Norman Green

HOLY SHAMUS! I’VE BEEN NOMINATED!!!

I feel like a kid who just got his first bicycle…

Sometimes it’s hard to say, when you’re a writer, whether you are really an artist or just in the grip of some mono-mania for which there is not, as yet, any effective treatment. The criteria for success or failure are much more clear-cut in my day job: the thing either works or it doesn’t. No ambiguity, and a nice paycheck at the end of the week. As a writer, though, it’s much tougher to tell how you’re doing. Shelby Foote once said that no writer ever truly succeeds, he only achieves an acceptable level of failure. From that I infer that when undertake a writing project I imagine something like King Arthur’s castle complete with battlements, towers and a moat. When my finished manuscript finally goes off to the copy editor, how close did I come to my initial vision? Did I get my castle built or did I settle for a tin box on flat tires sitting in the back corner of a trailer park somewhere? Much of the time, unfortunately, I am in no position to give you a clear answer, by that point in the process I can see trees but no forest.

I have some friends who read drafts for me but I think it’s hard for your friends to be at all objective about your work. And sometimes, like a lot of things in life, you just ain’t gonna know. I have a poster of Van Gogh’s ‘Avenue of Poplars’ hanging on my wall. If I take the time to look it never fails to get to me. It is a stunning portrayal, in simple pencil on paper, of the loneliness and isolation of one human soul. Stark, brutally direct, it is truly a work of genius and if it says nothing to you, you are dead.

The man sold one painting.

In his life!!

I don’t know if I have written my Avenue of Poplars yet. I think I have written a page or two, here and there, that reach about as high as it is possible for me to go. If they happen to jump out at you when you read them you will probably know something about me and I will probably know something about you. But still, it is hard to know from those infrequent peaks how I am doing. Sam Johnson said I would ultimately have to answer for how well I have used my gifts. I don’t know if that’s true or not but it is a disquieting thought.

This is, I suppose, an over-long way of saying that I have been nominated for a Shamus award. These awards are handled by people who love good writing as much as I do and I feel honored by this nomination. Whether I win or not, I am in distinguished company.

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