I’ll Cry
I felt, literally, as though she had raped me—except she nailed me in an even more precious place. In the end, sex is negotiable, but writing is sacred—more sacred than communion or Splash Mountain.
I grew up in print. Not that I was so photogenic you saw my image in every magazine–that was my sister, Kieryn. And not that I was such a promising and prolific young writer everyone begged to syndicate me–that’s my next chapter. I grew up in print more literally. My grandfather sold type-faces to the Chicago Tribune, and my great uncle, a calligrapher, numbered among the original “Chicago 27.” The family easily could have dubbed me “font”; or I would have found it perfectly just and right if they had named a typeface in my honor. As it turned-out, however, I learned to read by learning to write; and, in my heart, I surely declared my English major before my freshman year…of elementary school. And pretty much for my whole life, I have remained immersed in print.
Of course, one thing led to another, nature took its inevitable course, and I ultimately spent six years beyond my Bachelor’s degree, ivy covered and collecting a few extra initials after my name, but mostly learning to read in order to complete my love of all things print.
And, then, because I preferred traveling the world in jeans, flip-flops, and t-shirts, I passed on opportunities to profess at big universities, and I went to work for a medium-market newspaper. Naturally, I paid my dues, writing not-very-literary features, daydreaming about becoming a starving writer of literary fiction for women, and sometimes going “on assignment” to someplace near someplace glamorous. Oakland, for example. Or Newark.
I did ultimately work my way out of my cubicle and into the almost big-time. And, then, my newspaper, like about a bazillion other American dailies, went belly-up—long before my mortgage and car payments were finished, and definitely long before I felt ready to finish.
First, I cried…
The expression comes from my tenth-grade daughter, my heroine and role model, and the first living American Girl to admit out loud what every girl always already knew. As we drove to a softball game one afternoon during her fierce campaign for ninth grade treasurer, one of Mallory’s team-mates had the courage to ask, “What will you do if Steven wins the election?”
“First, I’ll cry,” Mallory confessed. Her team-mates nodded their understanding and assent, crediting her with the distinction–first to name and claim it.
“Then, I’ll join the yearbook staff, get to know everyone in the whole school, and run again next year…for president.”
Mallory’s signature determination complete, as always, with a solid back-up plan. Trust me: Mallory did not get that presence of mind from me. The tears, yes. The pragmatism, not even close.
So, when the newspaper folded, first, I cried.
And Mallory lost a fiercely contested race for treasurer, but has taken charge of the yearbook. She couldn’t help it: print runs in her veins.
Tough Apprenticeship in the Ways of the Web
Then, I started working for an internet content business, which paid me a respectable daily rate to write about whatever clients wanted in whatever way clients preferred. On any old average day, my fingers and laptop produced about 10,000 words devoted to colon cleansing, healthy weight loss—acai berries number among my specialties, beauty products, automotive trends, and educational reform in South Africa. I declined anything dangerous to one’s health or civic standing, but I remained “negotiable.” Some of the schemes, cleverly contrived by criminally insane virtual entrepreneurs, absolutely staggered my imagination; I politely rsvp’d via e-mail, almost apologizing, “No, thank you. But, please, stay in touch.” The South African Lottery scheme numbers among my personal favorites. Right up there with enema advocacy.
While I kept the “qwertys” coming, I consoled myself with an accord among conscience, checkbook, and idealism. I paid the bills with somewhat shady internet writing, and I saved a few hours each day for my novel. I could live with it, because I counted it as some kind of 21st century apprenticeship in the ways of the web.
Then, all of a sudden, not-so-ironically on the very self-same day I submitted just over 100,000 very well-developed and ever-so-properly Latinate words for a Birmingham, Alabama, law firm, the broker, with whom I had worked for over a year, inadvertently leaked her most precious professional secret.
Everything I ever had written for her, ostensibly as “writing for hire,” she published under her own name—not even close to the contract language, which stipulated “no writer’s credit for the contract writer or the broker; copyrights belong to the client.” For every dollar I had earned, she had earned twenty; and, at the moment the fraud came out into the daylight, she owed me more than a thousand dollars in back pay—not including the brand new thousand bucks’-worth I just had sent.
I felt, literally, as though she had raped me—except she nailed me in an even more precious place. In the end, sex is negotiable, but writing is sacred—more sacred than communion or Splash Mountain.
First, I cried…
Then, taking a page right out of Mallory’s play-book, I went to my contingency plan. Consummating a promising partnership with, Andrea, my fellow car-pool mom best friend since second grade–except when we were enemies–we delivered Patterson-Forbes Partners into the world. No epidural or episiotomy required. And we made more than a pact; we pinkie-promised: We always will do business honestly, ethically, and as a fit example for our daughters, we pledged.
We know about cheating. We don’t do it.
We also know about second-rate work. We don’t do that, either.
And we don’t just promise.
We give you our word.
© 2009 by Trystan Forbes for Tent City Networks, A Patterson Forbes Company
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