I'm sitting in the lobby of the Ace Hotel while amused film director, producer and screenwriter Stephen Soucy of Modernist Enterprises attempts to pry space between my overflow of words so he can speak. We cradle coffees in the half-lit atmosphere, overlorded by the stuffed heads of antlered mammals. We're caffeinated and entering a hazy hinterland where magic floats in on hotel lobby dust and the bowed heads of professionals tapping away at open laptops. Anything seems possible with enough caffeine.
Soucy was discussing an array of projects and the string of events that can pull a man from the ordinary work-a-day life into matters of myth and fiction. Having done his time with the corporate world, a story brought him to New York. A story brought us together for an instant at the Ace, and more stories would send us forth into places yet unimagined.
While he discusses the ins and outs of what it's like to produce the film Paperdreams, the man is on fire with future ideas – namely, Soucy's taut screenplay based on John Morgan Wilson's short story "Edward on the Edge," coming to life as a short film called Tightwire.
Many writers I know, particularly those in the speculative fiction field, share a similar complaint; in gatherings of friends or family, their assertion that they are artists, writers, filmmakers, all meets with the same stubborn silence or general derision – as though such an occupation were only fit for reprobates or amoeba with no other options.
"Sensible" – or perhaps, "secure" – occupations are desirable, but should you be toiling in the midst of a sea of cubicles and wake up to discover you are a story teller, woe is you. (It is just such an awakening that led to the creation of "Company Man," in Penumbra's August issue.) Misled and bamboozled, you'll find a way out – and I know some have elected for homelessness rather than return to the long snooze of "comfort" and "security." No occupation, no matter how plentiful and promising, guarantees you success – unless you yourself have something genuine to offer. If you plan on bare-knuckling it through that upper tier of professional story tellers, you must pursue what resonates within you, or run out of steam before you even begin.
The moment I realize that Stephen Soucy is a natural born story teller is the moment I understand that nothing from here on in is going to the be same. A story gets inside you and must find release; something authentic and unbeholden to anything surges within and will heed nothing without the chance to be heard. Stephen Soucy is infected with the spirit of the story teller and I smile and sip my coffee because this is the future – story tellers are the future.
It takes a special kind of creature to become a story teller. In any of these artistic endeavors you study the nuts and bolts of what moves and evokes people. The mechanics of seducing an audience of one or an audience of a thousand. Many mistakenly believe that artistic endeavors must surely be easy because so many of the greatest make it appear so – but this couldn't be further from the truth. To evoke visceral response in a reader, a viewer, requires a touch as practiced as that of a heart surgeon. We cull emotion instead of blood and vessels. And like surgery, we must put you to sleep first so we may provide the fertile ground to ferment dreams – and wake you up gasping, crying, screaming.
Hardly an endeavor for the weak of heart. Not all will make it.
Artists of every stripe have long shaped the dreams and the culture of nations. Dante was exiled for it. Caravaggio was hunted for the audacity of introducing realism into his art. Dostoyevsky was sent to Siberia for years of hard labor. Salman Rushdie. Female artists who took on other guises: Charlotte Bronte as Currer Bell, Amantine Dupin as George Sand. And the list goes on, and on. Art is no joking matter when how you choose to express yourself can cost you your life, and yet, so many come to me with the same disappointment – why am I doing this anymore? Why is this so hard? What's the point? Why does no one approve?
Get used to it. No one ever approves. It's never easy.
We forget that words, notably stories, have power. A gun may only fire one bullet at a time but with the increasing velocity of communication, we can break the hearts of millions with a keystroke. This is nuclear fission on a human scale. It's easy to forget, given the barrage of words and images we must wade through on a daily basis to ferret out the meaningful, the genuine, the authentic.
While Soucy and I depart to carry on with the business of life, it is the stories that remain – ideas that grow and take shape into lives of their own. I doubt John Morgan Wilson, a winner of both Edgar Allen Poe and Lambda Literary Awards and an accomplished author, realized at the time his story would gain momentum through Soucy's efforts – a creative domino effect. I await Tightwire with anticipation; and when a writer laments their creative condition, keep in mind what magic you wield when you put pen to paper: Name yourself a storyteller, and make no apologies.
Martin Rose writes a range of fiction from the fantastic to the macabre. He holds a degree in graphic design, and resides in New Jersey. Look for his zombie detective novel, Bring Me Flesh, I'll Bring Hell, forthcoming from Skyhorse Publishing. Learn more about Martin Rose on his blog.
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