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IN DEFENSE OF A \VRITING CAREER

BY

NORMAN COUSINS

Reprinted from .MICHIe,,!'.'" ALF~I:-;l'S QrARTERLY REVIEW

December 9, 1950, Vol. LVII, ~o, 10

Young Writers Are Advised Not to Despair,But to Avoid the Pitfalls of Their Profession

IN DEFENSE OF A WRITING CAREER

By NORMAN COUSINS

A EW weeks ago a journalism seniorat Columbia University visitedthe offices of the Saturday Re­

't--iew in New York. He was looking for aneditorial job. He was hardly seated whenhe began to express serious doubts aboutthe career he had selected and for whichhe had invested so many years of study.

"I like to write," he said. "My idea ofheaven is a big back porch in the countryoverlooking a green valley, where I cansquat in front of a typewriter and pokeaway till the end of time. Next to that I'dlike a job on a magazine or in a book­publishing house. But it's no use. Either asa writer or editor the chance of breakingin is so slight that there's hardly any pointtrying. And I haven't got enough of thatfolding green paper to endow myself withmy own back porch and let the rest of theworld go hang."

This was a new twist. Generally, thejournalism seniors stride into the SaturdayReview of Literature's offices in the springwith more bounce and spirit than the sec­ond act of La Boheme. They may be re-

NORMAN COUSINS, Editor of the Saturday Rev;ew 0/Literature, delivered this paper as the annual AveryHopwood Lecture on June I, 1950. Mr. Cousins, dis­tinguished both as an editor and an author, is agraduate of Teachers College, Columbia University, andin 1948 was the recipient of the honorary LL.D. degreefrom American l ni\·ersity. During the war he waschairman of the editorial board of the Overseas Bureau,Office of 'War Information. Earlier associated with theNew York Post and Current History magazine, hebecame executive editor of the Saturday Revii!'tu in 1940and its editor in 194-2. This addr~s was printed inthe Saturday Review of Liferature for June 17, 1950,and is here used by permission.

buffed, they may be detoured, they may bediverted, but they won't be discouraged andthey won't be dismayed. They know exactlywhat they want to do and where they wantto go. They may not have the foggiest ideahow they're going to get there, but tryingto hold them back is as futile as puttingyour hand over the spouting nozzle of afire hose. Yet here was a young man with abrand new script, saying he was sorry hehad ever persuaded himself to make writ­ing a career. He meant it, too. His facecouldn't have been more liberated fromenthusiasm than if he had been dreamingof flying to Paris in a Constellation only towake up and discover that all the time hewas in a subway car stalled under the Hud­son River in the tubes to Hoboken.

I was anxious to find out more aboutboth the dream and the awakening. Whydid he decide to take up journalism in thefirst place, and what suddenly soured him?Why so great a gap between the originalvision and the present disillusion?

In the next forty minutes he answeredthose questions fully and frankly. I'd liketo summarize what he said because I suspectthat his viewpoint and the experience onwhich it was based may be of some interestto new writers. For almost two months hehad devoted nearly every hour of his sparetime to visiting magazine and publishingoffices, canvassing the possibilities of em­ployment. He had also spoken to a numberof prominent writers, soliciting their adviceabout the glories and perils of free-lancewriting. He was especially anxious to findout from these successful writers how he

IN DEFENSE OF A WRITII\G CAREER 23

~ORMAN COCSINS

The 1950 Hopwood Lecturer is Editor of theSaturday Review of Literature.

ought to go about persuading a book pub­lisher to give him a juicy advance to sus­tain him while he wrote the great Americannovel-no doubt on that big back porchoverlooking the green valley.

FIRST of all, he said, the only job openingin a magazine or publishing house he

had been able to detect was as assistant tothe associate editor ofa master-plumber'strade journal. Noneof the national maga­zines wanted him,though he was quitesure that at least afew of them reallyneeded him. And,judging from what heobserved, even if hecould crack open aspot for himself atLife or Time orNewsweek or Col­lier's or the Atlanticor Harper's, he wasn'tsure that it would be awise thing to do. Nopossibility for ad­vancement. The goodjobs were all sewedup and would be foryears to come. Mostof the magazines wereedited by a few men,who, despite the ul-cers and anxiety neuroses of their calling,would probably live forever. Men like Mr.Luce, Mr. Hibbs, Mr. 'Veeks, and Mr.Allen quite obviously weren't going to stepdown-at least not during the second halfof the twentieth century, and those on thenext echelon were all braced to resist anyreplacements or reinforcements for perhapseven longer.

