'If you like being alone then be a writer!': Steve Orth on the Writer's Life

The very talented Steve Orth, author of Cyborg Legs (OMG! Press, 2015) discusses the life of a writer, poems about giving CPR to zebras, his experience waking up with hives, WWF and more at SF Weekly. Check it out:

When people ask what do you do, you tell them…?

I don’t really remember the last time someone asked me this...I remember the other day I was at work, at the supermarket that I work at, and I happen to be talking to some asshole, and me and this asshole we’re just chatting, you know, just general small talk (that day’s weather, the evening’s weather, the forecast for the next day). Anyway, I don’t know how it came up, but I ended saying that I only worked at the supermarket part time. And then this asshole was all like, “Oh, what’s your second job?”

I guess the point of your question was really if I tell people I’m a writer. Well, I don’t really, cause I very rarely want to talk about it. I live sort of a double life. And I prefer that. Because the honest truth is that I really didn’t decide to become a writer so that I can talk about how I’m a writer. When I have told people that I’m a writer and they ask me what I write about, then I get really flustered, I start stuttering and talking nonsense, like, “I don’t know...I write poem...stuff...about grocery store....and I write prose-y stuff about writing poetry..and then I also write other things about....everything that could happen to...guy me?”

I decided to become a writer for three reasons. 1. Because I LOVE IT. 2. Because I have a talent for it and 3. Because I prefer to be left alone. And if you like being alone then be a writer!

What's your biggest struggle — work or otherwise?

Sometimes I wake up and I’m covered in hives.

If someone said I want to do what you do, what advice would you have for them?

This is a two part-er. The first part is that you should write your stories or your poems, whatever art it is that you want to do. Get good at it. Work hard on it. Have fun with it. Enjoy it, love it, struggle with it. Work on your relationship with it. But work on it with hard work. Being an artist is lots and lots of hard work. And you fail a bunch. You sometimes have an idea and the idea turns out to be terribly stupid. A real dum-dum. It’s a failure. But failure is fun. Failure makes you learn. Failure helps you find your voice. You need to at least have a small chuckle for every failure. But you go at it again the next day. Work, work, work. That’s it. Sometimes you are totally full of shit and then your art is full of shit. That’s ok, though. Work on not being full of shit. Or work on being the greatest full of shit artist that there’s ever been. [...]

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