First person

Quite a lot of respectable stuff is in third person, notably Scott Fitzgerald and Gene Rhodes, plus a good deal of Chandler and Hammett, although the noir masters segued into first person for their mature work. RLS gave us first person accounts in Treasure Island and Kidnapped.

It worries me that I seem to be stuck in first person. The accusation of self-centered delusion and narcissism is a slam dunk indictment. No wonder people ignore my work. The last thing anyone wants to read is white male action adventure littered with bad language, gunfire, and sex scenes with preposterously willing babes. I can't recall how much of it is fantasy. Perhaps very little. There are such people, past, present, and future, for whom political correctness, decorum and cultural sensitivity are as significant as building codes and life insurance.

Authorship is exceedingly important to me. This morning I thought of it again, how my work for hire at a comfortable salary on the top floor of a Houston office building was destroyed by incompetents who had to twist their filthy thumbs on it. After a few months, it drained every gram of my enthusiasm. Common sense and fat paychecks urged me to play well with others, smile, go along to get along. I couldn't do it.

So. Here I am, isolated and unwanted, a dozen titles that no one cares to read, no milk in my coffee, terrible convenience store food that makes me ill, shunned by my wife and daughter because I'm broke. Money is the measure of all things to rational people. I like it, too.

My basic problem is lack of talent. Completely clear that Rod Stewart and Alice Cooper had oodles of it. I have trouble hanging sheetrock without goofy gaps, the only work available, stupid meatball carpentry that better men are too polite to ridicule. I'm willing to work but no one wants to hire a old amateur twice. Darn it. A dozen books that no one buys. Utterly ignored on Objectivist Living, except for an occasional insult or two.

After 68,000 words, four months of writing 7 days a week full time, I have to pitch reviewers and pray that a newspaper or blogger will glance at the first few pages. Good joke on me, the way to win is not for me, incapable of anything except white male action adventure, bullets and babes, an archaic artform that offends. It might be illegal, certainly immoral. News is a firehose of moral opposition, Moonves at CBS accused of smiling at chicks, Harvard sororities forced to admit boys, Boy Scouts to recruit girls and queers. What next? Impeach Trump for treason, because Hillary used a private server that exposed DNC vote rigging.

Terrible karma. I wrote first person, a hate crime.

https://youtu.be/HRGX2FiHOS0

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