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Wrapping up another major revision of my new top secret novel. Book touring. Watching weird movies (Eraserhead, anyone?) What a summer. The latest cult film, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, has got me thinking a lot about constraints, audience expectations, and creativity. No easy answers here, but I was stunned to find out how badly that film flopped in the US despite considerable success abroad. And, about fifteen years later, not even JK Rowling could convince Warner Bros to give the cult auteur a chance at the Harry Potter franchise. Of course, having swum the depths of Tim Burton’s career, the fact that big movie companies give creative directors a hard time doesn’t come as a surprise.

I’m of the mind Brazil’s US flop had nothing to do with Gilliam and everything to do with terrible decisions aimed at mainstreaming the film. They cut out the best parts, glued on a cheesy happy ending, trashed the original symphonic score, and then to top things off they tossed in a bunch or “rock music” to “attract teenagers.” It so happens that Warner Bros. tried to do the same thing with Burton’s Batman back in ‘89, foisting the hipster god Prince onto Burton who miraculously managed to ditch most of the corny 80s music for Elfman’s now-unforgettable motion picture score. (Ever wonder why there were two soundtracks to that film? Now you know.) Really, people. Imagine watching this film with “Purple Rain” playing in the back ground. It’s like eating a peanut butter and shrimp sandwich. Both good but the idea of them combined triggers your gag reflex.

What’s this got to do with writing? Way ahead of you. I’ve given a lot of thought to the love-hate relationship between creativity and marketability. When and where they meet, how they fall in love, and what do their kids look like? On one side of the spectrum we have terrible works like LA Candy. On the other we have DeLillo’s The Names (my favorite novel but not a big seller). And then we have miracle writers like Pynchon, Marquez, Rowling, Gaiman, and others who do more than straddle two worlds. Writers like these folks take the biggest risks. They break the most rules, in some ways. And they wind up legends in their own time. And now for me to reference my own novel and compare myself to the pantheon. (What’s that, you say? Stick my foot in my mouth? No problem.) My own first novel, Through the Pale Door, takes significant risks that seem to be paying off when it comes to sales.

What has this got to do with Southern Lit and reality? Way ahead of you. Over the past few months I’ve heard many writers, editors, readers, and agents say the word “reality,” speaking to me or about me or about Southern Lit. I’ve heard the old adage that asserts the “it really happened that way” argument holds no water for creative writers. I beg to disagree. Yes. Credulity can be strained. Stories need a degree of verisimilitude. But the “it really happened that way” case means, to me, that writers, et al need to open their minds to what constitutes reality. For example: a friend recently told me the story of how a distant relative was obliged to attend a friend’s funeral with a knife in his back pocket and a bodyguard in tow because he feared some attendees would try to settle an old score. I recently heard a somewhat famous (and true) story of a town in Tennessee that spent an entire day trying to inflict capital punishment on an elephant for killing its owner – they finally had to hang the thing with a construction crane. Many writers, et al would tell me that none of these events could make a decent story. But they certainly could. If you can tell it over a table, you can write it down. It’s a matter of how confident your voice is. (Marquez has said the same thing, but I guess nobody remembers.)

All right. Taste is subjective, but mine’s less so. I promise. The End. Been writing for 12 hours a day the past two or three days. Now it’s time to rejoin the world.