On the news magazines, he said, themost you could hope for was perhaps break­ing out of the open arena of the researchers,where men engage facts like toreadors do

bulls, into the well-populated pen of theassistant editors. Here the facts are digested--sometimes passing into the blood streamof the magazine without leaving a trace.Salaries of the assistant editors are adequatethough not spectacular. Above everyone,however, is the iron ceiling of anonymity.In such a job one's writing is as shorn ofindividuality and personality as toothpicks

being processed outof a plank of wood.When the mountainlabored, it at leastbrought forth a livemouse; here you la­bor over your type­writer for a week andproduce half of adead, overset galley-unsigned, of course.

Newspapers wereout of the question,my young friend con­tinued. All right, per­haps, as an openinggambit, just to get itout of your system soyou could say youwere a newspapermanonce. A nice thing tohave in your past, butnot in your future.True, you meet suchinteresting people, orso they say, but there'snot much creative in­

spiration in the written material or theweekly pay check. Of course, my friendsaid, it is a different proposition if you arelucky enough to become a syndicatedcolumnist, conjuring up your own assign­ments in various corners of the world. Butit's obvious, he said, that heavy-pay jobssuch as this are all filled.

'What my friend wanted most of all todo, of course, was to write a novel. He hadspoken to a number of prominent writersand had made something of a survey ofthe creative-writing field-all of which had

24 THE QU;\RTERLY REVIEW

convinced him that the way was practicallybarred to all but a few fortunate newcom­ers. He said he was certain that the un­solicited-manuscript department of theaverage publishing house was actually theuninvited-manuscript department. He pro­ceeded to give me the results of his investi­gation, which showed that Norman Mail­er's The Naked and the Dead, for example,had been rejected by almost a dozen pub­lishers. And Betty Smith's A Tree Growsin Brooklyn turned down by about ten. OrGertrude Diament's Days of Opheliaspurned by six. Or Mildred Jordan's OneRed Rose Fore'uer thumbed down bytwenty-two. Or Mike Woltari's TheEgyptian ignored by eleven.

Let us suppose, he said, that a youngauthor sending in his first manuscript re­lied on a single publisher's judgment. Sup­pose he received a rejection slip the firsttime out. Wouldn't he be justified in think­ing that the publisher knew more aboutwriting than he did, and in deciding to giveup his writing career right then and there?And even if he preserved his confidence inhis own work, submitting his book to pub­lisher after publisher, what was he to doif he received rejection slips from themall? Does anyone know how many NormanMailers or Betty Smiths there might bewhose manuscripts were spurned by all thepublishers?

No, said my young friend, shaking hishead sadly, he didn't believe that even ifhe did write the great American novel,there was any chance that it could get bythe unsolicited-manuscript department. Thepublishers didn't want to risk either theirjudgment or their capital on untried talent,and most of them string along with the bignames. Some of them even dangled baitJefore the roving eyes of famous authorsiVho belonged to competitors.

Putting all this together, the journalism;enior concluded that he had made a scri­ms error six years earlier when he had de­:ided, on the basis of his editorship of the

high school paper, that he had a naturaltalent for a professional career as writer.

I T WAS a bleak picture, but, I am afraid,an incomplete one. There are some facts

worth considering-facts, I contend, whichwould justify the choice of writing or edit­ing as a career for anyone with a reasonableamount of talent in that direction. I agreeit's a difficult field to break into, but thenagain, what profession isn't? Anyone whohas applied for admission to a medicalschool recently might have some under­scoring he'd like to do on that point. Or,to underscore the underscoring, talk to agraduate of a medical school looking foran internship. Or a law school graduatelooking for an apprenticeship. Or a youngartist trying to get his works exhibited, tosay nothing of the business of finding acash customer. Sisyphus rolling a stone up­hill was on a cakewalk compared to this.

Another conspicuous omission in myyoung friend's jeremiad concerned his ownfaulty approach to the problem of findinga job. In talking to him about the magazineand publishing offices he had canvassed, forexample, it became apparent that he hadfailed to apply any imagination to the prob­lem before him. All he had done was towrite for an appointment with a key person,and then go in to present his credentials.

