Rick Moody: “Writers are more desperate than at any time since I’ve been watching.”
In an interview with Big Think, Rumpus columnist Rick Moody says Writers are more “desperate” than they used to be, and, fearing they won’t be published at all, are trying to fit their writing into ever-more-rigid conventional contemporary formats.
“My former students who are out there now trying to get published are having trouble on those lines,” says Moody. “It’s the crazy great ones, the kind of mad ones who are really struggling to find people to publish them. And not because the projects don’t have merit, but just because everybody’s looking at Bookscan and they want certain numbers of units to ship and so on. That is going to affect people going forward, not only because we miss out but because when we miss out we then forget that the opportunity exists for that kind of experimental work.”
Video after the jump.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:34 am
The problem is that most everybody still thinks they have to learn a living as a writer. Once you accept there’s other ways to do things, you’re a lot better off.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:45 am
“It was tough for me, why should it be easy for you?”
Really, Neil Elliott? Really?
August 17th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Where does it say anything above about earning a living? His point is that writers are desperate to get their fiction published, not make a living off it.
August 17th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
And, Linnet, why do you think they want to get published?
If it was only to be read, they’d hit the library copy machines and start handing out chapters on the street. That’s what I do.
Mr. Moody’s former students aren’t writers. They’re kids who want to be on Teevee and get free cocktails, and maybe cocaine, at literary parties.
August 17th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
I loved this interview with Rick Moody. He gives very thoughtful responses to some complicated questions, and I appreciate his insight on his own personal writing and revision process. I found the whole thing quite encouraging, even though I’m working on a first novel that fits the exact description of the books Moody says aren’t getting published these days: long, experimental, non-realist (though I’ll make no claims to literary genius!). I suppose I believe that if someone like Rick Moody, whose writing I think is great, recognizes that experimental works aren’t getting published, then other intelligent and articulate people will recognize and somehow rectify the situation. What form the dissemination of such works might look like is anyone’s guess – but I don’t think people will ever lose their appetites for exciting, challenging works of art that lie outside the mainstream.
I find it particularly ironic that the comments to this video so far seem tossed off with very little thought or reflection, while Moody spends a great deal of time in the interview addressing the slap-dash, un-thought-out nature of “new media” writings. Way to illustrate his point, people! I don’t enjoy comment trash-fests, but I just wanted to say a couple of things in response:
It seems completely natural to me to want to earn a living doing what you love to do. In many professions, people study and work very hard to be able to make a living doing something they find interesting and fulfilling. Why should this be any different for writers? I’m not saying you write because you want to make money, I’m saying it’s normal to want to be compensated for the work you do, since we live in a society that requires you to earn money to eat. There’s a vast gulf between thinking you deserve a free ride and thinking that you’d like to make enough money to allow you to survive and have the time to write.
At this time, getting your book published still seems like the best way for your work to reach the widest possible audience. Again, wanting to reach the widest possible audience (even if it’s a “niche” audience) seems perfectly natural to me. I mean no disrespect to self-publishing, but – well, Moody discusses some of the problems with self-publishing as it stands now in this interview.
Finally, if I wanted to be on TV and get free drugs and booze, writing fiction would not be my first choice of a strategy to achieve those goals.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
What Deborah said. Thank you.
August 18th, 2010 at 1:04 am
A few years ago, a Los Angeles agent who read a novel manuscript of mine — twice — rejected it in the end because it was “too erudite to sell,” she said. When I mentioned DFW as a smart writer who sold books (not comparing myself to him, of course), she echoed what Mr. Moody essentially suggests in this interview: “The market can’t support two David Foster Wallaces.”
I thought that was a misguided statement at the time, and I still think it doesn’t hold up. Did all of those readers hungry for imaginative fiction somehow vanish at the turn of the millennium? I don’t buy it. Clearly, this agent and Rick Moody are talking about large-scale financial success in the mainstream marketplace, but how many books did DFW really sell? He still had to teach for a living.
More importantly, I’d like to know why Mr. Moody seems to be disregarding the vibrant independent literary scene where so-called experimental or challenging or thought-provoking novels are published all the time. Don’t those books count, even if sold in the hundreds or thousands (rather than in the tens or hundreds of thousands)? Don’t those readers and writers and publishers exist? I feel like there’s an elitist distinction implied in such an omission from this interview. On the flipside, what about the corporate publishing of Shane Jones (Penguin) and Blake Butler (Harper Perennial) — non-”realists” to the core, no?
