Years ago, I stumbled across a quote by Franz Kafka that instantly became my favorite writing quote of all time:
“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.”
I found the quote to be brilliant, witty, dark yet relatable. You see, I’d always been the kind of writer who, after going more than a few days without writing, would start to lose his mind. I never became homicidal or anything like that; just a little moody on busy weekends and maybe a teensy bit psychotic during family vacations. In other words, quirky and fun!
I’d joke with my wife and friends, saying things like, “Wow, if I get like this after just a couple of days away from my manuscript, imagine how dangerous I’d be if I ever experienced an extended bout of writer’s block.”
And then something hilarious happened: I experienced an extended bout of writer’s block.
Actually, what I’ve been dealing with for the past year and a half is less a bout of writer’s block and more a bout of writer’s blah. That is, I’ve simply lost—or perhaps just badly misplaced—my passion for crafting fiction.
It all started around the time I moved from Austin, Texas to Sydney, Australia roughly two years ago. I initially chalked up my decreased writing mojo to the huge cultural and geographic change that came with the move. The way the toilet water down here in the Southern Hemisphere flushes in the opposite direction, I thought maybe the same thing was happening with my creative juices. I just needed to give them time to recalibrate, to get used to them flowing clockwise.
Adding to my problems was the stunning natural beauty here in Sydney. It didn’t exactly help restore my creativity or desire to write. I mean, c’mon—how in the hell can anyone be expected to crank out compelling stories filled with murder and violence and unspeakable cruelty when surrounded by breathtaking beaches and sea cliffs? Every morning I’d open my window shades, exposing all the sunlight and tropical birds and magnificent gum trees, then mutter to myself, “I’m f*cked.”
The longer I went without writing, the more I could feel the crazy creeping in. And I soon realized that, if I didn’t start putting up a fight, I was going to become a total cliché—just another writer who lost his mind and allowed himself to waste away to nothing.
As much as I had always loved the Kafka quote cited earlier, I was determined to not let it define me, to not allow it to run my life, to keep it from ruining the remainder of my days.
Yeah, that didn’t work.
The more I tried to convince myself that I could set writing aside and still live a normal, fulfilling, even happy life, the more evident it became that I might need to start wearing a helmet at all times and move into a ground-floor apartment with padded walls and dull cutlery.
Still, I persisted. I viewed every day as a new opportunity to prove Franz wrong, to show his ghost and the world that I could continue my sabbatical from fiction without succumbing to insanity.
How naïve of me.
Below are three key actions I took that serve to highlight my failure to fend off the CRAZY:
1) I started embracing the present moment.All the mental health websites and experts and Instagram hippies are always highlighting the importance of being present, of paying attention to and appreciating what’s going on in each moment you have the good fortune to be alive.
Huge mistake. Especially if you are a fiction writer—and double-especially if you are non-writing fiction writer.Yousee, embracing the present is the opposite of escape, and escape is the dream of all fictionistas. By focusing on present reality—on the people and things all around you at any given moment—you are quickly reminded that the world is a giant dumpster fire filled with chaos and mattress commercials and an utter lack of punctuation. The only way to emerge with your sanity intact is to create alternative realities and build imaginary worlds. And the only thing worse than being conscious of that fact is being conscious of the fact that you’ve lost your will or ability to do such building and creating.
Thus, the more I meditated and showed gratitude for my time on this planet, the more I spiraled—pining for the days when I used to be able to effortlessly spend hours immersed in a well thought-out murder scene.
2) I started focusing on others.They say the happiest people are those who make their lives about others and not just themselves. In my experience, that is true only if the other people you make your life about are imaginary.
Back when my life revolved around creating characters and helping them overcome tremendous conflict involving life-or-death stakes, I was in heaven. So, naturally, when my creativity and passion for writing suddenly went poof, so did my contentment, my zest for life, my reason for bathing. But rather than just wallow in misery and emotional anguish, I decided to embrace what Buddha and Jesus and other notable motivational speakers have been yammering on about for centuries: I decided to make my life about other people besides just myself and the despicable criminals I’ve lovingly brought into existence.
