J-School

I’m in New York for my 10-year J-School reunion. (J-School, as I’ve had to explain to every girlfriend I’ve ever had, is Journalism School. Or “Columbia University in New York,” as I used to say in one pretentious breath to my fellow Chicagoans, lest they think for a fraction of a second that I’d gone to Columbia College, the lesser Columbia, the non-Ivy League Columbia.)

ANYWAY, Friday seemed to be “the book day” of Alumni events, most of which were chaired by Sam Freedman, a noted faculty professor and author whose book-writing seminar is generally regarded as something of an author factory, the closest thing to a sure thing in the publishing world—which, granted, is somewhat akin to saying that the pass line on the craps table is the closest thing to a sure thing in the casino. Still, I have more than a little resentment and self-pity about the fact that I DIDN’T take said seminar; rather, I took a variety of other classes, none of which shot me onto the rocket-like arc I’d imagined for my writing career. I didn’t go overseas and become a dashing foreign correspondent covering a decade of war in the desert sands of Araby; I didn’t become a local municipal good-government crusader; I didn’t win fame or renown or Pulitzers. (A side note—one thing you learn very quickly at the J-School, whose staff, of course, awards the Pulitzers, is that it is, in fact, pronounced PULL-it-zer, not PEW-lit-zer, as the non-cognoscenti are inclined to do.) No, I sold out to The Man, spent the next decade working in cubicles (with a now-brief-seeming two-year interlude as a barista and waiter), and wrote a few book-type things in the meantime, none of which have yet gotten anywhere.

I probably don’t seem grateful for my time at the J-School, but it was very valuable—I learned far more than the proper pronunciation of an award I’ll never earn. In fact, for pure squeezing-a-lot-of-life-into-a-year-or-less, it was tough to beat. I met Caribbean festival organizers and Hasidic Jews and N.Y.P.D. officers and Al Gore and truant school kids and aging John Lennon pilgrims and drug dealers and the families of murder victims; the high, the low, and the in-between, as Townes Van Zandt might have said. My only regret is that I didn’t do more there, make more contacts, lose myself in the work, and really enjoy myself, but to do that I would have had to be a different person, the person I am now rather than the person I was then. (Granted, that’s a big regret; to wish I’d stayed on that path is to deny the value of the path I did take over the past ten years. I’ve written a book that I’m happy with, and several poems that I really like, and I’ve helped my friends put out a newspaper—and more importantly, I’ve found a little peace of mind, something I never had when I was on J-School sitting on the launch pad waiting for the rocket engine to ignite.)

I'd hoped that the book day would be the magical day I’ve been waiting for, the day I’d hook up with someone who would hook me up with someone who would be the agent of my dreams; I'd hoped to get my book out there and find the level of literary success that I sometimes imagine will bring me true happiness. And I think a lot of other people were hoping that, too; there was a book proposal class, and a panel discussion where a bunch of published authors talked about their post J-School careers, and a later event that basically boiled down to a bunch of fellow J-School alums asking book industry types if their book ideas had merit. I’d gone to the microphone and asked an earlier panel if they had any advice for someone like me, someone who has had some nibbles but has yet to find a way to actually, you know, get manuscripts published by something other than a publish-on-demand website. And I'd heard advice I’d already heard—find agents who represent books you like, and stay persistent. (It was probably something I needed to hear, but I had expected something more, something mind-blowing and yet simple, some magical thing that I’d somehow been ignoring and ignorant of for all these years.)

I'd held out some hope for the alumni book fair that night in the Low Library, but it turned out to be relatively sedate; I had some really pleasant conversations with some other grads whose books I then bought, and some somewhat more awkward conversations with other grads whose books I didn’t buy. And there was one guy in particular who had self-published a novel he was trying to sell there, which was exactly the same position I’d been in five years ago with Pottersville; I didn’t envy him; I know I had felt trapped and impotent behind that table, thinking something along the lines of: “Man, if I can’t sell every copy of my book here, I won’t be able to sell it ANYWHERE.” Still, there were no novelists there last night that had written anything I wanted to buy, so I didn’t get my schmooze on and find myself an agent as I’d imagined myself doing.

Being on the other side of the table at least let me see that most of these other authors didn’t really sell that many copies of their books there, either. Still, I think the best conversation of the day took place earlier on, after one of the seminars; another J-Schooler had tapped me on the shoulder and said that he HAD taken Professor Freedman’s book course, and that he’d still failed to find representation with his first five or six proposals. Someone had even told him in no uncertain terms that he had no business being a writer. And now he had a few books under his belt. Granted, this was good to hear, but I really liked the reminder that the path not taken has its own stumbling blocks and frustrations and difficulties.

Yesterday was gray and drab, and few places are as depressing as Gotham on such a cloudy day; today’s been blue and sunny, the type of day that makes the other days worthwhile. And the lesson I’m taking home with me is this—take each day for what it is, enjoy it for what it is, and don’t think about how things would be any different if you’d taken a different path, for even if it is true, thinking it won’t make any difference. I’m sitting in a corner deli with a laptop in front of me and a cup of coffee beside me; I’m writing; I’m enjoying myself. Regardless of whether or not I’ve sold a book, I’m doing these things, things I’d probably be doing right now anyway even if I was an established author. So what’s there to complain about?