Marcy Sheiner is the editor of a dozen collections of erotica, including Herotica 4-7, Best Women’s Erotica 2000-2005, and The Oy of Sex: Jewish Women Write Erotica.  Her book Sex for the Clueless was published by Kensington Press in 2001.

What is your earliest writing-related memory?
Fourth grade, I was nine or ten. I rewrote the words to the then-popular song “Sixteen Tons,” changing it into a song about Jesse James (we must have been studying the Wild West). My teacher, Mrs. Kleinman—who dressed like a slut (this was 1956 or thereabouts) in tight black skirts and sweaters, and wore tons of dark red lipstick—flipped out over my song, thought it was the cleverest thing she’d ever heard, and took it around to the other fourth grade classes to show to the teachers. I vaguely remember her dragging me thru the halls from class to class, and standing there feeling awkward—but proud—as they read it and laughed. This was the first time I’d been the center of so much attention for an accomplishment. Similar things happened again in later years; my writing killed, and my teachers shared it with others. In high school someone told me they heard my English teacher reading my essay “Teen Idol,” a takeoff on early rock stars like Fabian, out loud to the school librarian.
Still, the real reason I became a writer was to capture my mother’s attention. I recently began a memoir of our  relationship that opens with my mother reading. She was always reading, even at the dinner table, and got annoyed if my sister or I interrupted her.  I’m convinced I started writing out of desperation, figuring the only way she’d ever pay attention to me was if I wrote in books or magazines. My plan actually worked, though it was too little too late. She saved all my published pieces except the erotica–but even that she insisted on reading (against my wishes), buying herself a copy of the first Herotica. Occasionally, in later years, I’d send her my work for feedback. She submitted one of my poems, much to my humiliation, to The New Yorker, with a letter saying she thought it was much better than the poetry they usually published. It bothered her that my poetry and fiction only made it into obscure journals. Like most people, she hadn’t a clue about the writing life; she only knew the mainstream, and thus had no respect for some of the venues in which I was published—not to mention the places where I read my work.

What is the most challenging part of being a writer?
Being poor, without question. I have been poor almost my whole life, except for spurts when I took real jobs. Now in my 60s, I see that I’ll never be able to retire or even to stop hustling.
The root of my poverty comes not from writing itself but from what a writing career has become in recent decades. My poverty (and, except in the field of erotica, my obscurity) is a direct result of my failure to network, to schmooze with people in the industry. For me the act of writing comes easily;  it’s selling myself that’s hard.  But hooray for the advent of the blogosphere! I’m ecstatic to finally be able to bypass the publishing industry and go directly to readers, though I don’t make money at it. When I first started blogging, I tried, but one obstacle after another got in the way—as always, money eludes me. I recently started ghostwriting, which turns out to be a lot more lucrative than doing my own books—but even in this area it takes schmoozing and networking to land gigs.
What has been most rewarding in this journey for you?
The act of writing is my sanctuary. I imagine what other people get from religion must be something like what I get from writing. I think of writing as a place, a sacred space. Writing almost every day keeps me sane, and when I don’t do it for awhile, I get unbalanced.
What’s been particularly grand for me is writing novels. I’ve written five to date, and although none were published, what I got from each experience can’t be measured monetarily. There were times when I was working at the most loathsome jobs, nine to five gigs that seriously pushed me over the edge. But if I got up early every day and wrote before going to work, I’d be almost happy….actually, happy is the wrong word: I’d be in a different world entirely. Inside my head I’d be in my novel, remembering what I’d written that day, thinking of changes or additions. Living inside my novel made the world I was supposedly living in bearable. John Gardner spoke for me when he wrote:
The true novelist is the one who doesn’t quit.  Novel-writing is not so much a profession as a yoga, or “way,” an alternative to ordinary life-in-the-world. Its benefits are quasi-religious—a changed quality of mind and heart, satisfactions no non-novelist can understand—and its rigors generally bring no profit except to the spirit. For those who are authentically called to the profession, spiritual profits are enough.” –John Gardner
What advice would you like to share with up-n-coming writers?
My advice is the opposite of what most people say—I’m not a cheerleader. I tell my students right off the bat that if  they don’t love to write, if they don’t feel absolutely compelled to do it, they might as well drop it right now. I’ve had students who don’t love writing, but for some reason feel they “should” write; they have to force themselves to do it, they seem to loathe the process, yet they persist. They have some romantic notion that suffering and mental blocks are an integral part of the writing process. This, in my opinion, is a myth. The decision to take on writing as your life work means resigning yourself to a harder life than most—so if there’s anything else you like doing as much or more than writing, do that instead. Not everyone has to write, and if you don’t have to, you’ll be better off relegating it to a minor role in your life, as an occasional hobby or pasttime.
Re-reading this question, I note the “up-n-coming” adjective, and wonder exactly what it means. I thought I was ‘up-n-coming’ when I completed that novel I was so sure would be published. Years later, when I had an article published in Mother Jones, I thought it was my ticket into the magazine market, that I was an “up-n-coming” magazine writer–but it went exactly nowhere. I’m not too sure what the term means to other people, but I suspect it’s not connected to making a living. Again, you should be writing only if you feel passionate about it—in that case, there’s no stopping anyone: no matter how poor or under-recognized you are, you simply must do it. There’s no way out.
On the other hand, I think of writing as The Only Way Out—a phrase Anne Tyler used in The Writer on Her Work. For me writing’s been the only way out of an overactive mind, and the way out of intolerable life situations. It’s been a way out of pain, a way to create order out of chaos and confusion. I can only make sense of life, and bring order to my world, by writing it down.
Read Marcy’s memoir of mother/daughterhood at http://www.marcysmemoir.wordpress.com/.
Photo by Phyllis Christopher