The writer, the reality, the world between
My boys Andrew and Robert (Gravenhurst musicians) have, for years, accepted their father’s eccentricities as “just another day with pop!” When I’m not the ever-brooding writer-in-residence, looking all poetic and mindful, I’m the “collector-gone-mad,” filling every space with old stuff, books, historic documents, art and just about anything else that looks or feels old. My wife knew I was a moody writer and an obsessive collector when we married. She has many different coping mechanisms to deal with either the cranky author or the spending-way-too-much collector. The lads however, have to warn their respective girlfriends and families about their artistic and quite historic father. All you have to say is “my father’s an historian,” and that’s usually enough to peak somewhat adverse curiosity. I initially wrote this short blog for Andrew and Robert….possibly something they can suggest potential inlaws read before they invite The Curries to any bonding event down the road.
When I began work as a fledgling reporter for The Muskoka Lakes-Georgian Bay Beacon, a press operator at our sister publication, The Herald-Gazette, in Bracebridge, told me that I was preparing for a life of “print!” With his hands black with ink and a couple of stains on his upper arm from some printing project that didn’t go according to Hoyle, he told me that once in the writing-publishing game, I would be forever contaminated with “printer’s ink!” While I had no idea what he was talking about at the time, I was interested enough to pursue the statement over three or four conversations with the printer that same week.
What he was trying to tell me was that becoming a professional writer, and working in the weekly newspaper enterprise, had destined me to the addiction of printer’s ink. He said that very few who join the printing-publishing domain ever fully recover from the exposure to the communication industry. “You’ll have printer’s ink in your veins forever,” he said with a hint of dire prediction. It turns out it wasn’t a poison raging through my veins but rather an “inspiration” injected that would command an ongoing relationship in the publishing industry…..until as they say, “dust to dust.” I thought it was an interesting bit of print industry folklore but being strong-willed from childhood, I couldn’t imagine anything so intoxicating that it would influence me over the course of an entire lifetime. Well, it’s within a hair’s breadth of thirty years, since he told me this ditty about printer’s ink, and I’m still in the business. Still writing. Still dreaming up new ideas for blogs, web sites and new books. Was he right? Of course he was! He had printer’s ink in his veins too.
Writing is an absorbing profession and those reporters from my time, who left the business entirely without regret, did not have the deep seeded fascination with the printing industry that I possessed. From my first exposure to the thundering old presses and the smell of wet ink on paper, I was truly mesmerized. I used to wander back to the printing shop of The Herald-Gazette at coffee time, to watch a project run through the presses. Might have been a book or a magazine, even a small newspaper. Our main paper was sent to a larger company with a much more elaborate press. I enjoyed watching the presses in action and the expertise of the printers who danced around those machines with grace and speed, watching for over-inking, poor inking, and a botch-up in paper delivery through the machines. It was a fascinating opportunity to watch a book go from blank page to the printed, compiled and bound word…..packaged in an attractive cover.
It wasn’t until I watched one of my own books being run through these machines that the issue of “printer’s ink” had now truly impressed upon me. I was thoroughly and agreeably contaminated by the enterprise of writing and publishing. I had gallons of printer’s ink in these veins. After all these years and a collection of published works that now easily touches the ceiling here at Birch Hollow, I now fully appreciate what it meant to marry the publishing industry. My wife and family certainly appreciate the extent and murky depths of the writer’s abyss. Of course I don’t think of it as an abyss but rather a profound, unyielding, dynamic obsession. Is that a good thing? Maybe not! Not much I can do about it now, seeing as my life-force chemistry is ten percent natural blood, ninety percent printer’s ink. I can write a story by using my fingertips.
Every now and again some fledgling author will show up at my doorstep, wondering if I would be willing to share some wisdom about the writing industry. How can I explain the significance of “printer’s ink?” How can I soft-sell how it determines the life-committed writer-authors from the “happenstancers” who will never fully adopt the writer’s lifestyle? A way of living, which by the way, is as much handshake acceptance of poverty and untold future suffering. How do you explain to some wide-eyed “keener” journalist the torture yet to come; the miles to be traveled often for little more than self gratification, and the occasional byline that recognizes persistence only.
I’ve scared off quite a few writers in my time and I’m so pleased to hear they’ve found more profitable, gainful employment far from the pungent aroma and stains of printer’s ink. There are occasions when I happen upon some half-deranged soul determined to make a go of the writing game. They listen and seem to understand what it will cost to commit to the mindset of the writer apprentice. What it means to live with the quirks of the creative process every second of the day. The horror of not being able to shut it off just because you’re exhausted. In the dim light of the midnight hour, you might have just sat down to the keyboard, necessitated by inspiration, fueled by the thought this might be the start-up to the long anticipated novel. Maybe not! Just a false alarm. There’s nothing on that start up page but the brightness of the computer monitor. No opening line. No poetic beginning. Just another failed attempt to wrestle inspiration from mind to screen, ink to paper. I tell them to view the movie, “The Lost Weekend,” to stress the point there’s more suffering enroute. Just wait!
