Writer Cat Fight

I've always enjoyed reading the work of Chris Jones. But I've got to tell you, those two blog posts were pretty revealing about his character. He came across as incredibly self-reverential in the first one and an arrogant puke in the second one.

I especially loved how he called anybody who doesn't approach writing and the pursuit of awards in the same manner that he does a bunch of losers and failures as writers. Yes, Chris, you're all about the excellence, and the only way you can truly achieve it is to sit down at a big fancy dinner with all your pals so you can all tell each other how great you are. Grow up, man, there are far more important things in life.

And he's so sensitive about any criticism that he fires back at everyone in the comments section that has the audacity to call him out. A huge ego and thin-skinned. What a combination.

God bless Scott Raab.

 

I really have no time for false modesty or polite phoniness. One of the reasons certain writers can write the way they can is they're honest, even to a fault. With the reader, the story and themselves. Give me a genuine writer over someone putting for appearances every single time.

 

Agreed.

The other thing is, simply: What does this admission damage, in the grand scheme of things? He wrote a story, he thought it was great and worthy of an award, and he's disappointed it didn't get nominated.

The more I think about it, the more I'm not seeing the problem.

 

The fuck? How did I get dragged into this?

 

I hesitate to wade in here for several reasons. 1.) I'm not as eloquent as most who have posted before me. 2.) I don't really know how what I say will be taken, and really am not in a place to be attacked.

First, I know Chris Jones. I have had beers with him. I have spoken to him many times. He has sent me encouraging e-mails when I've been at some of my lowest points. I consider him a friend, though not to the extent of many others, and vice versa.

Second, I've always loved his writing. Whether it was here, or on his blog, or in his book, or in his magazine stories...his writing has a lyrical way about it that seems so easy, even when I know it's not.

I think Jones has never hidden his insecurities. Moreso than an ego, I think that's what drives most writers. It very much is a competition, and every word written is measured against every one that has been written before. While I never would have written what Jones did on his blog, I'm also not afraid to admit it's because I'm too afraid to be that honest. I would care too much what people would say.

Jones is in a weird place in that he cares too much about what others think, but also has the writer's need to cut a vein and bleed it all out. So he does. In a blog. Not in a magazine, not for publication. It was his blog, a personal look into his life. I can't judge him for that.

He's a good man. He just might have too much faith in people, believing they will see WHY he writes something as opposed to just what he writes. That's all too often a losing proposition.

 

Speaking of putting for appearances, what time does the Masters start?

Can we dispense with the awards debate? There's not a single human being that doesn't yearn to be recognized for what they do. To that, someone previously mentioned that Jones' blog post smacked of the "everyone gets a trophy" mentality. Well, that's as wrong as can be. It's the opposite. I understand why people would be put off by an accomplished writer writing about their need for further validation -- it's nature as human as the need for recognition -- but the true mentality revealed in Jones' post is one we should all aspire to. Life is about competition. Every aspect. Work. Love. Spare time. If you're not willing to compete and embrace the roller-coaster of emotions that brings, you don't deserve recognition. I previously said I didn't understand why a guy who seemingly has the world by the balls would waste his time bickering so much on a message board. I still wonder where Jones finds the time and why he sometimes bothers. But I understand the urge to emote, the urge to defend, the urge to write, the urge to compete. The last two are raw human emotions that cannot be separated in those who desire to do both as best they can, no matter their level of success.

 

I'm actually really enjoying this debate. I think it's interesting, and it's been mostly substantial, and I think it's probably useful, or at least I hope it is. But just a few points, if I may:

1) I didn't think the Ebert story was great. When I finished it, I was worried mostly that I didn't do justice to the material, which was incredible. But then it was received so well, as well as anything I've ever written—it has had more than a million readers online alone, and that doesn't happen for me, ever—that I got my hopes up about the award nomination. (I didn't think it would win, for the record. I thought the Rolling Stone McChrystal piece would win, deservedly, although it was nominated in a different category, it turns out. Now I hope the Atlantic piece wins, because I think it's great.) When you hear that you're going to get nominated so many times, I think it's hard to resist thinking you might. That was a mistake.

2) I'm surprised how many of you, on a board dedicated to journalism, would see honesty as something tacky or unseemly. I find that really strange. Did I open myself up for attack? Sure, I get that. But for being honest? That's weird.

3) I'm even more surprised how many people have told me some variation of, Isn't it time you cooled your jets? Relax, be proud, get over yourself, don't care so much... That sounds to me exactly like a recipe for the "mailing it in" stage of my career, which I'm hoping to delay as long as possible. You guys routinely murder someone like Rick Reilly for having seemingly lost his edge. I find it strange that you'd also come at me for ambition. You can't have it both ways. You can't aspire to do great work without ambition. Great work's rarely an accident of fate.

4) Last, and most important: I would ask that you not judge me as a person until you've met me, hopefully for a drink. I've pushed 'em back with quite a few people on here, IJAG included, and I don't think many of them would call me an ogre, except for those who saw me drop my pants in New York City. What they think of me, I can only speculate with a mixture of giddiness and dread.

 

This is one hell of a good point.

 

Reading the title of the thread, I must say, I'm very disappointed.

