A PERMANENT WRITER'S BLOCK

As I tentatively embark on the momentous risk of publishing a book, after only three decades of preparation, (yes, that’s thirty years!), I am reminded of the many quite famous authors who suffered disasters in the process. Herman Melville was doomed by his inattentive editor and publisher Richard Bentley, who without consulting the writer, moved passages and eliminated sections, of Melville’s latest effort “Moby Dick.” Renaming it “The Whale,” Bentley did everything in his power, intentionally or not, to sabotage the printing. The book sold only 3000 copies and Melville, although he continued to write, took a job as a customs inspector on the docks of New York, a position he held until his death. Our own favorite author Samuel Clemens writing as Mark Twain was forced to declare bankruptcy when he invested $170,000 on a printing machine with 18,000 separate parts, invented by James Paige. Clemens’ prior experience as a printer gave him confidence that the machine would succeed admirably, but Paige’s fixations doomed it to fail and be replaced by a simple model, the Linotype. Clemens spent five years touring South Africa, India, Australia and other countries delivering one man shows until he was debt free. Unfortunately, he endured personal tragedies with the death of his daughter Suzy and the toll of poor health the trip had on his wife Olivia. Edgar Allen Poe’s death was as mysterious as his writings. He was found semi-conscious on the streets of a strange city, wearing clothing that wasn’t his own. He died four days later. The poet and writer Sylvia Plath, writer of “The Bell Jar,” suffered from bouts of depression and took her own life. She was found dead in her kitchen with her head in the oven. For F. Scott Fitzgerald, his drinking problems were intensified by his move to California. His short stories, rather than his novels, provided his primary source of revenue. Initially his masterwork, “The Great Gatsby,” was not well received and his last royalty check was for $13.13. He died at the age of 44 from a massive heart attack, not knowing the praise that awaited him in the future. Do you know that Tennessee Williams, after a bout of heavy drinking, choked on a bottle cap or the cap of an eye dropper? He was the author of “The Glass Menagerie,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “A Streetcar Named Desire,” with the last one earning him a Pulitzer Prize. Sherwood Anderson wrote short stories in a different style and influenced Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner and Fitzgerald. Anderson accidentally swallowed a toothpick that punctured his internal organs. Tragically the leeches doctors used on Lord Byron to cure a fever caused his death. While walking on a country road in Maine, Stephen King was almost killed by a distracted driver and considered his recovery and years more of life “a gift.” So here I am risking life and limb by publishing a book, “Little Thoughts on a Big Planet.” What madness could I be contemplating? Horrors!