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closeWednesday, Sep. 09, 2009
The writer: Douglas Lucas hopes his eclectic fiction finds its readership
Douglas Lucas
The manila envelopes drop into the mailbox, right along with Douglas Lucas’ hopes and dreams.
In one envelope is a tale of a cruise-ship love triangle between a body builder, a Texas floozy and a male cross-dresser with an affinity for Anne of Green Gables. ("It’s a goofy, Moulin Rouge-y type of thing," Lucas explains.)
In another, a story about the domestic aftermath of a family suicide.
As his eclectic fiction spreads out across the country, searching for the right fit in a literary journal or magazine, Lucas waits. It’s a ritual the 27-year-old Fort Worth writer and 2008 TCU grad knows too well.
"You get your envelope back in the mail, and you open it up and it’s like opening up a Wonka bar — you hope there’s a golden ticket inside, and instead it’s another rejection letter," says Lucas. "You get discouraged for 15 minutes — my girlfriend might say 15 hours — and then you just go back at it."
Some might reject the romanticized image of the starving artist, but Lucas embraces it as a link to his literary heroes.
"There are all these charming stories from the ’30s and ’40s about how Ray Bradbury would sell a newspaper on a street corner," Lucas says. "Or Theodore Sturgeon would live in an apartment on $5 a week, selling one, two stories a month, making ends meet."
For the moment, Lucas is unemployed. Except for an occasional tutoring job, he’s supported by his family and girlfriend. He says his job is to write, to learn and to be dogged about sending out his submissions. He knows that financial responsibilities loom, which is why he’s thinking he’ll go for his teaching certificate.
"It’s no longer as it was for Ray Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon, where you can live off of selling short stories," Lucas says. "There is this romantic image of this world where artists could bootstrap themselves in ways that don’t seem so possible now. Look at the price of college tuition then and now. College today, tuition costs 150 times more — easy."
Lucas double-majored in writing and philosophy; he recently attended the prestigious Clarion West Writers Workshop. And at least one former teacher sees a published novel in Lucas’s future. "Doug has a lot of native talent," says Cynthia Shearer, assistant director at TCU’s Center for Writing. "The real marker that he could actually write and publish a book: the focus and persistence."
Shearer says that Lucas is after something that means more to him than just being a published writer: "An understanding of life," she says.
That need to make sense of life came early and urgently; his father committed suicide when Douglas was 12.
"It feels as though there’s a vast, inexplicable chasm in my life," Lucas says, "and because writing is a great way to search for causes and effects, writing helps me make sense of that chasm — and make sense of other things, too."
So even if Lucas’ rejection file gets thicker, he won’t put a timetable on how long he’ll pursue his passion.
"Well, forever," he shrugs. It’s all part of the credo of a starving artist, right?
"If you throw that away," Lucas says, "then what do you have left? You’re just churning out product . . . "
"[For me] creating artworks feels like an attempt to tell the universe — and my father — 'Douglas was here.’ "
Age: 27
Hometown: Fort Worth
Chosen profession: writer
Day job: other than occasional tutoring, no paying gig; writing is his full-time pursuit until he can start teaching
Early indications of his career path: In middle school, he’d write elaborate, bizarre stories and illustrate them on the chalkboard — like the one about Elmer and his nuclear missile silo hat. "He’d launch these rockets to the moon, and people would tag along and ride to the moon."
Influences: Flannery O’Connor, Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury
He’d want to co-author something with: "Ray Bradbury. But I’m not sure he would take any suggestions."
Ideal level of fame: "It would be fun to be consistently on the shelves at major retailers. But that model may change with new media. We might be dinosaurs with asteroids coming at our heads."
Read samples of Douglas Lucas’ work (including Glenn of Green Gables) at: www.douglaslucas.com
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