"What else was there to do?" he asked.One thing he might have done, I replied,

was to recognize that he had arranged adead-end tour for himself. \Nhat reasonwas there to believe that his own cold ap­plication for employment would stand outin bold relief above the hundreds uponhundreds of other applications-most ofthem from qualified young people? A jobapplicant should familiarize himself witheach magazine or publishing house the waya surgeon examines the X rays before goinginto the operating room. Anyone whomarches into a publishing office looking fora job ought to know the history of thatpublication; he ought to know a great deal

IN DEFENSE OF A WRITING CAREER

about its format and editorial content;about the particular audience it is trying toreach and what the problems seem to be inreaching it; about editorial features triedand discarded; about the people who workon the staff, their fields of special interestand their functions on the magazine.

This is pay-dirt knowledge. It's not easyto come by, but it's worth trying to get, forit can give an applicant a toe hold on aninterview. It's axiomatic in human relationsthat if you expect someone to be interestedin your problems, you ought to know some­thing about his. Don't wait for a job open­ing. Most good jobs don't open up; theyare created. You create a job by presentingnot only yourself but an idea that can fitinto an editorial formula; an idea that re­veals your own knowledge of the publica­tion and your understanding of its audienceand its needs. My friend had failed torecognize that the best way to sell himselfinto a publishing job was to sell his ideas.And these should not have been merelyrandom ideas, but ideas carefully tailoredto fit the particular needs of a particularperiodical or publishing house.

The same theory operates with respect toadvancement. Naturally, it's somewhat dif­ficult to offer every young man who goesinto publishing a money-back guaranteethat he can have the boss's job within fiveyears, but ideas plus the ability to carrythem out go a long way. If this sounds likea cross between Horatio Alger and DaleCarnegie, I'd be glad to quote names,places, and dates.

N EXT, for the newspaper business. Firstof all, let's modify the Hollywood

stereotype somewhat. It isn't true thatevery newspaperman is comprehensivelyslouched--slouched hat, slouched shoul­ders, slouched smile, and a slouched psyche.My recollections of my own newspaper ex­perience and my impressions in travelingaround America and meeting many news­papermen in many cities are that most

American newspapermen are far ahead oftheir papers. I've met some hard-bittencynics, to be sure, but I've also met themin politics or teaching, for that matter. Thepay doesn't begin to compare with that,say, of the corporation lawyer, but I'veknown a number of newspapermen who didfairly well by their families by using theirspare time to good advantage in free-lancewriting. Offhand, I know of at least sixnewspapermen now writing novels and per­haps three more writing nonfiction books,and, despite the high mortality of the aver­age unsolicited manuscript, I'd be willingto bet that the majority of them will havetheir works accepted and published. Yes,the newspaper field is a tough one-toughto get into, in some cases even tougher toget out of. But it's excellent provinggrounds for disciplined writing. After awhile, of course, the discipline can be re­placed by routine, and the routine by rote.But, so far as I know, there's no law pre­venting anyone from moving on to morefertile pastures if he finds he's been squat­ting too long near a dry well.

This brings us to the final problem sur­veyed by my journalism-senior friend-inparticular, writing a new book and gettingit published. I can agree with him readilythat the orphan of the publishing industryis the unsolicited-manuscript department. Ibelieve it to be a fact that no branch of apublisher's organization is as understaffed--qualitatively as well as quantitatively­as the unsolicited-manuscript department.The pay for first readers in many housesisn't much higher than for bookkeeper as­sistants or even for shipping clerks. Manypublishers, on those infrequent occasionswhen they take their hair down, will con­fess that they' have virtually written offtheir unsolicited-manuscript department asexpendable, returning submitted works onthe basis of a cursory examination by aforty-dol1ar-a-week reader.

A publisher will spend thousands of dol­lars in sending one of his editors on a tour

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around America, beating the brush for con­cealed literary talent, but seems reluctantto spend more than a few dollars to ap­praise fully and competently such talent asmay be found in his own mailbag. It hasoccasionally happened that an editor ontour will make the discovery of an excitingnew manuscript which only the week be­fore had been routinely shipped back witha form letter by his own firm. Apparently,there is no shame in the matter. Indeed,one publisher, on the occasion of his firm'stwentieth anniversary, blandly announcedin an advertisement that with only a singleexception, he had never accepted an un­solicited manuscript. It would have beeninteresting to get a box score on some of theimportant books that he happened to missbecause they were apparently not worth acareful reading.