I’ve had a few other writers show up in tears about yet another rejection of a novel submission, or failed job interview with the local press. “Suck it up,” I tell them, with a grumpy, seasoned growl. There is no way of diminishing or soft-landing the heartache of writing failure. It’s part of the sculpting exercise to create an enduring author; one willing to suffer deeply for the most minor success, the most miniscule credit in a published work.
For the past 30 years of sundry publishing credits and a few memorable moments of recognition, I have wandered around in the stupor generated by creative enterprise. I have never arisen from slumber one day since, feeling anything but a tired, frustrated writer. Each day, as I wander through the exercises of productivity and self preservation, I do so as a writer, ever watchful, always creating story-lines for new projects, looking for inspiration for the next paragraph of an ongoing body of work. Sometimes I pull a great idea out of the air that smacks of decent authordom, and I will race to put it into print. Too late! Old age has fried my retentive capability. A blank page in an old Smith-Corona used to make me crazy. Now it’s this infernal white screen inspiring nothing but snow blindness.
As tangled and mired down as one can come to feel, when thinking about this crazy profession, I have long given up on the idea of evacuating all this printer’s ink, to make room for normalcy, complacency and a sheltered existence. I carry-on, the weary foot soldier of writing enterprise, hoping for the next big break….the words that come after the title and the byline, which resemble something of a story…..anything that might employ the grand presses to engage printer’s ink onto every blank page in sight.
I’ve often wondered if the pressman, who told me about the haunting of printer’s ink, was looking for a wayward soul to harvest for his master. It’s been a semi-hell ever since. Yet despite the brimstone and carnage, it’s had its moments. The uncomplicated joy for example, of blogging these dark secrets of authordom, under the influence of printer’s ink!
Now back to the eternal quest for the grail! A book deal and something to write about!
Note of explanation: While it’s certainly true the writer, any author anywhere in the world, suffers for his or her craft, I have never once succumbed to doubt….the doubt that maybe I should have tried something other than writing. I’ve enjoyed all the ups and downs and as strange as it may read, I’ve always felt the suffering, the anxiety and sudden bouts of depression were part of the writer’s life…..a writer who doesn’t wear the profession’s scars like badges of merit, is unworthy of being called “an author.” I’ve never once asked my sons what they think of dad as a writer because I know for fact they don’t read my work. Suzanne will only read a piece I’ve composed if I ask for her opinion. For all they know I could be writing pornography. I don’t blame them at all. Maybe when I’m dashed out of this mortal coil they’ll reminisce about good old dad by reading a few of these blogs at my wake.
Thank you for visiting this blog-site.
Please visit my other blog at thenatureofmuskoka.blogspot.com
My boys Andrew and Robert (Gravenhurst musicians) have, for years, accepted their father’s eccentricities as “just another day with pop!” When I’m not the ever-brooding writer-in-residence, looking all poetic and mindful, I’m the “collector-gone-mad,” filling every space with old stuff, books, historic documents, art and just about anything else that looks or feels old. My wife knew I was a moody writer and an obsessive collector when we married. She has many different coping mechanisms to deal with either the cranky author or the spending-way-too-much collector. The lads however, have to warn their respective girlfriends and families about their artistic and quite historic father. All you have to say is “my father’s an historian,” and that’s usually enough to peak somewhat adverse curiosity. I initially wrote this short blog for Andrew and Robert….possibly something they can suggest potential inlaws read before they invite The Curries to any bonding event down the road.
When I began work as a fledgling reporter for The Muskoka Lakes-Georgian Bay Beacon, a press operator at our sister publication, The Herald-Gazette, in Bracebridge, told me that I was preparing for a life of “print!” With his hands black with ink and a couple of stains on his upper arm from some printing project that didn’t go according to Hoyle, he told me that once in the writing-publishing game, I would be forever contaminated with “printer’s ink!” While I had no idea what he was talking about at the time, I was interested enough to pursue the statement over three or four conversations with the printer that same week.
What he was trying to tell me was that becoming a professional writer, and working in the weekly newspaper enterprise, had destined me to the addiction of printer’s ink. He said that very few who join the printing-publishing domain ever fully recover from the exposure to the communication industry. “You’ll have printer’s ink in your veins forever,” he said with a hint of dire prediction. It turns out it wasn’t a poison raging through my veins but rather an “inspiration” injected that would command an ongoing relationship in the publishing industry…..until as they say, “dust to dust.” I thought it was an interesting bit of print industry folklore but being strong-willed from childhood, I couldn’t imagine anything so intoxicating that it would influence me over the course of an entire lifetime. Well, it’s within a hair’s breadth of thirty years, since he told me this ditty about printer’s ink, and I’m still in the business. Still writing. Still dreaming up new ideas for blogs, web sites and new books. Was he right? Of course he was! He had printer’s ink in his veins too.
Writing is an absorbing profession and those reporters from my time, who left the business entirely without regret, did not have the deep seeded fascination with the printing industry that I possessed. From my first exposure to the thundering old presses and the smell of wet ink on paper, I was truly mesmerized. I used to wander back to the printing shop of The Herald-Gazette at coffee time, to watch a project run through the presses. Might have been a book or a magazine, even a small newspaper. Our main paper was sent to a larger company with a much more elaborate press. I enjoyed watching the presses in action and the expertise of the printers who danced around those machines with grace and speed, watching for over-inking, poor inking, and a botch-up in paper delivery through the machines. It was a fascinating opportunity to watch a book go from blank page to the printed, compiled and bound word…..packaged in an attractive cover.