The trouble is, almost all of the “other people” I know are also writers and, unfortunately, they are productive and mentally stable ones at that. So, while I tried to put them first and offer them support and cheer them on, those bastards ended up being a constant reminder of just how much I’d fallen off as a writer, just how lost I was as an artist, just how many dozens of dollars a year more than me they were earning from their books.
I thought about making some new friends and trying to make them the focus of my life, but then I realized something very important, something Buddha and Jesus forgot to put at the forefront of their teachings: People are the worst.
3) I started looking for a full-time job.It wasn’t until I decided to seek gainful employment and try to carve out a nice career for myself outside of writing that I realized just how mentally ill I’d become. Sure, in the past I had toyed around with the idea of a traditional full-time job to replace the odd little side hustles that helped to bolster my fiction income, but I was never crazy enough to actually work on my resume or think a reputable company would ever look at it and go, “Now here’s a strong candidate!”
In theory, it made sense why a crime fiction writer who’d seemingly lost the will to write crime fiction would start thinking about ways to pay the bills without resorting to actual crime. But in reality, people whose top three areas of knowledge are poison methods, body disposal, and poison methods tend not to get invited in or back for interviews by a hiring manager whose name isn’t Lefty or Crusher or Trump.
So, there I was—unable to write crime fiction, and unable to see just how un-hirable years of only writing crime fiction had made me. Even worse, months and months of not writing had evidently left me too insane to remember just how crazy someone has to be to want to be hirable.
The good (or maybe the bad) news: I’ve slowly started to get my writing groove back.
The bad (or maybe the good) news: I recently landed a full-time job. (One that centers around my second biggest passion in life—skiing. More specifically, helping Australians plan ski/snowboard trips to Japan, North America, and New Zealand. I always knew I’d someday build a career in the snow travel industry while living in a city surrounded by beaches inside a giant sunburnt country.)
The (Rock) Bottom Line
So what does this all mean? It means Kafka wasn’t kidding around when he said what he said about non-writing writers and insanity. Now, I’m not saying writers should never quit or never take an extended break from writing; but just know that if you are a writer and you ever do stop writing—whether by choice or otherwise—you risk going so far off your rocker you’ll end up doing such dangerous and nonsensical things as embracing reality, putting others before yourself, and sending out resumes.
And I wouldn’t wish any of that on anyone—not even my worst enemy, or a good friend who sells more books than I do.
One of the absolute best experiences for any fiction fanatic is discovering a character who’s the absolute worst. There’s just something so delightful about a well-conceived psycho- or sociopath hell-bent on ruining a protagonist’s life. Call me a romantic.
It’s not exactly clear what drives our fascination with villains and anti-heroes. Perhaps it’s that we like to meet people—even if imaginary—who make our own flaws, issues and neuroses seem like commendable virtues in comparison. Or it could be that deep down we are just as sick and disturbed as the dangerous antagonists we hate to love and love to hate.
Whatever the reason, “bad guys” are the best. Here are eight that none of us would be caught dead with though can’t seem to get enough of.
Annie Wilkes from Misery by Stephen King.Annie Wilkes both terrifies me as a reader and gives me something to strive for as an author. I mean, what writer wouldn’t want a reader devoted enough to a character to abduct and very nearly kill its creator?
That said, Annie is not somebody you want to upset and definitely not somebody you want to complain to about missing typewriter keys. Not since my grandfather four scotches in on Thanksgiving several decades ago has anyone handled an electric carving knife as creatively and brutally as Annie.
Judge Holden from Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. No character has given me more nightmares, caused me more physical and mental distress, than Judge Holden. And for that I’m eternally grateful. Standing seven feet tall and completely lacking any hair, pigment or remorse, Judge Holden makes Cormac McCarthy’s other renowned antagonist—the terrifying Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men—look like Mary Poppins. The former is evil personified—perhaps even Satan himself, as some literary scholars have suggested—and yet he makes it nearly impossible for readers to stop turning pages.
So, if any of your reader friends ever say, “If only there were a novel featuring an immense, murderous albino man as adept at killing and torture as he is at languages, dancing and diplomacy,” be sure to whip out a copy of Blood Meridan and exclaim, “Have I got the book for you!”
