The Man Called Elroy: Part Four

         At our next encounter, I set up a dinner date with Elroy so that I could show him my writing. He was excited about it from the very first moment, and he had high hopes. I felt like I was making a mistake. I was uncomfortable as we talked about my stories. He started by pointing out silly mistakes I'd made but gave his honest opinion on various aspects of them: the writing, the style and voice, the story itself, the dialogue. Overall, he seemed generally pretty pleased with the manuscripts.

         "Well, I feel like I'm writing good stories, but they aren't appealing," I explained.

         "Isn't your aim to write good stories?"

         "Yes, but I want them to be appealing," I told him. "Can't it be both?"

         "Can it? You're the writer," Elroy said. "What's the problem? If the writing is good to you, then you're writing good stories."

         "But I want other people to think they're good too, and to like them as stories."

         "So you want your writing to be appealing, whether it's good or not."

         "No, I want to write stories that are good to other people."

         "Okay. You want to write stories that are good to other people," he repeated. "Right now, you feel that your stories are good, but that they aren't appealing. You want to write appealing stories, but they'll be stories that you don't think are good. Otherwise, you'd be writing them now, am I correct?"

         "Is that really how it has to work?"

         "Why do you think writing is such a tough business, huh?"

         "Maybe I'll try my hand at poetry," I said.

         He laughed and took a drink from his glass.

         "Listen up. Just keep on writing what you think is good and continue to improve where you feel the writing is thin. Somewhere along the line, you'll write something good, hopefully, and then people will tell you that it really is good."

         "But is none of this good?" I asked, lifting up the manuscripts.

         "It isn't good, but it has potential."

         "Potential gets me nowhere right now."

         "Relax," he said. "Be patient. Everything doesn’t happen all at once. It takes time to become a good writer. You just need to work hard at it, always do your best and reach new highs."

         "I feel like time is slipping away from me, though," I told him. "If I don't do it now, I'll gradually lose more and more of my time to new obligations. I need to get married and, to have a family, I need a real job. I can't keep trying to push this writing thing forever. Eventually, I have to make a decision on which path to take, and then I have to stick to it. I can't do both."

         He shifted around in his seat, getting comfortable again. Then, he looked me straight in the eyes.

         "Take a real good look about what you're writing for, kid," he said to me. "If you're writing for the money, you'd be better off not writing at all. Don't write to become famous or to feel accomplished about yourself. You've got talent, kid, you just need to get your head in the right place."

         I sat quietly, thinking about his words. He was right. When I was younger, I used to write for those very reasons. I wanted to 'shoot up the ladder,' to be successful. I saw others around me, those that I had known from childhood, all becoming something of themselves more so than I and it became my goal to write in that direction. I had to leave the United States to clear my head. I knew writing wasn't meant to be a contest. Your writing can't be good when your aim is not.

         "You're right," I admitted. "But do you see my point?"

         "Listen, you don't need to live top-notch from birth to death. True authors will write in the dirt that they sleep on when it comes to that. If writing is a passion, and your passion means that you must also live without a home, nothing else should matter. The struggles are what make authors great. Do what you love to do and, if writing is that, take the battles it comes with even when you lose all hope.

         "I'm not saying that you must experience the lowest of lows that life deals out in order to write well, but what I mean is that you should do whatever it takes to keep becoming a better writer. That should be your goal, if you have as much interest in writing as I think you do. Do well not to lose your home," he said, laughing, "but don't curse your dreams if they drag you to the ground."

         "What happened to you, then? Can I ask?"

         "What do you mean?"

         "How come you went from being a professor in a university to living without a home, scrounging all day for meals?"

         He smiled at me and then turned his eyes towards his glass.

         "One of the greatest things I've ever heard was from my favorite teacher back in high school. What he said back then was, in context, just a definition of story terms in a lecture he was giving for our newest assigned book. But, it never left me. He said, 'A hero, by definition, is someone who stands up for something of value or importance, and who faces obstacles in that name. But, a hero is not someone who always succeeds in doing so.'

         "Those words struck me the moment I heard them. Being young, we all think that God has a plan for us, and that the plan is extraordinary. I was ready to face the world, months away from graduating and getting out on my own, when I heard him say that. It gave me a sort of realization. Maybe my future isn't as bright as I expected it to be. Does that mean I shouldn't try? No, it took me a while to discover the importance of the first half of that message. Even if I may not win, I should stand up for what is important to me and aim to be the man that I want to be. I may die trying, I may end up on the streets, selling cans for food money, but a man who doesn't try isn't really a man."

         He sighed, then looked back up at me.

         "You asked me what happened along the way, why I went from living fairly comfortably as a professor to being homeless," he said. "As much as I loved teaching and the joy I got from helping these young people educate themselves and become better men and women, my true passion continued to call. I had stopped writing poetry after high school. I focused too much on trying not to fail that I never tried to succeed. When I rediscovered my love for poetry, nothing else could be. It was a jealous love, and it didn't like me spending time teaching classes and grading assignments. I dedicated my entire life to poetry, even though I suppose I have failed. But I've learned so much along the way. I do not regret my decision. My family hated me for it, and poetry made me an outcast, but I've been able to do what I love. Despite the fact that my poetry is not appealing, to me it is very good, and that's what truly matters."