While I appreciate Mr. Moody’s perspective, I’m convinced that the literary community is a lot bigger, broader and smarter than he’s giving it credit for in his reflections. And if readers wish to explore the alternatives to mainstream publishing, there are infinite resources online to point them in more adventurous directions.
August 18th, 2010 at 7:45 am
Shane Jones wasn’t picked up by Penguin until after his book was already an indie hit.
August 18th, 2010 at 7:48 am
I’ve been to a lot of literary parties and nobody’s ever offered me free cocaine.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Moody is right on target. JesusAngel’s ridiculous whine/rant proves it. Yeah, you’re too erudite. Agent: OK, how do I give this guy a compliment and get rid of his ass at the same time…Hmmm, I’ll call him too erudite!
August 18th, 2010 at 10:12 am
@Stephen – I realize Shane Jones was picked up after Light Boxes was an indie hit, but what does that mean? As I understand it, the book was sold in a limited print run, just a few hundred books. I believe it was really picked up b/c of the announcement of the film deal, which sadly fell through.
Anyhow, the statements at the end of my comment about Jones and Butler are there to illustrate the fact that adventurous fiction does get published. I know it’s not common in the mainstream, but it does happen. And it happens in the underground all the time, no? That’s my point. Am I wrong?
As I said, I appreciate — and respect — Rick Moody sharing his insight. My only issue is that he made it sound like it’s impossible to get published if you’re doing something different. It’s always hard, of course. And it’s impossible to make a living wage, usually. But it’s like that in all the arts in America: avant-garde music, modern dance, painting, film, etc.
Funny, @Frank. I don’t know what your problem is with my “rant.” I tried to clarify my point above. Care to argue cogently against something I said? Otherwise, um… yeah… take a whiff on me.
August 18th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
I always wanted to tend bar at the Algonquin Round Table. Free drink for you Deborah. Well said.
August 18th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
@Jesus Give me a just miss story about FSG or say, ummmm, Touchstone Fireside or, ummmm, Penguin Putnam instead of whining about a missed agent. My nine year old son could swing and miss at an agent, too. The truth has nothing to do with how “erudite” you claim to be. If your book was any good, it would have been picked up. Simple. I had two NYC agents. My book wasn’t passed over for Amanda Davis’ or Jhumpa Lahiri’s because they didn’t want something else just like it. They passed me over because those writers were better. So, ummm, yeah, jam your pretentious little “erudite,” “David Foster Wallace” bullshit clone in your, ummm, cogent ass.
August 18th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Damn…I better stop writing so simply and start writing more eruditely if what Mr. Elliot says about literary parties is true.
August 18th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
@Frank – I’m not going to fight with you. You sound like you’re upset about a lot more than what I wrote in these comments.
For the record, I never said I write like DFW. I don’t. Nor did *I* claim that I’m too “erudite” to be picked up by an agent or to be published. I’m not. I was just conveying a story that happened to me, which I thought was relevant to what Moody said in the Q&A. What I wrote is exactly what I was told. And my point was that I don’t believe the market can only “handle” one crazy-intellectual or experimental writer. That kind of assessment doesn’t make sense to me, but that’s what I was told by this agent and I’m not going to second-guess the intentions behind her words. This idea also seemed to be what Moody was getting at when he talked about how his wilder ex-students were having trouble getting published.
Re: the agent passing on my work… I don’t think my book was passed over because it wasn’t “any good.” I think it was passed over b/c the agent didn’t think she could make money off of it, which is the business of agents and mainstream publishing. On the other side, there’s a thriving underground where exploration happens, adventurous books are published, and readers somehow find them. This other world exists, and I didn’t feel like Moody was acknowledging it in his reflections.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Not angry. Just like to call complete bullshit artists out on the carpet instead of “taking a whiff”. Now you’re a “crazy-intellectual”? Try university presses. They publish a lot of bullshit by people who like to tell everyone how smart they think they are.
August 18th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
@Frank, you’ve misunderstood what I’ve been saying from beginning to end. I’m not going to interpret your intentions. I’m done.