Alex from A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. You know how when a friend charms you with such elegant, poetic, lyrical language you almost fail to realize what they’re describing are terrible acts of violence they’ve carried out? No? Well then, allow me to introduce you to Alex from A Clockwork Orange. He’ll have you at, “And, my brothers, it was real satisfaction for me to waltz—left two three, right two three—and carve left cheeky and right cheeky, so that like two curtains of blood seemed to pour out at the same time, one on either side of his fat filthy oily snout in the winter starlight.”
It’s hard to imagine ever having sympathy for a nihilistic teenager whose favorite hobby is ultra-violence. Until you read this book. As horrific and despicable as Alex is, I dare you not to feel for him at least a little once you get to the part where he’s imprisoned and forced to undergo aversion therapy that strips him of free will and any sense of self. I mean, c’mon—what’s sadder than a psychopath who lacks agency?
Villanelle from Codename Villanelle by Luke Jennings.That’s right, the irresistibly sadistic cold-blooded assassin from the smash TV series Killing Eve was a literary character before wowing and terrifying us on the small screen. (Author Luke Jenning’s novel Codename Villanelle is actually a compilation of four novellas published between 2014-2016.)
Villanelle is vicious, duplicitous, psychotic, incapable of remorse, and highly skilled in the art of ending lives. She’s got it all! And even though we know how incredibly dangerous and deadly she is, we still can’t help falling in love with the idea of her and Eve (the story’s protagonist and Villanelle’s arch nemesis) falling in love.
We’re SICK, I tell ya.
Tyler Durden from Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.I almost didn’t include Tyler Durden in this list because it’s hard for me to call one of my favorite characters of all time a “villain.” But yeah, technically he is the antagonist to the book’s protagonist, even though he’s also the protagonist’s best pal, and also lives inside the protagonist’s mind.
Hey, we’ve all had difficult friends.
As far as villains go, Tyler Durden is arguably one of the most passionate and heroic, and one that millions of readers (male readers, anyway) secretly long to be just like. Sure, he’s volatile and violent and dead-set on breaking the world, but in a good way. Sort of. If you take away his penchant for explosives and underground melees and compound fractures—and you discount the fact that he’s merely a figment of a highly unstable fictional person’s mind—Tyler’s the kind of guy you’d want as your best man. Or pallbearer.
Patrick Bateman from American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.He is far and away the most despicable and unlikeable character on this list, which is why I know you’re going to keep reading.
Throughout the controversial and infamous novel, Patrick Bateman commits unspeakable acts of violence, misogyny and, perhaps worst of all, investment banking. But there’s something, dare I say, oddly satisfying about being inside the mind of a psychotic homicidal narcissistic yuppie killing it in New York City in the late 1980s.
Humbert Humbert from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. On second thought, this guy—not Patrick Bateman above—is the most despicable villain on this list. But here’s what’s terrifying: He’s also perhaps the most likeable.
That’s the paradox of Humbert Humbert. You’ll never encounter a main character more educated and erudite, more cultured and refined, more romantic and charming and full of wit. It’s all almost enough to distract you from the fact that he’s a pedophile. For every page that readers find themselves rooting for and riveted by him, there’s one that leaves them repulsed—not only by Humbert but also by themselves for traveling with him.
Absolute enchantment and severe self-loathing—what more could you hope to get from a book?
Hannibal Lecter from the “Hannibal” series (Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, et. al.) by Thomas Harris. A brilliant and successful psychiatrist who just can’t seem to kick his pesky serial killing and cannibalism habit. Um, YES please.
Like Humbert Humbert from Lolita, Hannibal Lecter wins us over with his eloquence and charm. But where Humbert is a human consumed by illicit love, Hannibal loves to illicitly consume humans.
Boom!
mic drop
Who are some of YOUR favorite villains and anti-heroes from literature? Or even better, from your own family?
