Brooklyn-born-and-bred Henry Miller, the late-bloomer of modern literature, published his first book in 1934 at the age of forty-three. His previous work had been unpublished, and for good reason; it showed no originality or promise. Miller worked in America as an employment manager of a Western Union office, ran a speakeasy, worked as a gravedigger and proofreader, and lived most of his life in poverty.
He arrived in Paris in 1930 with no money, no prospects, and no place to stay, in his words, “ a writer at the beginning of his career, naïve, enthusiastic, absorbent as a sponge, interested in everything and seemingly rudderless.”
He was little more than a middle-aged vagrant with exalted literary ambitions, tremendous self-confidence, and nothing in print. And there in the City of Lights, a penniless expatriate without a name, a reputation, or a fixed address, he did not just live, he sacrificed all material security and devoured life, searching for “the real Paris.”
His aim, he said, was to “regress” further and further to a state where culture and civilization “do not figure,” to “start completely from scratch in a way that is uncultivated, primitive.” There had to be “a time when I was totally broke, desperate, and living like a vagabond on the streets to start to see and to live the real Paris. I was discovering it at the same time I was discovering myself, undergoing a trial that was as difficult as it was fulfilling”
Miller’s was not the guidebook Paris, not the Paris of Cole Porter. Hemingway, and Fitzgerald, but the lurid backwater slums and dens of vice where he sloughed off American Puritanism and embraced a wild hedonistic, sensual existence–roaming the streets in search of new sensations without a single sou in his pocket, living a hand-to-mouth existence, sponging off friends and strangers alike. He was attracted to cheats, shysters, and rogues, and they to him.
His worldly possessions consisted of the clothes on his back and a toothbrush, a razor, a notebooks, a pen, a raincoat, and a cane. He didn’t know in the morning where he would sleep at night—whether with friends or on a park bench or in an alley or a cheap hotel whose furniture “required the assistance of wires, ropes, and leather straps to keep from collapsing.”
With no bed, no tobacco, and no food, lying, cheating, and stealing for survival, he felt no anxiety, but rather felt liberated and free of worry and believed “there could not be anything better” than what he was experiencing.
He said, “I have no money, no resources, no hope. I am the happiest man alive.” He was euphoric, like a man who had been let out of prison, finding on most every street some rich new experience, some realization, some moment of illumination. He compared himself to a ghost haunting a banquet. His goal was to write autobiographical books that documented the living of a life no one before had ever dared to live, and in a manner no other writer ever had, books written in a new style and consciousness that “would restore our appetite for the fundamental realities.”
Miller felt that the artist’s truth lies in finding a “voice,” and that the discovery of one’s true voice doesn’t happen easily, but requires boldness. Miller imitated every style in hopes of finding the clue to the gnawing secret of how to write. Then: “Finally I came to a dead-end, to a despair and desperation which few men have known because there was no divorce between myself as a writer and myself as a man: to fail as a writer meant to fail as a man…It was at that point…that I really began to write. I began from scratch, throwing everything overboard, even those I loved. Immediately I heard my own voice…the fact that I was a separate, distinct, unique voice sustained me. It didn’t matter to me if what I wrote should be considered bad. Good and bad had dropped out of my vocabulary…My life itself became a work of art. I had found a voice. I was whole again.”
When he left Paris in 1939 Miller was the renowned author of Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, autobiographical works that jolted readers new to his writing. His unique books created a vast international following.
© 2024 David J. Rogers
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Writing is a time-consuming process of self-discovery, self-awareness, and self-expression that may satisfy a writer’s deepest needs. Some writers find that nothing can compete with, nothing can replace, the writer’s joy of creating. Many writers so saturate themselves with their work that it becomes a need as strong as sleep, sometimes stronger. Many writers think, “This writing that I am doing is essential to my fulfillment and well-being. At times I may be so involved I will forget to eat. I will forget to make love. I will block out distractions. I will arrange a life-style and personal habits and routines to accommodate my writing.”
Some writers do consider writing the most important role in their life and give other roles short shrift. Many writers would agree with Katherine Anne Porter who said that the “thing” between her and writing was the strongest bond she had ever had—stronger than any bond she had ever had with any person or activity. 
Here it seems appropriate to talk about my Law of Give Up to Get. The Law of Give Up to Get means simply that to get something important in life, you must give up something else. Gripe all you want, rail at the gods, and wish it weren’t so, but you have no choice. In the long run, perhaps you can have everything you desire. But at any one time, to get A you’ll have to give up B. To get X you must give up Y, and maybe you might have to give up Z too. To write, you have no choice but to give up something else—maybe more than one thing. That’s a law, the way life works: to achieve this, you’ll have to give up that—time, energy and other resources spent doing other things, attaining other satisfactions.
Are there any roles in your life that can be supported with a smaller investment of time, energy, and other resources so that you can devote more time to writing? Are there any roles currently in your life you might dispense with?
have finished a painting that in your judgment is excellent in every respect. Like Ariel you are trained and educated in your craft and recognize your paintings’ consistently high quality and dazzling originality. You know you can’t do better. You feel that no one but you could have executed this project. It required blending many abilities not every painter possesses. You see in your painting, as Ariel saw in hers, something especially flamboyant and fetching. Your hopes for its artistic and financial success are high.
your book. She recognizes its significant sales potential. She calls you In Chicago from New York and says that your book is one of the two or three best books of any type she has ever read. She is entranced with the book and pledges to you to commit to “putting it over” whatever resources are necessary to make it the country’s top best seller (The book is topical and has that kind of potential.) You call your agent and ask him about the publisher reputation and he tells you that they are known for selecting one of their titles each year and making it the kind of best seller the publisher described.
resilient means first of all accepting such adversities and those you have experienced yourself as an unavoidable part of the writer’s and artist’s life. That insight deeply-felt and never forgotten is essential for maintaining a firm, unshakeable spirit.
period the body-builder rests, those muscles are rebuilt, but bigger and stronger than they had been. Don’t be so afraid of hardships, stresses, difficulties, and crises. They strengthen you emotionally, spiritually, and mentally.
working, as confident as van Gogh and became one of the most popular American writers of his era. Ernest Hemingway said that at the beginning of his career every day “the rejected manuscripts would come through the slot in the door…I’d sit at that old wooden table and read one of those cold slips that had been attached to a story I had loved and worked on very hard and believed in, and I couldn’t help crying.” But he had faith that eventually his work would be in demand and never stopped working. The crowning achievement was the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Vincent van Gogh spent a short, intense five-year career producing an astonishing three thousand masterpieces that are now auctioned for many millions of dollars, but in his lifetime sold only one painting, and that was for a few brushes and paints. But he continued working confidently and never doubted that in the future his talents would be recognized
In every era, in creative after creative, three empowering qualities like three ingredients of a potent formula have proven to help writers and artists not to give up when they fail. Those qualities are being resilient, being persistent, and having faith in yourself. Resilient, persistent writers and artists with strong faith in themselves never give up.
Faith in yourself touches every facet of your being–whether you think about your prospects positively or in a self-defeating way, how strongly you motivate yourself, your susceptibility to self-doubt and discouragement, and the positive changes you will be able to make in your life.
successful. Catherine Cox studied greatness and disagreed. She found that persistence is a key. Persistence is so important in almost every endeavor that it compensates for lesser intelligence. Cox concluded: “High but not the highest intelligence, combined with the greatest degree of persistence will achieve greater eminence than the highest degree of intelligence with somewhat less persistence. “
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