The (Writing) History That’s Written By the Winners by David Ebenbach

It’s like when someone on TV interviews a one hundred-year-old woman. They always ask her the same thing: What’s your secret? We’re all worried about the future; we want to know what she’s done to live so long. And she never says, “Oh, I don’t know. Don’t ask me. Luck, probably. Luck or lucky genetics or something.” Instead, she describes, as though it has magical properties, her daily regimen. And this regimen usually involves something bizarre like eating two pounds of shredded wheat soaked in bacon grease for breakfast, and then skipping lunch and dinner, instead fortifying herself with small beer-and-corn-syrup smoothies throughout the day. And we in the audience take our mental notes:  huge amounts of fat, salt, carbs, and alcohol. Long life. Got it. Never mind that her longevity probably has nothing to do with her daily routine—which might even kill those of us who try it for ourselves—still we’re tempted to do what she does, just to see if it’ll help us survive.

Lately, I’ve been wondering if this is how it works whenever we take advice from successful writers. As a group, we’re hungry for advice—writers often prefer hearing about writing to actually doing it—so a lot of us snap to attention whenever somebody we admire drops some wisdom. But what if these admired writers are the same as the one hundred-year-old woman? What if their writing success (both the quality of the writing and the success in publishing) is the result not of their conscious writing strategies but of luck, or rare genius, or mysterious things that they aren’t even aware of? What if the advice is basically useless or even dangerous—so much bacon grease—and the only reason we never get to hear about its uselessness is that the many not-famous people who try it out (and fail) end up remaining not famous and so are not in a position to dole out writing guidance?

“Getting Out of the Basement” by David Ebenbach, on writing “The Escape Artist,” issue 297.2

When I was a teenager, I locked my mother in the basement. It was an accident, but that didn’t do her any good after I locked that door and left the house to go to work. She had to physically break out of the basement through the bulkhead door, climb the backyard fence, and go to her own job without keys or a purse or anything else. When I got to my job, naturally there was an angry phone message waiting for me.

And how did I react when I found out what I’d done? With sympathy and apologies? Of course not—I was a teenager and totally resentful that I had to go all the way home to unlock the door and get my mother the things she needed. Honestly, I don’t think I really felt sympathy for what she went through that day until I had a child myself.