Thought of 12 September: that to become a Great Writer one needs to do five things: master one’s craft; achieve a reasonably full under- standing of existence as a whole; become an expert in at least one significant field of knowledge; fashion a reasonably large body of work (whether published or not) and, last, get a position in the world where one can be heard by a reasonable number of people. If one was born with sufficient gifts, recognition must eventually follow.
This thought occurred to me because, after Hudson Luce’s call I’ve been feeling like I’ve finally gotten to where I must become successful as a writer if I have the goods, which I of course believe I do. If I haven’t yet mastered my craft, I never will. I certainly have as full an under-standing of existence as anyone in the world, unless there’s a hugely greater gap between such an understanding and the deeds resulting from it than than I believe. I am also, I believe, an expert in the field of literature (which is different from being able to write)–and one in esthetics and psychology as well. There are many other fields I would count myself a near- expert in, too, including even economics, though my expertise there only amounts to common sense and the ability to think about goods and services without being muddled by some political bias.
My body of work is objectively large, consisting as it does of the equivalent of ten unpublished, full-length plays, a published book, published essays and poems, and scattered other pieces that haven’t been published. Lots of letters, too. And, with my position at Factsheet Five secure, and other avenues to visibility opening up such as the space won at Modern Haiku and Small Press Review, I feel I have a position in the world from which I can be heard by a reasonable number of people, too. So it’s just a matter of time before I’ll be recognized. Urp.
Saturday 12 October 1991 The big excitement of the day was getting a letter from my new Factsheet Five editor, Ben Gordon. It arrived with an edited version of my column. At first I didn’t like what he’d done to the column at all, but I gradually changed my mind. He made some good deletions, and few so-so changes, and one or two slight blunders, but did a good job. Of course, he missed some nuances I intended, but the hell with ‘em. He also seems more concerned with punch than full responsibility–for instance, he changed a line I had about Kaldron and Lost & Found Times’s being the only magazines doing otherstream material that were older than Mallife–”that I know about.” He, in Time/Life fashion, chucked “that I know about.” He doesn’t like my interjections of self-descriptions for comic effect, either. Oh, well, I can live with that. As for the irresponsibility of some of the things the column will now be saying, I can blame it on my editor. I called said editor (Ben Gordon) about my changes to his changes and ended talking to him for about a half an hour. He seems bright and enthusiastic. Also young. I enjoyed the talk, though, and think we should get along fine.
(2) The only magazine I’ve been doing a regular column for changed hands, and the new editor kept only two of the old columnists, out of ten or so: me and another guy. A minor triumph, for sure, but reassuring. The magazine is Factsheet Five and is actually sold in record shops and bookstores. It’s not too certain how much longer it will last. The first issue to be published by the new owner has not yet appeared and it was due out last month.
Tuesday 17 December 1991 One other item in the mail was a form letter to “all columnists” from a guy named Jim Knipfel who is abruptly my new editor at Factsheet Five. Ben Gordon “flew the coop,” according to Knipfel. No word as to whether the latest Factsheet Five has hit the streets yet or not, but I found out that my next deadline is 20 January, which is a relief. All in all, I wasn’t happy to hear Gordon had severed ties with F5, for I felt I would have gotten on well with him. I have no idea how I’ll get along with the new guy. He sounds like he wants to leave the columnists alone to do their thing–but he also said something about not trying to find new columnists to write about things nobody understands as, Knipfel says, Gordon was doing. This suggests he might not be as keen on my far-out intellectualism as Gordon was, or appeared to be. What a world. I just hope the magazine keeps going, and that my last column will be in the forthcoming issue as scheduled.
Tags: Bob Grumman, Factsheet Five