Sunday, June 21, 2009

Are You A Big Deal?



i am not a big deal. my friend Augusten Burroughs is a big deal. I am a medium deal. i am the product of persistence and an education that i lucked into. Berkeley made me. most of my writing professors went on to win Pulitzer prizes. they were astonishing. they gave me encouragement and told me: you will be a writer, you may experience fame. i have no idea how they knew this -- looking back on the poetry i wrote at Cal i wince, mostly. yet they gave me that gift; i was not too crazy for them, because they were all crazier than i was and had permission, as erudite white men, to be that crazy. Phillip Levine. Thom Gunn. Robert Pinsky. Peter Dale Scott. i will always be grateful for these men.

i left college in the eighties, Gordon Gekko was a hero, i had no idea what to do with an English major. it honestly didn't occur to me what i would do after college. and so i waitressed, secretaried, cleaned houses... oh my, the shitty jobs. then i realized most of my funny interesting friends had gone into Advertising, and were well compensated. i decided i would do this as well. it took me 5 years of rejections and constant, humilating self-promotion with various ad agencies to get my first job as an advertising creative/copywriter in SF. again - persistence, mistakes, luck. eventually the money came, and the dubious advertising quasifame. i worked on Levis at FCB/SF for 8 years - glorious, posh, crazy, fun. traveled the world shooting tv campaigns. all of my art director partners were brilliant, all were men, and all 3 are like brothers to me, still. it's beautiful. i still do free lance ad gigs, my dirty little secret (they continue to save me. writing books isn't a get rich quick scheme. not the way i do it). these literary-free jobs saved my house when my husband ran off with another woman. pablo was 15 months old.

i wanted to die. instead i wrote a book. i thought SPLIT would be savaged my the reviewers, instead it was praised. shocking. i get heartfelt, grateful emails and letters from women who were abandoned, they say the book saved them -- and that is so gratifying and good. i ended up giving back to the world in that odd way. so i'm a medium deal with an odd way. it suits me. if i were a big deal, i would be expected to be on time for things, i would be taken away from my writing and fucking around routine, my son would see little of me, i would miss him terribly, and i would feel an enormous pressure to top every book i write. when really, there is no predicting these things. like a violinist, i just want to play my violin, barefoot, in my own house: a medium deal with an odd way.

8 comments:

Carrie Wilson Link said...

I think I'd much prefer being a medium deal. And odd ways? Oh, most def.

FINNABLOG said...

All things in moderation. The Greeks knew this.

chriskitlll said...

You've done more, seen more and had more than most of us only dream of. To me you are a big deal.

FINNABLOG said...

I feel the same, christkitlll; you know why.

divorcingdaze said...

Congrats on any deal, Suzanne! Just finished Split. Loved it. Many many similarities...I do a podcast on life after (and during) divorce. Although, X did not 'grant permission'...lawsuit (almost worse than the divorce, itself. almost.)
Cheers to you!

FINNABLOG said...

Thanks! Kill the lawyers! (To quote Shakespeare) all best, SF

Kym said...

I just "discovered" your books. I am just finishing up 'The Zygote Chronicles' as I type this.
Looking forward to reading 'Split'.

I don't know you, but your writing to me makes you a big deal.

:-)

FINNABLOG said...

thank you kym. you are meaningful, as in the meaning i write. to make that connection, to talk to women, to keep the dialogue going. xo sf