State Of Flash – Why Do We Write

Hey everybody! This is the first monthly installment about the world of flash fiction (it’s small, don’t worry) written by me, Glenn Shaheen, and sometimes guests. And what better way to start off this series and establish the boundaries than by not writing specifically about flash fiction?

We get a lot of submissions at NANO Fiction – at any given time there are hundreds of subs to read in our inbox. A lot of these submissions are great, and we try to publish as many of those as we can (if your piece was rejected by us then it was great and it was one of those other editors who didn’t like it, not me). Many more submissions are good, most are ok, and a few are just terrible. I don’t mean terrible in that they tried to do something neat formally and just missed the ball, or terrible in that the writer is young and prone to the young writer mistakes all of us were/are guilty of, I mean terrible in that the piece is just water, a milky sort of thing that could have been the TV Guide summary of a primetime drama. No kinds of risks, and no kinds of gains – factory writing. The other day after reading through three or four of these kinds of submissions in a row, I found myself asking “Why is this person writing?” But what’s the answer for the rest of us?

Let me just say right here that this isn’t going to be one of those inspirational “Write Like A Motherfucker” essays where everybody can give themselves a big hug for being such noble writers at the end. I often see the question of we we write posted on Facebook or other blog type outlets, and the answer most often posted is “I write because I need to. Because I can’t picture myself not writing.” Well, that’s ridiculous. We need to eat, and we need to breathe, and to some lesser degree we need human contact as part of a communal species, but we don’t need to write. By trying to portray writing as a necessity, either mind or body, we’re trying to elevate it into some sort of ethereal importance – we’re so amazing because only we have been called on to need to write. That’s just self-aggrandizing. If somehow I couldn’t write for the rest of my life, I’d definitely live for many many years, and so would you. It’s like when people say they can’t live without their TV. Now, I’m not saying there isn’t an impossible desire to write in most of us, an almost uncontrollable want, but it makes us sound less terrific and kind of like big babies if we say “I write because I really, really wanna!” (Not to mention that both of these answers, need or want, are begging the question anyway).

I was going to make the point that when plumbers are asked why they plumb they never answer “because I need to,” but in that case they make money off of it – other, legitimate needs can be met by exchanging money for goods, services, etc. Most of us writers, especially if we have relegated ourselves to poetry, flash fiction, or innovative (experimental, whatever you’d like to call it) writing, will never in a trillion years make the kind of money a plumber makes off our writing. We get a paycheck of like $30 and we won’t shut up about it for weeks. So I don’t think the answer to the question is “to get paid.” I mean, sure, we all fantasize about becoming rich, but if you went out and told Joe and Jane America that you write “flash fiction” they’ll probably say “I don’t know what that is, but my cheeseburger isn’t cheesy enough, so take it back.”

So money’s out (phew!) – but want isn’t enough. I mean, it’s enough to want to write if you just keep it in your journal, but we’re talking about writing and trying to get published. And not just on somebody’s tumblr (is that a thing now? I don’t keep up with all this internet mumbo jumbo [the NANO Fiction stenographer is transcribing all of this as I speak]), I mean, published in “for real” journals with readership in the dozens, or hundreds even. The easy answer is “We want to be published because we want our voice heard.” But again, that’s circular reasoning at its finest. To look deeper, we want our voices heard because we feel that of all the thousands of pieces that end up in a journal’s slush pile in any given year, our piece is more deserving to be published than the rest. Obviously, we all are capable of dealing with rejection in its countless forms, but every one of us curses a journal for rejecting us, or reads an issue after we’ve been turned away and says “But this piece sucks! And this piece sucks! And this piece sucks!” It’s just conceitedness. On the rare instances when we do get a piece published, you bet that shit’s all over Facebook in two seconds. “Look, everybody, I was right all along when I figured I was the best. Bask in my glorious tercets and don’t forget to like this and shower me with empty praise!”

This next reason’s a little more complicated (or maybe not written as clearly is what I mean). I meet a lot of writers who tell me about their post high school days when they were in a band, or trying to get into film, or act (all three of these apply to me, btw). Of course it all fell through unless your name is David Berman, and these future writers had their visions of fame dashed to bits. OR DID THEY? All you have to do to achieve fame is drastically alter your definition of fame. It’s much easier to become a “famous” poet than it is to become a famous actor. I feel that many poets and writers are in this shit because they think it’s their last chance for fame or national recognition. AWP is the worst example of this. You’ll bump into some minor friend and they’ll say something like “Just had coffee with Matthew Zapruder no big whoop” smiling like they just blew Johnny Depp. I was at a party at AWP this past year and everybody thought a friend of mine there was James Franco. They were so smug all night (except for the people who went up and asked if he was James Franco – they were disappointed). It was like their life long goal was met – write a chapbook about lightbulb filaments that get’s published on Gritty Tooth Press and then go to a party with a movie star, it doesn’t matter that your band Empire Hate Building broke up before you recorded your first EP anymore (dibs on the name Empire Hate Building if I ever pick up a guitar again kthx). But the truth is there are only like 10 famous writers, and none of them go to writing conferences. (And the other truth is James Franco isn’t even very famous, and if he decides to become a for real writer the Spider-man movies and Freaks and Geeks will actually be erased from history as his fame undoes itself. ) I’m being too specific here, I think – when I see bios listing dozens of past publications, I feel like this is part of this fame hounding, too – writers desperately trying to make you realize they’re important on the national scene, whatever that is. Even those of us who know you’re only supposed to list three or four pubs in a bio like to pull out our CV every now and then with its list of all of our publications and just smile to ourselves and drool a bit. Publishing in national publications is us thinking that we have a palpable effect on the world of writing – we’re engaging with it and altering it in the same way the really big writers do. But this is something singular to the arts – the aforementioned plumber with his nice HDTV isn’t trying to affect the plumbing world, or change the way people think about plumbing.

So this is tough – I think I’ve figured out why most of us write – we’re conceited, fame-hounding babies who, like children, have uncontrollable wants that we’ll cry about if they aren’t met.

As for those submitters who write those bland, factory pieces – I think they just don’t read enough, and don’t really care to read. I guess that means maybe they’re just doing it for fun. Actually, man, I want that life! I also wanna cookie, right now! Wahhhhhhh!!!!!

-Glenn Shaheen, Ed, NANO

We don’t have a comment mechanic built into our website code (yet), but I can post some responses if you guys want to email them to me – glennshaheen at gmail – or post on our Facebook link