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What is a profession? What is a business? What is a hobby?
I'm sure the IRS has answers to those questions, but they're not so easily delineated in the lives of artists. Thank God, I am no polymath: it's all I can do to keep two or three arts warming on the back burners while trying to bring one or some part of each to the front. Call that the dilettante's dilemma.
I thought I'd start this Monday with uploading short stories that have been archived for years and that I still enjoy reading.
The order in which they now appear has been haphazard. The short-short "White Space" may have been the last piece composed after becoming disillusioned with the dream I was lucky to get--i.e., publication in The North American Review (NAR) with "Tandem", a short-short posted here before the weekend. The esteemed NAR paid $20 for "Tandem". At the liquor store, I added $4 to the bill, brought home a bottle of Chivas, and pretty much called it a day for creative writing. At the time, I had no one with whom to celebrate the occasion--you know, make a big thing of it, see it as the start of career, rather than the cap on getting beaten up every which way--from so-called close family through the struggle to keep employed--which is how I saw it then.
As happens with talent in music, not wishing to do it makes neither talent nor skill disappear. The joyful secrets you carry will accompany you through all kinds of misery.
Perhaps things will change. Girlfriend Anne has her M.A. in English from Georgetown University, and she's a fan, of course (girlfriends and mothers not supposing to count when it comes to gushing over their son's or lover's art work). Still, I've chosen to buy the encouragement and here will continue dredging up some of the old while orienting to new work.
"The Beast at the Crossing" has been published in the University of Maryland's graduate literary magazine, Ethos, unfortunately while I was managing editor of that publication; "Stones" has never been submitted for publication or otherwise shared.
Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim
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