For those of you who don’t yet know—or whom I specifically didn’t tell because I owe you money—I moved from Austin, Texas to Sydney, Australia last May. As excited as I was about the huge transition, I was concerned it might somehow have a negative impact on me as a writer. My biggest fear initially was informing my NYC-based literary agent of the move, as I thought she might drop me as a client upon learning I was moving to a country that spells so many words wrong on purpose. But she was not only supportive, she was a little jealous—probably because she’s a crime fiction enthusiast and would kill to live in a beautiful land with such a rich history of felony and imprisonment.
Turns out most of my other concerns and fears about the move were unfounded, as well. In fact, I’ve had pretty much no issues adapting to life as an American author Down Under. Here are the five main reasons why:
1) Just like in the US, nobody’s heard of me or my books down here. Imagine how jarring it would be for me if I had to contend with throngs of raving fans every time I left the house here in Australia. Thank goodness I’m able to go to restaurants and the liquor store and the psychiatrist and back to the liquor store without anyone knowing or caring who the hell I am. Just like back home. And because everyone speaks English here, there’s no language barrier to contend with whenever I meet people and they tell me they’ve never heard of me or of any of my books and have no intention of reading them.
2) Despite my geographical distance from my agent and American publishers, rejection notifications get here just as quickly. You’d think being so far away from everyone who has the power to make my dreams come true would result in delays in my novels and stories getting rejected, but NOPE. Thanks to modern telecommunications and digital technology, each “NO” gets to me here in Sydney just as fast as each did back in the States. Man, I love not having to wait any longer than necessary to have my soul and creativity crushed!
3) The liquor in Australia works just as well as the liquor in the States. I don’t know where I’d be without a fun way to fend off feelings of artistic failure and futility on a near-daily basis, so you can imagine how relieved I was to find that the vodka and bourbon here in Oz function pretty much identically to that found in the U.S. Sure, such spirits are more than double the price down here, but that is actually a good thing, as it has inspired me to turn to a life of crime, which provides me with invaluable experiences and wonderful fodder for future books.
4) My writing office here has the same number of solid, punchable walls as my old writing office did. I can’t express how important it is to be able to slam my head and fists against something hard whenever the words and ideas aren’t flowing. Without such walls, my slamming efforts would entail me violently lashing at nothing but air, which can cause tears in rotator cuff and neck muscles—muscles that are essential for sitting and staring at blank pages during writing sessions.
5)My neighbors here in Sydney are no less leery of me than my neighbors have been everywhere else I’ve lived as a writer. Nothing makes me feel more at home than being surrounded by people who do everything they can to avoid contact with me due to my questionable actions and behavior. Hard to tell if it’s how I act out murder scenes alone in my office before writing them that’s got the folks in our apartment building keeping their distance, or if it’s simply how I get drunk and head-butt walls while cursing the publishing industry and/or my characters that has my neighbors ducking away. Regardless, I’m extremely grateful to them.
The title of this post may seem a tad self-serving, a bit heavy on the ME, but hey, when you’re an author during a pandemic and you haven’t had a novel out in nearly four years, you desperately look for ways to celebrate your work.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to be tooting my horn too loudly or pressuring any of you to buy my existing books. I’m merely going to be presenting myself with numerous arbitrary, self-created awards to show you what you’re missing out on if you’ve never read any of my novels. This is totally normal behavior for an author … named Greg Levin.
My goal is really just to have a little fun and elicit a little laughter during these turbulent times. In other words, please buy my books.
So, without further ado or any more poorly veiled attempts at marketing, let’s get started with the First Annual Greg Levin Writing Awards (Recognizing Outstanding Achievements in Fiction by an Author Named Greg Levin).
Best Line in a Scene Featuring Voluntary Euthanasia:
“The trick to looking excited when children are presented to you for sex is to remember you are saving their lives. If you don’t look excited, the pimps will get suspicious. Show your anger and disgust, and you ruin everything. For help getting into character, think about the biggest douchebag frat guy you’ve ever met, imagine him with several million dollars, multiply his money and demeanor by ten, and then act like that guy. Right up until the cops remove your handcuffs and thank you for your service.”
Best Conversation Among a Group of Terminally Ill Vigilante Serial Killers:
Ellison’s eyes opened almost as wide as his mouth. “Wait, you mean you guys are behind the two cyanide incidents that were just in the news?”
