That’s a straightforward question. Let me complicate it. Obviously, a writer is someone who can write, but that’s basically everyone. Lecture notes, shopping lists, love letters, business emails, blogs. None of that has anything to do with writing well, which brings forward the second definition – a writer is someone who has a knack, or a gift, of some kind. As I noted earlier, writing well as opposed to having basic literacy is the same difference as between singing and just talking. Writers, in that sense, are people who can make words sing on the page. They have a grasp – whether innate or acquired – of the sound and cadence and pace of words. They know how to make prose move forward.
Then there’s a third definition – a writer is someone who makes a living by writing. About that I cannot tell you much – that kind of writer was never me. I never wanted to be that guy, and it still astonishes me how hard, early on, some people in the industry tried to make me that guy. The campaign, I swear, went on for years while I was trying to establish myself as an editor, with me insisting to anyone who might listen, “I’ve chosen to be an editor” (and no one ever believed me).
It got to the point that the dean of magazine editors in this country invited me into his office one morning with a glowing smile and an eager expression and asked, “So, what’s your favourite magazine?”
I knew why I was there and what he wanted to hear, but still, that was a safe enough question to be honest about. Did I mention that he’d started a book imprint, and brought in a renowned trade editor to run it, and that she’d already sent me a mscript assignment? I’d known what was coming when she did that, and sure enough, here it was. All the signs were there: they wanted me to write something for them.
“The Economist,” I told him. I would have told him it was because it’s so well written and had the best foreign news. A copy editor can learn a lot from reading The Economist. But he didn’t ask why. And what he heard was, I like business magazines. (Those are the last thing I would ever volunteer to read.)
He had asked me that question when I was stone broke and desperate for a cheque from anywhere. It was not a good time to ask me what I actually wanted. The only true answer, in those circumstances, would have been, “I want to be anything but a magazine hack.” I’d kited a couple of articles by then, but the experience only reminded me how much I’d hated doing them and how humiliating it was to pretend I wanted to do them. They’d left me feeling soiled. I hadn’t been true to my own nature. But I lied in this moment for the sake of a possible cheque.
Sure enough, two days later, I heard from a business magazine editor under this guy’s umbrella, who was all excited about a wonderful assignment he had for me. Yes, yes, an article about how to make money (which, clearly, I didn’t know how to do at that point, except by lying about wanting to write for magazines). Here’s the fee (quite generous), here’s the deadline (decently loose), here’s a list of people for you to interview (so no chasing anyone down). Of course I said yes. Anything for that cheque. Then, right away, I called every ME on my list, whether they knew me or not, looking for an editorial project that could allow me to me tell him sorry, second thoughts, no. No bites the first day, but one of them called me back the next morning with an accounting textbook they could send me for a CE. Intermediate accounting, no less. Thank God and all the heavens. I called the business magazine guy right away. He was out of office, but I told his assistant I’d changed my mind – find someone else.
I had a meeting with the publishing house’s editor-in-chief that afternoon, to review a set of proofs I’d handled for her, and she was gladder to see me than ever. Yes, wonderful, her smile told me, we’ve landed Matthew. Oh, and have you met Alberto Manguel, he like to hear about your future projects. In fact, he’s that guy sitting over there. So there’s a Class A mentor on top of a heavy-hitting magazine editor and a carriage-trade book editor in my corner, and did I mention that their marketing was done by the largest publisher in Canada at the time? And that I’d known their marketing guy for years?
“I’m finally in turn-around,” I told the book editor. “I turned down a project this morning. It felt so good to be able to say ‘I do not want to do this.’”
She was so happy for me. “I knew you’d come through it,” she glowed. “What was the project you turned down?”
“A magazine article,” I told her.
“No, I mean what was the project you turned down?”
“It was a magazine article,” I told her. “I landed an accounting textbook this morning.”
A person’s jaw can quite literally drop, I learned that day. I finished the proofs and never heard from any of them again, thank heaven. I bumped into the magazine guy a few months later, just on the sidewalk, the one who had been so eager to help me, and he might as well have carved WHY? into his forehead with a rusty fork. By then I’d been assigned my first academic mscript for UTP, and my second, on my way to 500 or so over 30 years, and I couldn’t have cared less.
Morals to all this? M1: Desperation for money is the worst possible reason to say or do anything, and a hot place in Hell for anyone who can force a yes out of you that way. M2a: It was all a reminder that I couldn’t care less what my name doesn’t go on. If my name does go on it, I have to care first. M2b: No one can make you care, they can only make you pretend to, and that’s a soul-crushing way to live your life.