Monthly Archives: December 2009

Farewell, Vixen

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Bye-bye, Vixen

Bye-bye, Vixen

I’ve been trying to write the last installment of my “V for Vixen” column for the Hour. Basically, the deal is that they want to put two shorter columns in the space my column currently occupies. I’m not being laid off, exactly, as I was offered the opportunity to pitch another shorter version of the column (or an entirely different column) for one of those spaces, but I felt it was time to move on. I’ve been writing Vixen since October of 2007, and while I am still definitely interested in continuing to write about sex, love and relationships, I think I do need a different venue for those explorations.

I also need a break. I’m burnt out, and I feel like the things I’ve been writing lately haven’t been connecting with audiences very well. That’s probably because they’re not quite the things I’ve been wanting to write. How do you write about sex without being purely titillating? How do you write about sex in an intellectual way, without alienating over 90% of your readers? How do you share personal stories without over-sharing? What’s the point of sharing personal stories, anyway, if the only comment you receive is from some asshole who just wants to tear you down and make you feel bad about having written anything to begin with?

These are all challenges, not just for sex columnists, but for writers of all kinds. But I do think that sex writers are more easily pigeonholed than others, and that’s another source of frustration. Just because I write about sex does not mean I’m horny, easy, cheap, or morally bankrupt. It doesn’t mean I am a bad person, or that I was abused as a child. It doesn’t mean that I’m a sex worker, or that I want to fuck you. It doesn’t mean anything, really, except that it’s a subject I like to write about. Sometimes it’s fictional, sometimes it’s factual, but regardless, it’s me.

I can’t really escape the fact that I write about sex, that I’ve written about sex, that I will in all likelihood continue to write about sex. If that means people don’t want to hire me, so be it. I’ll go work somewhere else. And maybe that’s a good idea anyway, because writing about nothing but sex gets pretty old pretty quickly. It’s interesting, but I am also easily bored by routine; I like learning new things and finding new topics of interest.

So right now I am applying to get into graduate school, because I’d really like to write a novel. I have been starting and stopping novels for years, ever since I did my first NaNoWriMo, and I’m really bummed that I missed this year’s monthly writing marathon. I would like to write a novel, to edit a novel, to really and truly finish a novel, and see it go to print. If I get into this MFA program, that’s the goal. So I’ve got to finish up my writing samples and have those in by December 15.

I am still trying to find the right words for my last Vixen piece, because even though it’s kind of an ending, it’s also just the beginning. I don’t know where I will be writing, professionally, for the next little while, but I’ve still got Black Heart for all my filth and perversions. Check it out, if you haven’t already, and let me know what you think.

In the meantime, my last Vixen column is slated to run on December 17. Farewell, Vixen. It’s been swell.

Charles Bukowski on writing what you know

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Here’s a good question:

“why don’t you write a novel about all
that?” I asked her.
“Hank,” she answered, “you’re just a
cynical old drunk and a son-of-a-bitch.
no wonder your stuff sounds like it was
written in a cesspool.

the next novel she wrote had a cynical
old drunk in it who thought he could write but he
couldn’t really write at all, he just wrote shit
which appealed somehow to the mundane appetite
of the masses.
— “novels,” by Charles Bukowski

bukowski025

Writers are often told to write what they know, but then you’ve got the divide between those who think nobody should write what they know (because what they know is shit), and those who think you should write nothing but what you know (because they’ve got no imagination whatsoever). I would have to agree with Bukowski that if you’re writing novels about nothing, and your life is more exciting than your life’s work, you should probably write about your damn life already.

But then there are the people who write about nothing but their own lives, who get into the navel-gazing, who-the-hell-cares? territory. There’s nothing worse than the ramblings of a writer who doesn’t know he or she is boring everybody to tears (see: all Bukowski’s poems about going to the track).

There’s also a difference between making the personal universal and simply airing your dirty laundry. For instance: there’s a guy I know who fancies himself a writer, kind of like the chick in this Bukowski poem. He thinks writing about his ex-girlfriends is a great way to make money and get laughs. He thinks he’s talented and funny, because he writes about “something real,” even though he’s just, metaphorically, holding up other people’s underwear and sniffing them in public. Some may say I’m just jealous of his “success,” but is it really success to be a big fish in an extremely small pond? And for people to label your pond a cesspool?

In Bukowski’s defense, I don’t think everything he wrote sounds like it was “written in a cesspool.” A lot of it surely came from muck and mire, but it had heart. He was a sensitive human being, underneath it all. Don’t believe me? Here’s proof:

if you want to piss on the sun
go ahead
but please leave the good women
alone.
— “a poem for swingers”

Certainly, this poem demonstrates more than just morbid obsession with women, fucking them, and writing about them afterwards in order to humiliate them—which is basically what the guy I mentioned above does with his work. Bukowski may write unpleasant things about these women, too, but mostly because he is documenting his own failures. He is the ultimate butt of the joke, not all the women who dared to sleep with him.

So, should you write what you know? Yes, but remember a few things:

  1. You still have to edit what you write—even if you’re Mr. Charles Bukowski himself.
  2. It’s called fiction, so remember to make something up now and then.
  3. Writing about all the people you’ve slept with, using thinly-veiled pseudonyms, is self-indulgent—not to mention an invitation to a lawsuit; try to find material that other people can connect with on a more personal level.

P.S. All material excerpted in this entry comes from Charles Bukowski’s book of poetry, Open All Night: New Poems.