The Wisdom of Edmund Wilson

My Dear Old Alma Mater May Explain My Utter Failure

By Tommy George

16 November 2016. What they don't tell you in college is that if you want to earn your living as a writer, the first million words may not make any money. Homeless T has recently passed that fruitless milestone, and feels quite pleased to report to both of his followers that he detects an upward stirring of sap in the trunk of that old tree, just as winter is setting in, and the culture he sought to influence is freezing over like h-e double hockey-sticks.

To those of you familiar with Homeless T's literary aspirations and even some of his works ever-in-progress, he offers thanks for your civility in not quoting Edmund Wilson--a first-rate editor and friend to many well-known American authors of the 1920's and 30's. 

An aspiring author of earlier times who never made the cut had glued together several pages of his manuscript before submitting it to good old Edmund. When the manuscript was politely rejected, the author immediately noted that his glued-together pages had not been unstuck, so Wilson would be able to read them.

The author rampaged into Edmund Wilson's office. "How can you reject a manuscript without even reading the whole work?" he shrieked.

"My dear boy," Wilson frostily replied, "--you don't have to eat the entire apple to know it's rotten." 

So thanks to my readers for their self-restraint. You who were tempted to make a cutting remark, but never did, have given me motivation to keep my nose to that rhinestone, day after day, grinding away glassy-eyed in the refracted dark.

I confess to writing plenty of rotten apples about things of interest to nobody, including myself sometimes, but . . . all that changed at word 1,000,001, as a divine transformation took hold. New teeth spontaneously broke through my bleeding gums, a white cat crossed my path, and I found a silver dollar on the ground, heads up. I knew: destiny is about to descend--if only I can finish the second million words, fast! By the New Year, we'll all be in Jerusalem. Or even better, in Hamster Land. God bless us, each and every one.

Shalom. This way to the second million words.