by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher

Recently, I came across a Facebook post by a local musician who is celebrating a year of sobriety. Twelve months ago, after literally falling down on her face, she resolved to go back on the wagon. And congratulations to her for that.

She's a good, passionate writer, and she projects her voice on the page, the way an actor or singer has to project their voice on stage. And, as an editor, I'm always looking for articles. But the post was too upbeat, too optimistic for me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for happy endings. But challenge and doubt along the way are what make the story. She did mention difficulties, but, for my taste, she treated those too lightly.

To be fair, she's a public persona, writing for her public: It's been a great year. Here we are at the end of the season. I'm going away. I'll be back in the fall. See you then. (My words, her sentiment.)

But, in literature human frailty propels the drama, moves the plot along. If you always put your best foot forward, then you're standing still.

Then, I admit, something cliched about a certain type of reformed addict rubs me the wrong way. I'd like more self-doubt: circumspection, caution, from someone recently emerged from years of intoxication. In such things, struggle is the mark of authenticity.

Pride going before a fall, I expect more humility from someone getting up off the ground. Personally, discovering that I've been wrong (a not uncommon experience) leads me to wonder (and worry about, to be honest) what other mistakes I have yet to discover.

I'm suspicious (and here I really am only guessing) that the same arrogance (?) that drove the post's author to debauchery, the same pride that planted her face in the pavement 12 months ago, is still at work behind her flowery self-appraisal: It's been a hard year, but I'm smelling like a rose. (My words, her sentiment.)

I don't know. Maybe, riddled by my own second-guessing and self-doubt, I'm just jealous of the way that she can get on with her life.

Another also-ran genre in my world of potential articles comes from the expert blogger. These people appeal to a niche market: men looking for women, vacationers looking for vacation spots, artists looking for representation...

Often, they are selling something. Their blog posts are the bait getting you to bite: to buy the book, to sign up for a consultation. There's nothing wrong with that. I myself am publishing for my living.

These people can indeed string a sentence together. They craft and entice. The problem is that it's predictable, always to the same predetermined end.

In Yiddish, the title "expert," maven, is almost always used sarcastically. Most people don't like a know-it-all, even if they do actually know it all. Then, those subjects where you can know it all are inherently limited, factual rather than interpretive. The older I get, the more I see that being right doesn't count for much.

I received a submission, a yet unpublished blog post, forwarded to me by one of these how-to bloggers. It was clever, but too controlled. Critique author's is hazardous work, but sensing potential, I wrote back: "Take off your expert hat." I haven't heard back. Not everyone wants to expose their vulnerabilities.

Another class of wordsmiths are those who have not suffered enough. Someone recently objected to this categorization by asserting, "Everyone suffers." If this is true, then I must make the much less poetic qualification: those who have not considered their suffering enough.

In this category, an author sent me an excerpt from her book: a car is forced to back off to the side of a country road to make way for a bus the author is riding. The car partially falls into a shallow trench, suffering some significant damage. The author relates: that the driver of the car, examining the damage, was distressed; that the bus driver impassively continued on his way; that she herself was bemused.

I know it's not the Hindenburg catching fire, but, like the reporter in that newsreel, I too call out, "Oh, the humanity!" The car accident on that back country road is so full of metaphor, encompassing, with hardly any imagination at all, the tragedy and indifference of life. And yet none of this registered with that author, who only, very competently, recorded her sightseeing expedition that day, an author who had not suffered enough to know, in a very biblical sense, suffering when she sees it.

Speaking of the bible, there is a rabbinic dictum that we must thank G-d for our sufferings. As I age, I become more appreciative of mine. If I had gone into commodities trading instead of following my philosophical bent, I would have made my fortune and lost my edge, and perhaps my soul. The struggle has kept me going strong.

One more class of writer that rarely makes my grade are those who are just having fun. For these people there is no second draft. For better or worse, it all comes pouring out of them onto the page, autonomously, like a bodily function.

Charles Bukowski charcoal on paper 35x45 in. by Henry Vermillion
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Bukowski once quipped: if writing is so hard for you, why do it? But Bukowski, even if he didn't work at it, kept his sub-par works in a closet, and should have burned them, so his gold-digging widow along with an unethical publisher wouldn't have been able to dilute his opus posthumously.

I work at it. (Or, at least like Bukowski, I hide my miscarriages.) I'd like to tell you, my public, that through writing I'm weaving the tapestry of my life. But, keeping it real, I have to admit that most of the time I'm only working at untangling a very knotted thread.

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Dr. David Fialkoff presents Lokkal, our local social network, the community online and off, Atención robustly reborn for the digital age. If you can, please do contribute content, or your hard-earned cash, to support Lokkal, SMA's Voice. Use the orange, Paypal donate button below. Thank you.

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