“Yes, that would be us,” Jenna replied.
“Jesus Christ. I thought maybe you had gotten the idea from the news, I didn’t realize you were the news.”
“Neither does anyone else,” said Jenna.
“How long do you think THAT will last?” Ellison asked.
“We don’t know, but considering our health, it doesn’t have to last too long.”
“Yeah, fear of getting caught isn’t much of an inhibitor with us,” said Gage, who’d been sitting at the table waiting for an opening. “We aim to keep this up as long as we’re still standing.”
Ellison glared at Gage. “Jenna mentioned you ‘succeeded’ in your lone attempt, so I suppose that means I’m talking to a murderer right now?”
"Can you please stop behaving like we're going to be alive in two years, Ellison?” Jenna asked, rolling her eyes. “You have to put these poisonings into context. You're not seeing the big picture."
“Yeah, you're making it sound like we're the bad guys,” said Gage. "We're in a unique position. I mean, think about it, we have an extraordinary opportunity here. Becoming killers could have a real positive impact in the community.”
Best Scene Featuring a Buddhist Getting Trained for an Undercover Sex Trafficking Sting Operation:
And the winner is…
In Wolves’ Clothing—for the following scene:
Three minutes into the video, I glance at Caleb. He’s fully engrossed in what he’s watching. And what he’s watching is a nine-year-old from Myanmar lying in a hospital cot a day after having her dislocated jaw wired shut.
Five minutes in, Caleb is quietly jotting down notes as a pimp caught on a hidden phone camera is bragging about how many virgins he’s able to bring to the next night’s party.
At the ten-minute mark, as the video is ending, Caleb closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths.
I’ve seen this before with trainees.
“It’s okay, man,” I say as I pat him on the back. “Should I grab the trash bin?”
With his eyes still shut, Caleb says, “I’m good” and continues breathing deeply.
“It’s okay, man. No shame. What you just watched is too much for most people.”
Caleb says nothing. Just long inhales followed by longer exhales. Hands in his lap. He looks too serene to vomit, but I get up and grab the bin from the corner anyway and place it by his chair.
“Do you need anything else?” I ask, wondering how I’m going to break it to Fynn that her golden boy isn’t cut out for the job.
Caleb takes a couple more deep breaths, and opens his eyes. He says, “My apologies, I was just—”
“No need to apologize,” I say. “We can take a break if you want.”
He shakes his head and goes, “That won’t be necessary. I just needed to get that little meditation out of the way. You know, send my intention out into the universe.”
Now it’s me who might need the trash bin.
Caleb points at my laptop screen and says, “Those traffickers are in pain, and they haven’t learned how to respond to that pain with mercy and empathy.”
He says, “The intention I sent out was for them to recognize this. To help them ease their suffering, and that of the girls.”
Oh shit.
It’s more serious than I suspected.
Caleb isn’t an alcoholic or a drug addict or suffering from PTSD. He isn’t depressed or bipolar or a masochist.
He’s a Buddhist.
I can overlook a lot of shit in a Jump Team member, but total enlightenment may be where I have to draw the line.
Best Author of a Novel by Greg Levin:
And the winner is…
No way—ME?! I’m shocked and honored. I’m humbled and grateful. Most importantly, I’m calling to make an appointment with a psychiatrist.
Best Protagonist of a Novel by Greg Levin:
And the winner is…
It’s a three-way tie! Eli Edelmann from The Exit Man; Gage Adder from Sick to Death; Zero Slade from In Wolves’ Clothing.
Best Novel by Greg Levin:
And the winner is…
Get outa town—another three-way tie! The Exit Man, Sick to Death, and In Wolves’ Clothing.
Wow! I’ve never been so honored or so proud or so concerned about my mental health. These awards truly are an embarrassment of riches—or as my father is probably thinking, just an embarrassment.
It’s 2:48 a.m. and I’m awake because an under-developed fictional person who lives inside my head insisted on ripping me from my slumber to discuss some plot points for the story he’s set to star in.
Just an average Monday night/Tuesday morning for me.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not complaining. I actually welcome these sorts of disruptions to my sleep, my silence, my sanity.