I was hoping there was going to be a video of Lupica and Albom getting into a fight.

 

If you are going to label my claim false, that's fine, but at least accurately report my claim. I did not say that Jones finished his story, brushed his shoulder off, and said, "Yup, award winner." I said that one of the first things that went through his mind after finishing the story was, "I hope I win an award for this."

Only Chris Jones knows whether or not that is true. Not me. And not you. But Jones says it himself: "Until today, I always thought that winning was the greatest motivator."

Sorry, man. Winning has never motivated me as a writer. As an athlete? Sure. As a poker-player? Yup. But as a writer, my greatest motivation is that moment when I am sitting in a chair with a computer on my lap and music in my ears and a feeling inside of me that says I am the only member of the human population who is seeing this story the way I am seeing it. Everything else is a distance second. Which is fine. That feeling motivates me. Winning motivates Jones. Different strokes. I would leave it at that, except that Jones proceeds to label every writer who doesn't share his motivation as destined for failure. And that's some dangerous bullshit coming from a guy whose blog is read by many impressionable young writers.

I hope Jones doesn't believe the bullshit he is spewing. I hope he really doesn't view winning as his greatest motivation. A writer does not enter his profession for the material rewards. He becomes a writer for the sense of purpose it provides, for what Mencken called "the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident." The material rewards that follow? I know some writers would tell you they don't care about them at all. But I enjoy a comfortable life, so I think they are great.

Hopefully Jones feels the same way and is just trying to justify the value he places on a National Magazine Award.

But other people apparently believe his shlock, and this is what he says: "If you’re a writer, and you honestly don’t care how your work is received —- if you don’t care whether your writing earns an audience, or money, or an award -- then you will never, ever earn any of those things with your words. You will be a failure."

See what he does there? The sentence sounds like one that most writers would agree with: "If you're a writer and you honestly don't care how your week is received. . .you will be a failure." That's a fair statement. Probably too general for my taste, but fair enough. After all, if your work doesn't reach an audience, you are pretty much writing a diary.

But when Jones uses a paranthetical to define the measure of how a work is received, he makes a quantum leap from "reaching an audience" to "money" to "awards." Every writer I know cares about reaching an audience. Not every writer cares about earning money or awards. I care about money. As for awards, I enjoy the feeling that comes when my work is recognized by my peers, but I "care" about them as much as I care whether a dinner party ends with dessert. Sure, I'll eat some cobbler, and I'll probably enjoy it, but I'd much rather talk and drink. I know this: If the host does not offer me some, I won't be "crushed," and my legs won't "feel like they're 300 pounds."

Point is, not caring about money or awards is not guaranteed to make you a "failure" as a writer. Ginsberg said "to gain your own voice, forget about having it heard. Become a saint of your own province and your own consciousness." Kafka said that writing itself is a "sweet, wonderful reward." Flaubert said, "You must write for yourself, above all," that doing so is your "only hope of creating something beautiful."

Maybe Mr. Jones would be wise to heed the observation of Virginia Woolf, who noted, "Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others."

Jones comes across as if he minds beyond reason. This is a guy who, in his original blog post on the matter, writes that "I’ve never met much adversity in my life or my work. I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve been nominated for two National Magazine Awards, and I’ve won them both. I’ve never had that feeling of deflation I had this morning, that venting of jets. Maybe, in some strange way, I needed that." Then, in his next blog post, he includes a link to a piece he wrote about his son almost dying at birth and later being diagnosed with mild autism.

Jones could write that he hasn't met much adversity in his work. But, for some reason, he includes his life as well. Probably because it sounds better. Which brings me to one of the reasons why I'm not a huge fan of Jones' blog: his writing often comes across as phony, as if he cares more about presenting himslf as the tossle-haired, indie-music-listening, fuck-saying writing guru than he does with presenting reality. Most of his stuff reads like a Hallmark card.

"The moon tells me what to write," he writes in his follow-up post about the Whitlock situation, "when it talks to me, after everyone else has gone to sleep, and only I can hear it."

Is he trying to make a point, or write the lyrics to the next Dashboard Confessional single? Google "the moon tells me what to write." Two different bloggers have constructed that sentence: Jones, and somebody who goes by the handle "Sk8rrboi."

Jones isn't my style. A lot of other people seem to love him. Personal preference. But he writes his blog in a tone that suggests his view of writing is the only view. And that's bullshit that he needs to be called on.

In his Whitlock post, he tells a young writer to "be a fucking pro."

"That, for me," he writes, "has always been the highest compliment one writer can bestow on another."

Except, apparently, for a National Magazine Award.

 

Daemon, I don't agree with the whole thing, but that's one hell of a post.

An award-winner.

 

That was excellent.

I read the Ebert piece not long after it came out. At one point, it was too depressing to continue, so I finished it later. Was it good? Yes. Was it great? Not sure.

A few months later, I flipped through Esquire again and came across a one-page article, not written by Jones. I can't recall the subject matter, nor does it really matter. At one point, on a single page, the word "fuck" and its various forms had been used at least 42 times, and most of them were in a throw-away fashion.

Not sure that someone can be great if that's the flagship on which he rides.