It wasn’t until I watched one of my own books being run through these machines that the issue of “printer’s ink” had now truly impressed upon me. I was thoroughly and agreeably contaminated by the enterprise of writing and publishing. I had gallons of printer’s ink in these veins. After all these years and a collection of published works that now easily touches the ceiling here at Birch Hollow, I now fully appreciate what it meant to marry the publishing industry. My wife and family certainly appreciate the extent and murky depths of the writer’s abyss. Of course I don’t think of it as an abyss but rather a profound, unyielding, dynamic obsession. Is that a good thing? Maybe not! Not much I can do about it now, seeing as my life-force chemistry is ten percent natural blood, ninety percent printer’s ink. I can write a story by using my fingertips.
Every now and again some fledgling author will show up at my doorstep, wondering if I would be willing to share some wisdom about the writing industry. How can I explain the significance of “printer’s ink?” How can I soft-sell how it determines the life-committed writer-authors from the “happenstancers” who will never fully adopt the writer’s lifestyle? A way of living, which by the way, is as much handshake acceptance of poverty and untold future suffering. How do you explain to some wide-eyed “keener” journalist the torture yet to come; the miles to be traveled often for little more than self gratification, and the occasional byline that recognizes persistence only.
I’ve scared off quite a few writers in my time and I’m so pleased to hear they’ve found more profitable, gainful employment far from the pungent aroma and stains of printer’s ink. There are occasions when I happen upon some half-deranged soul determined to make a go of the writing game. They listen and seem to understand what it will cost to commit to the mindset of the writer apprentice. What it means to live with the quirks of the creative process every second of the day. The horror of not being able to shut it off just because you’re exhausted. In the dim light of the midnight hour, you might have just sat down to the keyboard, necessitated by inspiration, fueled by the thought this might be the start-up to the long anticipated novel. Maybe not! Just a false alarm. There’s nothing on that start up page but the brightness of the computer monitor. No opening line. No poetic beginning. Just another failed attempt to wrestle inspiration from mind to screen, ink to paper. I tell them to view the movie, “The Lost Weekend,” to stress the point there’s more suffering enroute. Just wait!
I’ve had a few other writers show up in tears about yet another rejection of a novel submission, or failed job interview with the local press. “Suck it up,” I tell them, with a grumpy, seasoned growl. There is no way of diminishing or soft-landing the heartache of writing failure. It’s part of the sculpting exercise to create an enduring author; one willing to suffer deeply for the most minor success, the most miniscule credit in a published work.
For the past 30 years of sundry publishing credits and a few memorable moments of recognition, I have wandered around in the stupor generated by creative enterprise. I have never arisen from slumber one day since, feeling anything but a tired, frustrated writer. Each day, as I wander through the exercises of productivity and self preservation, I do so as a writer, ever watchful, always creating story-lines for new projects, looking for inspiration for the next paragraph of an ongoing body of work. Sometimes I pull a great idea out of the air that smacks of decent authordom, and I will race to put it into print. Too late! Old age has fried my retentive capability. A blank page in an old Smith-Corona used to make me crazy. Now it’s this infernal white screen inspiring nothing but snow blindness.
As tangled and mired down as one can come to feel, when thinking about this crazy profession, I have long given up on the idea of evacuating all this printer’s ink, to make room for normalcy, complacency and a sheltered existence. I carry-on, the weary foot soldier of writing enterprise, hoping for the next big break….the words that come after the title and the byline, which resemble something of a story…..anything that might employ the grand presses to engage printer’s ink onto every blank page in sight.
I’ve often wondered if the pressman, who told me about the haunting of printer’s ink, was looking for a wayward soul to harvest for his master. It’s been a semi-hell ever since. Yet despite the brimstone and carnage, it’s had its moments. The uncomplicated joy for example, of blogging these dark secrets of authordom, under the influence of printer’s ink!
Now back to the eternal quest for the grail! A book deal and something to write about!
Note of explanation: While it’s certainly true the writer, any author anywhere in the world, suffers for his or her craft, I have never once succumbed to doubt….the doubt that maybe I should have tried something other than writing. I’ve enjoyed all the ups and downs and as strange as it may read, I’ve always felt the suffering, the anxiety and sudden bouts of depression were part of the writer’s life…..a writer who doesn’t wear the profession’s scars like badges of merit, is unworthy of being called “an author.” I’ve never once asked my sons what they think of dad as a writer because I know for fact they don’t read my work. Suzanne will only read a piece I’ve composed if I ask for her opinion. For all they know I could be writing pornography. I don’t blame them at all. Maybe when I’m dashed out of this mortal coil they’ll reminisce about good old dad by reading a few of these blogs at my wake.
Thank you for visiting this blog-site.
Please visit my other blog at thenatureofmuskoka.blogspot.com
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