I wrote a novel. It almost killed me but I finally finished the thing. I grew up writing poetry, but as a writer I figured I should be able to say I had completed at least one. I had a publisher with an offer and bunch of free copies but I thought—after all that work, I’m going to sign away my baby for a few thousand bucks? It’s true what they say about completing a book, it is like giving birth, and you really do think on it like a parent does a child. That said, ironically or not, when finished I remember feeling like—I’m never doing something stupid like that again! Writing a novel can kill you. I mean a literary novel, a book that tries to take the past, combine it with what’s on the human horizon, and make life relevant here and now—that attempt to give meaning to us little monkeys who are sometimes warm, soft, and furry inside, and other times as cunning and deadly as all the teeth and claws that ever tore something apart. Anyone says writing a novel is not the most difficult thing a human can do doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Anyone ever tells you they’re working on a novel, be kind to them. And if you do write one, guess what? Even though it will have been the hardest thing you ever did, it might go unnoticed.
Not long ago humanity was on the cusp between real books and e-books. Fortunately I finished mine somewhere in that period and had the option to go traditional or go future. I choose future, meaning I created my own publishing company, meaning I jumped through a couple of hoops for the federal government, meaning I was in complete control of all my works. Part of the decision was related to the fact that when I was in my twenties I used to sell advertising door to door in Los Angeles so I figured I could sell copies of whatever on the street, meaning I could walk around with a backpack half the day and make more than working for someone else—and all in cash—or food and beer. Which is what I ended up doing, walking around four or five hours, and trading the final books at a bar or restaurant. In fact, I drove from Santa Barbara to Montauk and back one summer on my own book tour. I had gotten lucky with the photo for the cover, it was an empty wave, huge perfection in green and golden hues. Also, the woman who did the interior design was a perfectionist, so the book came out really nice. When people would ask I’d tell them it was about a surfer coming of age in Malibu. It was easy to sell.
As a poet it has always been women who inspired me most, even more than Earth, and while still in my thirties I fell madly in love with an actress. She starred in both film and on stage and after admiring her for some time I went to see her perform live in a play, hoping that if possible I’d be able to tell her afterwards what an inspiration she was. And I did, I told her she was my muse. She even agreed to sit before her matinee the next afternoon, to discuss ideas for a new play. The following year I went to see her again and found out she was planning on spending the rest of her life with someone else. I walked from the theater into Central Park and sat on a bench. I thought I was going to be able to handle it, telling myself everything happens for a reason, how I was a fool and how maybe it was embarrassing even that I sought her out in the first place. But I couldn’t help think about all that had lead up to the moment, that she really did inspire me to finish a novel and write my first plays. She really was my muse. Had I been inspired by other women before? Sure, but never like her, plus we were the same age. My mind flashed to the day of sitting outside the theatre when she told me how much she loved the stage and how she couldn’t live without it. The kind of actor, like a wild horse, in need of that fourth wall to range out into, to deliver ideas, to move people to laugh or cry with complete conviction in their own artistic vision. And she was Shakespearean too, she told me that playing Juliet at age twenty was one of her most cherished memories. I sat with all that going through my mind, and how at that moment she was there on the island, at an after-party somewhere else, with someone else. I’d never wake up with her, never walk hand in hand to rehearsals for the day. That was the life I was supposed to be living, and not only was it not happening, the thought of creating again was like thinking about how to pick up the Empire State building and move it somewhere else. I recalled stories and accounts of the artist/muse relationship and those who lost their muse and how that was the end of life as an artist, never wrote another word, never picked up the another brush, never played another note. One French playwright in particular, who had gotten farther than me—who had not only written plays for his muse, but also had her starring in them—when he finally found out it wasn’t going to happen, he just said, “I’m out of here,” and hung himself. I shuddered. If the loss of her was the loss of inspiration, would I be able to go on as a non-artist? Was this actually the beginning of the end? All the inspiration provided by her was suddenly ashes at my feet until grief and fear came in waves of thought and emotion and combined in a moment that I must have passed out because the next thing I know there are two/three people crouched down around me asking if I’m all right. My cheekbone and chin were both scraped and bleeding where I rolled off the bench and hit the bricks. The sacred alliance of artist/muse and there I was, the worst part of it. And yes, I did just use the word sacred. And no, it was not overwrought. Think about it, think if you turned on your device and no music or movies were on it, or you went into town and there were no theaters, no galleries or museums to wander through. Life without art is incomprehensible, like Earth without oceans, and in order for it to exist it requires inspiration. Just like trees and fruits require water, art requires an artist who’s inspired. That’s when art is Art with a capital A, when it alters consciousness like it was meant to. That’s when it can move an entire society one way or another. And the sacredness of inspiration isn’t only found in art, but science too, meaning they’re two sides to the same coin because they’re both built on what’s presently known to humankind. And inspiration doesn’t have to be huge to be sacred either, even if it’s as small as the shift manager inspiring the cook to prepare a sandwich better. Someone who inspires someone else to excel, or inspires any thought, intention, or act towards creating a more beautiful world must be sacred because anything we’ve ever considered sacred has been a part of this world, so any striving to make it more enjoyable or understandable has to be sacred too. Unless you’d rather be a robot instead of human, then maybe the artist/muse thing isn’t all that sacred. But I don’t want to be a robot, and I don’t want the humans who live after me to become robots either because robots aren’t free. Robots are incapable of liberty because robots can only do what they’re told. It’s the difference between being told what to feel, and actually feeling. I want humans to be humans and experience the feelings brought about by freedom. And there’s the ultimate question for us today: Do you believe we should be free? Or do you believe only a percentage of us should be free, and the rest slaves?
That night in New York City was not the last time I saw the actress, and because of that and other things, it makes me again feel like I should tell about it. Which on the one hand seems silly because no one really listens anymore, we’re firmly centered in an age where reasonable discourse based on fact is scarcely to be found.