That’s the problem.
You see, fiction writing is a sickness. An addiction as glorious as it is gut-wrenching, as sublime as it is shameful. I couldn’t live without writing novels and short stories—and they’ll surely be the death of me.
And apparently I’m okay with that.
I’ve never considered myself a masochist before, but the more I examine the evidence, masochism’s really the only explanation. Why else would I continue to go all in on my fiction, even after getting my heart broken and my soul crushed by so many near misses over the years, including—but certainly not limited to—the following:
Two TV options—one with HBO, one with Showtime—that didn’t get renewed at the wire.
A third TV option (with another major network) that died just prior to the contract being signed;
A late-stage rejection by a big literary agent. NOTE: I did finally land a different and even more amazing agent last year, so I no longer even think about the previously mentioned rejection as a “near miss.” Still, guess what happened right after signing with my amazing agent mere days before she was planning on submitting my manuscript to several big crime fiction publishers? Just a little thing called Covid-19. (Not that the pandemic has brought publishing to its knees, but it might make some major houses a little less likely to take a chance on a relatively unknown author like me.)
Sound like a whole lot of whining and whingeing on my part? On the surface, maybe, but don’t be fooled. Deep down, and not even that deep, I love my failures, my misfortune, my poor timing. Of course I do—I’m a writer. We’re not truly happy unless we’re miserable.
The truth is, near misses only make me stronger. Well, my addiction stronger, anyway. Every incident of almost-but-not-quite feeds my disease, fuels it, compels me to continue forsaking most of my responsibilities and alienating my friends and family in pursuit of my lifelong dream of landing a solid traditional book deal—a book deal that seems to creep closer and closer but never quite materializes. A book deal that, if I’m lucky, would provide me with a fraction of what I would make if I spent a little less time writing and a little more time working even just a steady entry-level job.
That’s right, I’ve got full-on, stop-for-nothing tunnel vision that, best case scenario, might eventually lead to me earning enough to cover a year’s worth of nights at an extended stay motel after my wife throws my ass out for my fiction problem.
Making matters worse, or better—I’ve forgotten which—are the little victories I’ve managed to achieve via my writing over the years: the handful of indie author awards; the starred review from Publishers Weekly; the solid number of favorable reader reviews on Amazon; my favorite author telling me I have “it” (whatever “it” is). Each of these positive but by no means monumental achievements is the equivalent of a neighborhood drug dealer handing me a sample of the good stuff, knowing I’ll get hooked and stay hooked and keep coming back for more—even beg for some when I don’t have the funds to cover it.
Now you may be thinking, Isn’t the title of this post The Shame and the GLORY of Fiction Addiction? Where’s the glory part, Greg?
Well, the odd thing is, my answer to the “glory” question is perhaps the most shameful thing about all of this. For, you see, all or most of the glory that comes with fiction addiction occurs inside the head of the afflicted, inside the mind of the writer.
It’s the internal mania that floods a writer’s amygdala every time they fire off a killer sentence or paragraph or scene—hell, sometimes even just a strong verb.
It’s the delusions of grandeur that take over whenever a writer hears a compliment or sees four or five stars tethered to a review of their book.
It’s the nearly lethal levels of euphoria that send a writer skyward whenever they type the magic words “THE END” after months or years of pulling characters’ teeth and rolling a heavy plot up a jagged mountain.
And, of course, it’s all the near misses before they become near misses. All the little victories before hard evidence reveals those victories aren’t going to evolve into much larger ones.
But perhaps the greatest glory of fiction addiction is this: there is no cure. As shameful as it may be for a writer to keep plugging away and grinding and hustling and hoping and dreaming against all odds, there’s something supremely glorious about the fact that such agonizing persistence will never stop.
Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s 4:07 a.m., and that unstable, underdeveloped character I mentioned at the outset—the one who woke me up to talk about his tale—he’s got a box-cutter to my throat and won’t set me free me until he’s said his piece and gets his way.
Like I said, shameful.
And glorious.
Any of you out there have a creative pursuit that often feels more like an addiction? I'd love to hear about it—that way I'll feel less like a freak.