Frank Parker wrote:
>This is the most money I've
>ever made with poetry.
>
>
When it rains it pours:-).
What I think of--the late comic actor Dayton Allen found in his car,
parked on the Taconic State Parkway, in flagrante delicto with a script
girl from WNBC-TV back in the 1950s. State trooper: "Lemme see your
license." Allen: "You mean I can get a license for this??" State
Trooper goes hysterical. Then writes Allen a ticket for public lewdness
or some other statute from Massachusetts Bay Colony.
About as much chance of Allen getting his license as any of us using
poetry as a license to print money. You, Frank, are among the blessed
spirits:-).
Winning a State of New Jersey thing 10 years ago (oh my God) felt like
the key to fortune and fame. $7200 IS a lot of money, or can be. It
figured it was the most money I'd ever make from writing poetry. The
money was fun while it lasted. But a steady income from this is a dream.
I used to know a guy years ago back in The Bronx who got himself a gig
writing pornographic novels. No artsy Olympia Press stuff, if you
fancied yourself Henry Miller II you were not likely to wake up with
Anais Nin. This was real trash where Steven had maybe 10 days to plot
and write something and hand it over. It didn't have to be literary or
well-written, it just had to be inspirational. For each delivered MS
he'd receive $750. In 1966 this was not bad take every 10 days.
My dissertation advisor a few years later told me his oldest son wanted
to do something like this. He said "But how many different ways can you
think of to Do It?" I didn't stay for an answer.
I would love to have the head and time to write a potboiler...God forbid
I got ethics and wanted to write a Great Novel. One of the saddest
stories I ever read was Harvey Swados' "The Man in the Tool House." A
guy labors for years before his "day job" to write a novel called Queen
City, based on the history of Buffalo, NY. He goes into his toolshed
every morning.
Maybe that is the common history of the writer who has to have a "day
job." We all get to feeling like Jude the Obscure.
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
W.H. Auden
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