The life and business of writing - thoughts on place and patronage

I had a late coffee on a recent Wednesday with a woman named Sara Gray. Sara is a 25-year-old magazine writer turned wedding photographer who lives in west Portland with her IT consultant husband.

My reason for meeting her was to talk to her about her techniques for acquiring magazine clips. She shared stories of endless 10 hour days sending out 5 proposals per day and earning less than $4,000 over the course of an entire year. But through her stories she revealed herself as an entrepreneurially-driven woman who runs on grit, enthusiasm and determination — a woman who let nothing stand between her and her goals.

Nothing did until she grew tired. And still.

She wrote front-of-book magazine pieces to gain the trust of the magazines she targeted. She obtained the occasional feature assignment. Her husband kept them going while she chased her writing dreams.

She turned to photography as a form of respite and likewise threw herself into that. Studying and developing her skills were central --- her passion drove her to absorb 300 hours of conference classes over the course of 9 days in Las Vegas.

She thought she'd have to struggle as a photographer as well, but the clients came willingly and things started looking up for her. She still writes but doesn't have to burn herself out seeking assignments. She has, for the moment at least, found the right balance for herself and says she is as happy as she has ever been.

I ponder my own career and life on this rainy Portland afternoon. I'm in a sandwich shop called Kenny & Zukes whose walls are made out of glass. The rain outside keeps a steady cadence. I will bike in that rain before it gets dark, will stop on my bike and buy groceries to stock the flat I presently share with the Lewis and Clark English majors I found on Craigslist.

Earlier today, as I prepared to leave the apartment to meet Sara, I found myself posessed by a gut-deep, happy-dancing joy. I wasn't sure why it happend. This not knowing never happens; there's always some reason when I feel that happy. All I could pinpoint was how excited I was to get outside, to get on my bike and ride out into the rainy weather.

And so I ponder. Portland? Back to a car-free existence in a place I'm not ready to admit is probably my spiritual home?

In the model I've established for myself of late, the “where” is of little consequence. The “what” matters far more—that “what” being that I've thrown myself into a freelance writing career, have pared my life down to an almost capital-free existence. I've done this to buy some time. If I can work my way into a few magazine stables, get those editors calling me, then I have a chance at a sustainable magazine writing life. I have a shot at being that writer who gets to report the glossy 5,000 word microcredit article from Bangladesh.

The difficulty is that I am doing this bold thing and still there are details I haven't worked out. How long can I be on my own and living on nearly nothing?

Two and a half months is the current answer.

How much longer until the exhaustion from constant financial worry drives me back to a job?

Span of time: unknown.

But I'm not entirely on my own. The patron-artist model embodied by Sara and her husband is a hallowed one and the patrons I've had so far in my career have been many. There were the couches and trailers in that first year of serious writing. There was the three year relationship with the fellow writer; he was my patron and my lover and I still regard that time with a mixture of gratitude and guilt. Though perhaps I should upgrade that feeling to simply one of gratitude.

My latest patrons, the gentle, intelligent Coppick family, gave me space in their house in Washington, shared their hearth with me and generally opened up their lives to me. They gave me an office and quiet in the mornings and the necessary respite from quiet and solitude in the afternoons and evenings. It was an utterly elegant situation and within its confines, my writing thrived. I was useful to the twin girls while their parents ranged out of town for their careers. I was utterly isolated from the coffee houses and pubs where my friends might have forced my eyes upward and away from the page. It was, I felt, a life fueled by pure grace.

And then it ended. The invitation remained, but my usefulness waned. At the same time, I had a conference to attend in Portland and so I arranged to stay there for a few weeks thereafter to see friends and to get my bearings. I thought perhaps that I would go mountain biking in eastern Washington after that.

But the city of Portland is a green siren. She beckons with her art and her natural beauty, her urban trails and her cultured gardens. She opens up most days now that it's May with sunlight, raising warmth from the carpets of green and sprouting friendly people who are newly freed from their dour, gray bonds. I struggle to resist her call. I do not want to fall in love with a city like this, with any place so far removed from my beloved Arizona, but on days like today, my enthusiasm slips through the grate of my consciousness and I dance with joy without realizing why.

I'll decide soon whether to leave for Eastern Washington as I've planned or whether to linger for the summer here in the City of Roses. I once wrote that Portland was a good city, a place of green dreams, but don't think I sincerely meant it. I just had to pick a sustainable Northwestern city.

It wasn't going to be Boise, was it?

When I make it, it'll be an interesting choice. As always, the 'how' will be via instinct. The 'why' will be tougher to pin down, but there will assuredly be an intersection with my arch-purpose if I'm to say yes.

I left Prescott to seek my fortune and have found these several months later that its discovery is a daily unfurling.

That, at least, is unlikely to change anytime soon.