My friend was quite right when he listedthe names of outstanding books turneddown in the unsolicited-manuscript depart­ments of many publishing houses. It's evenworse than he supposed. Copies of the twoopening chapters of War and Peace, andan outline covering the rest of the book, bygeneral consent a fairly acceptable novel,were recently sent to ten publishers in orderto test the competence of the unsolicited­manuscript departments. Only four of themspotted the material for what it was. Theothers sent back routine rejection slips.

It may be asked, Where then do mostof the accepted books come from? Theyrepresent books written to order or on con­tract-books by name-writers for whomspace is regularly reserved on a publisher'slist.

I AM not completely unaware of the pub­lisher's problem. 'When hundreds of

book-length manuscripts are received eachweek-many of them looking more liketied-up bundles of leftover leaves from lastfall-it would put a publisher out of busi­ness if he had to maintain a highly quali­fied staff of readers who gave thoroughconsideration to every single manuscript.

\Vhat has happened is that a sort of literaryGresham's law has been in operation formany years, the bad manuscripts drivingout the good.

At one time not so long ago in the his­tory of book publishing, the chief businessof the publisher when he arrived at hisoffice in the morning was to inspect per­sonally all the manuscripts in the morningmail. In the memoirs of the publishers offorty or sixty years ago, it is not uncommonto find reference to this daily stint as themost delightful aspect of publishing. Thebiggest joy in a publisher's life was rep­resented by the thrill of discovery in chanc­ing across an unsolicited manuscript thatheralded a new talent. But that was backin the days when a publisher's mail couldfit on top of his own desk instead of requir­ing something in the order of a coal bin, ashappens today. And that was before somuch of the publisher's time was taken upwith arrangements for reprint rights, mo­tion-picture negotiations, contests for book­stores, and the care and spoon-feeding ofauthors.

A few publishers have recognized thisproblem and their own responsibility inmeeting it. Their experience is worth cit­ing. These publishers have worked out atriple-platoon system whereby the firstshock-wave of manuscripts is absorbed bya corps of readers who have authority to re­ject only the blatantly inadequate. All theothers are passed along to somewhat morespecialized readers, who make no final de­cisions themselves but who winnow out theworth-while books for the editors, who con­stitute the third platoon. It is an expensivesystem, if done by competent and well-paidpeople all along the line, but it does suc­ceed in filtering out in many cases the reallydeserving books, which, so far as the gen­eral public is concerned, would seem to bethe main function of book publishing.

Meanwhile, the new novelist would dowell to stay out of the bottomless pit thatis the unsolicited-manuscript department.That is, to stay out if he can. At the very

IN DEFENSE OF A WRITING CAREER 27

least, no manuscript ought to be submittedwithout the benefit of an advance letter tothe publisher attempting to establish somecontact on a responsible level and seekingsome genuine expression of interest. Thereply to such a letter is not, of course, con­clusive, but its tone and responsiveness mayoffer some encouragement. It is soundpolicy, moreover, to write to firms whoselists over the years reveal no prejudiceagainst beginners.

It would be even better, of course, if theyoung novelist were able to obtain the en­thusiastic backing of a recognized thirdparty-perhaps a book reviewer or ateacher or another author who might besufficiently interested to write to a pub­lisher, expressing his high opinion of aparticular manuscript. Strategically, thisputs the young author in the happy posi­tion-if the plan works-of being courtedby a publisher. Of all the consummationsin a writer's heaven most devoutly to bewished, none can quite compare with thepostal ecstasy of opening a letter from anestablished publisher which begins: "DearMr. Smith: It has come to my attentionthat you have just written a book ..." etc.,etc.

PERHAPS the most meaningful and fruit­ful way of all to fashion a key to the

literary kingdom is through such writingand study units as exist at the Universityof Michigan-though I doubt that thereare more than a dozen really first-ratewriting courses at the university level inthe country. The men and women whohead these workshops are known and re­spected in the publishing offices and areconstantly pursued by publishers for prom­ising names. These magistrates of writingtalent have built up over the years a posi­tion of respect among publishers and edi­tors.

Finally, there are the various literaryawards, of which the Avery Hopwoodawards in creative writing occupy such animportant place. There are fifty-three local,

regional, and national wntmg prizes anddistinctions of one sort or another-manyof which lead to publication. The value ofthese contests, however, is represented notonly by the prizes themselves, but by thefact that a manuscript generally receives amuch more careful and competent readingthan in the ordinary cOUrse of submissionthrough the unsolicited-manuscript chan­nels. Leading national publishers, such asHarpers or Dodd, Mead or HoughtonMifflin or Farrar, Straus, accept manymanuscripts for publication out of theirprize-contest hoppers in addition to theones that receive the top awards.

