Clips - A Young Writer's Conundrum (An Old Writer's Memoir)

Author at Sharkey's on Venice Beach watching another gorgeous sunset.

There are ever so brief moments living here in paradise when I find myself missing the electricity and momentum of Washington D.C. Ah, those were the days: the Smithsonian venues, Mass. Ave., DuPont Circle, wild, geek, Christmas parties in the rotunda of the National Science Foundation; and the list could go on and on, but I shall spare the already unimpressed.

Fresh out of the Graduate Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University, I promoted myself about town as a Science Writer and had a thousand man-about-town business cards printed at Office Depot to back me up. But having business cards to hand out does not get a writer published.

The publishing world has a built-in obstacle to new writers, Catch 22, if you will. To be published, one must have clips of recent publications to submit along with the piece one is hoping to get published. To get said clips, one must have already been published!

Clips prove one’s prior works have already been deemed worthy for print by other publishers. The more clips one has to present, the better. I was handsome, educated, articulate, funny, had man-about-town-cards, but not one clip – not one!

The Hopkins graduate degree propelled me over that inherent roadblock. I submitted pieces for consideration with the caveat that I had no clips to submit, but that I was a recent Hopkins Writing Program graduate. Score! It worked! Having gotten published validated me within the inner circle as a serious, legitimate, writer. It gave me credential. It got me invited to special science events about town, as well as to invite only socials. I had been drinking then and never met a D.C. cocktail event that I did not like.

Surprising as it must be to learn, I was younger then. However, having been a late bloomer, I tended to be, let us say, more mature than most in the room. By no means way up there among the senior crowd (where I presently find myself), but noticeably above the mean.

As I now look back to those times, I realize that D.C. has become ever more so a young man’s city; or, of course, an older, extraordinarily rich man’s city. Sadly, I am no longer the former, nor have I ever been the latter. Nonetheless, these vivid and sweet memories are still very meaningful to me, and fun to revisit, from time to time, as the sand in the hourglass continues to fall, and at a faster rate by the day.

Sunset at the pier on Venice Beach, Florida.