, you might see a sliver of sky.

Last year I took a fiction-writing class. The teacher planned to share with us a series of published master stories, after which we students would share and critique each other’s work. Every Monday he emailed us two stories to critique: the first from a master writer (for us to pick apart and learn from), and the second by a student in the class (for us to workshop). One Monday he sent us only one story to critique. I started reading. The story was good. Heck, it was more than good! Paragraph after paragraph, better than good. I read the story like a doctor with a stethoscope in search of a heart murmur. Futile. The story was too good! And I thought, who is this writer? Whom among my classmates wrote this? The writer’s first name was Jamel. Part of me wanted to find him or her, and genuflect. But I’ll be honest, another part of me was crushed by hopelessness. If one of my classmates could write this well, why write at all? I could never be this good. Why, attempt, even?

I went to class anyway. The teacher opened our discussion by announcing that the student assigned to share that week had begged off, after which my teacher dove into the short story written by Jamel Brinkley, an award-winning African American author. Relief. What I’d read was written not by a peer, but by an acclaimed writer. This saved me, yet all the same I was devastated. As if writing wasn’t already like climbing the Everest, I had to reach the summit with sprinters who could live on rarefied air!

“This is my feeling as a reader. The writer’s feeling, just as sharp, is a double one. Gratitude and amazed delight. And utter discouragement. Writing can be this good, it’s been done. Something has been proved here, no use now trying to prove it again.” Reading these words by the great Alice Munro (she was praising the virtues of Eudora Welty’s work) made me feel a kinship with all writers. Suddenly I no longer felt alone in my envy and despair.

It’s been said that when Frank Sinatra heard Sarah Vaughan sing—Vaughan, whose burnished contralto register was once described by a music critic as “digging into a deep, mysterious well to scoop up a trove of buried riches”—Frank remarked, “When I listen to her, I want to cut my wrists with a dull razor.”

This? From a man celebrated as “The Voice”?

But Frank didn’t cut his wrists, thank God. He kept on singing.

Over the winter, right before the COVID-19 pandemic had us sheltering in our homes, I took another in-person writing class. On our last day the teacher invited all of us students to read our short pieces out loud. At the end of each sharing the teacher asked, “And how did it feel to read your work?” Regardless of who read what, novice or pro, around the table, he posed the same question. “And how did it feel to read your work?” And that’s when it hit me. Why I write. Why we all write.

We write to be heard. 

It’s not about Frank Sinatra wanting to slash his wrists because somebody else sang better. It’s about him wanting to sing. It’s about Frank wanting to be heard. And how fortunate for us that we can still listen to that voice of his. That particular, wondrous voice of his, as his song “New York, New York” rang out over the streets of Manhattan in the spring of 2020, an embattled city’s salute of gratitude to its essential workers at the height of the pandemic.

So, what did I learn? I learned that out there is a symphony of writers serenading our world, and every voice can be heard and celebrated. Including yours, including mine.

Reni Roxas has been publishing children's books for Filipino families for over 25 years. Her short work has appeared in The New York Times, Writer's Digest, ParentMap, and Brain,Child. She lives in Everett, Washington. Say hello at reni@tahananbooks.com.