All in all, I told my young friend thatanyone with ability who selects writing asa career today-whatever the particularbranch may be-need not fear that all thedoors are shut or that once inside there isno place to go. The difficulties are real, butthey are not insuperable, so long as thereis a reasonable degree of familiarity withwhat not to do, a fair amount of ingenuityin mapping and pursuing alternatives, and,most important, patience of the orderusually associated only with camel drivers.

W RITING as a career offers a good lifeand a rewarding one. It represents a

continuing challenge. Each writing projectis like a difficult battle, requiring a skilledcombination of strategy and tactics to ac­complish a specific objective. It demandsa mobilization of concentration-and con­centration is or should be one of the highergifts of human mental activity. It is agoniz­ingly difficult work at times, and you almostfeel in need of a drip pan to catch thedroplets of cerebral sweat, but, as JohnMason Brown recently said about creativewriting, it is the sweetest agony known toman. This is the one fatigue that producesinspiration, an exhaustion that exhilarates.Double-teaming the faculties of imagina­tion and reasoning and keeping themcoordinated and balanced is a tiring process,but you've got something to show for yourefforts if you succeed. I suppose that was

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why Socrates liked to refer to himself as aliterary midwife--someone who helped tobring ideas to birth out of laboring minds.As a master of cerebral obstetrics, Socratesalso knew and respected the conditionsnecessary for the conception of ideas andrecognized the need for a proper period ofgerminating reflection.

With all these delights of the creativeprocess it may seem extraneous and crass tomention the tangible inducements, but itmay be said for the record that most peoplein the writing profession eat very well.Some authors even make as much money astheir publishers, and a few of them a greatdeal more. True, there is what you mightcall the law of the dominant fraction thesedays by which the government can obtainthe larger part of an author's royalties, butretention of capital has always been theprime problem of authors anyway, withor without respect to taxes. A not-incon­siderable advantage is also afforded by thefact that this is one profession in whichyou can take a trip to Paris or Switzerlandor the Riviera or the Antarctic, for thatmatter, for the purpose of obtaining ma­terial and vital repose for your next book,and be able to charge all the costs of thissoul-stretching safari up to deductible busi­ness expenses.

Apart from all these reasons-biological,philosophical, materialistic-in favor of awriting career, there is yet another reasonas significant as it is compelling. That primereason is that there is great need in Amer­ica today for new writers. I am not think­ing here of a technical shortage of supply,for production is still several light-yearsahead of consumption. The need for newwriters I am thinking of has to do with thetype of book and voice America is hunger­ing for today. That type of book will notbe afraid to deal with great themes andgreat ideas. I t will not be afraid to concernitself with the larger visions of which manin general and America in particular arecapable, for America today is living far

under its moral capacity as a nation. I twillnot be afraid to break away from the so­called hard-boiled school of writing whichhas made a counterfeit of realism by ignor­ing the deeper and more meaningful aspectsof human existence.

This need of which I speak has comeabout because too many writers have beenwriting out of their egos instead of theirconsciences; because too many of themhave been preoccupied with human neu­roses to the virtual exclusion of human no­bility; because too many of them, in theirdesire to avoid sentimentality, have di­vorced themselves from honest sentimentand honest emotion. Indeed, we have beenpassing through what later historians mayregard as the Dry-Eyed Period of Amer­ican Literature. Beneath the hard and shinysurface of the school of the supersophisti­cates. there is no blood or bones, merely aslice of life too thin to have meaning. In­stead of reaching for the grand themes thatcan give literature the epic quality it de­serves, too many writers have been tryingto cut the novel down to the size of psy­chiatric case histories.

Beyond this there is need for writers whocan restore to writing its powerful tradi­tion of leadership in crisis. Most of thegreat tests in human history have producedgreat writers who acknowledged a specialresponsibility to the community at large.They nave defined the issues, recognizedthe values at stake, and dramatized the na­ture of the challenge. Today, in the ab­sence of vital moral leadership on the offi­cial world level, it is more important thanever that writers see themselves as repre­sentatives of humanity at large. For thecentral issue facing the world today is notthe state of this nation or that nation, butthe condition of man. That higher levelneeds champions as it never did before.There is no more essential and nobler taskfor writers--established writers, new writ­ers, aspiring writers-than to regard them­selves as spokesmen for human destiny.