Travel Day

In 1937 the young journalist Martha Gellhorn traveled to Spain to to observe the Spanish Civil War and to get a little private face-time with Ernest Hemingway. She carried only a knapsack, a portable typewriter, and fifty dollars in her pocket. I think for Martha, or Marty as Ernest would call her, it wasn't what she brought along on her travels that bore importance, it was more about what she left behind. There's nothing romantic in packing up your entire apartment and dragging it along with you on your travels. Far more romantic to leave it all behind. Everything.

Martha would become a life-long traveler, never staying in one place for very long. She would go on to have homes in Cuba, Mexico, Rome, East Africa, and eventually London. Her homes were always small if not humble and in terms of mod cons, sparsely equipped. Instead the layover-homes contained the essentials for a writer who spent most of her time on the move: books, a typewriter, booze, and an ashtray for her never ending cigarette. Even into her late eighties she was always ready to travel at a moment's notice and often found herself making difficult journeys on her own dime in order to research a new novel she was writing or to find the truth behind an armed conflict or the resulting carnage of that conflict.

She had a son, Sandy (adopted), but she would claim herself to be the worst mother in the world. She had several husbands (including Hemingway), but she would claim to not only be a poor wife, but also very bad in bed. Once, she spent a couple of years playing the house-frau to the then editor and chief of Time Magazine, complete with weekend house parties in the suburbs and she nearly committed suicide from the boredom and despair. I think it safe to say that Martha Gellhorn was not the domestic type.

I've just packed my knapsack. I have considerably more than fifty bucks stuffed in my pocket, but given the more than three quarters of a century that's lapsed in between 1937 and now, I'm not carrying much more than its 2013 equivalent. I'm heading back to Italy for two months and then onto France for the New Years. When I'm gone I will be rewriting two books, MOONLIGHT WEEPS and THE BREAKUP. I'll also be mapping out another new standalone that at present has no title. I'll be taking care of my normal journalistic duties for some magazines I work for (I have a deadline tomorrow which I'll make as a soon as I land in Rome). It will be a busy time that will also include some four-wheeling in the Tuscan Mountains and short trips to other countries. Traveling light without the burden of possessions is important. Traveling without regret is essential.

I'm not sure who pointed out to me that if sharks don't move forward they die. Probably some dude in a bar. But no one wants to be that dead shark laid out on the couch watching the flat screen in his living room whispering shoulda, coulda, woulda. Not me anyway.

Passport...check.
Boarding pass...check.
Wallet and euros...check.
Kindle...check.
Backpack...check.
Laptop...check.

I'm off to the airport.
So long and farewell.

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The Interstate of Life

We have a finite set of miles allotted to us. What are you doing with yours?

Do you find yourself lying in bed some mornings wondering where you took the wrong turn in life?
Maybe it was right after college when instead of taking  left off the interstate of a life towards something that would make you happy but not a lot of money, you instead took a right onto the entrance-ramp of security and financial responsibility. I took that right, right out of college. I had a little help in the matter in that I had been groomed from birth for the family business. "Groomed" is putting it kindly.

But soon after entering into the business, I rejected it. It didn't feel right. I was a young man who felt uncomfortable in his own skin. It was like having been thrust into an arranged marriage and being repulsed by your new partner. I wanted to be a writer. That was the life I wanted to live. People thought I was crazy. My family thought I had lost it. They all said, "You have this great business. One day it will be all yours." Then they said, "You can write on the side."

I didn't want to write on the side. Writing on the side was for hacks and pretenders. I knew that if I didn't give it my all, I would one day become the fat, middle-aged man with high blood pressure, a house in the burbs that needs a new roof, and more debt than I could possibly pay off. If I were going to become a writer, I wanted to do it the way the greats did it. Like Hemingway and Mailer and Gellhorn. I wanted to write about everything and see the world doing it.

I rejected the family business and I rejected the suburbs and I rejected anything that even speaks of normalcy and safety and what's expected of me. Does it make me selfish? Maybe. Writing is a selfish pursuit. It requires alone time and it requires space and it requires stimulation that cannot be had by sitting on the couch in front of the television anymore than it can be had by doing it "on the side."

Today....at this very moment in time, I'm not fat, I'm not unhealthy, and I don't have insurmountable debt keeping me up at night. But I don't own a business, nor do I have a country club membership, nor do I own a house, nor am I rich. Not even close. But damn, I'm happy as hell. Happy that after taking a right hand turn off the interstate of life, I pulled a U-turn and pursued the other route. It's made me who I am right now and who I will become many miles from now.

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Your Eggs in a Basket

The dynamic literary duo, Hemingway and Gellhorn, each maintained a steady mix of both fiction and journalism. Why shouldn't you?




Writing is a business.
Think of yourself as (Name Here) Inc.
Which means, change the title of this blog to, Your Eggs in BasketS...Plural.

It's a tired cliche..."Don't put all your eggs into one basket." But you know what gets even more tired? Being broke all the time.

If you want to be a successful writer...a writer who actually makes a good living, eats, travels, enjoys life...then learn to write not only in many different styles and even genres, but don't give up the journalism either. When one thing isn't doing it for you or your wallet, something else will. By splitting up your time between several forms of fiction, be it novels, novellas, film scripts, novel adaptations, etc., along with several forms of journalism, photo-journalism, pro blogging, etc., can you ensure yourself steady and meaningful work.

Take it from one who knoweth. Back in the late 1990s, when I landed my first big book contract, I chucked journalism like a bad habit. When the book deal went south a couple of years later due to a corporate merger, I was left with zero means for earning an income. I had to pretty much beg news media outlets to give me another chance. Which they eventually did. Now, I have several new book contracts, but I still maintain my journalism chops. Never again will I be caught with my pants down around my ankles or my baskets empty of eggs.
 

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