Daemon Voices

DAEMON VOICES: ESSAYS ON STORYTELLING is a collection of Phillip Pullman’s writing on the subjects of writing and writers. I was tempted by this collection despite never having read Pullman’s fiction–in my head, he’s catalogued as that guy who wrote the YA novel that was turned into the film with the polar bears. I haven’t even seen the film, but the visual of the polar bears has been stuck in my skull for a decade now. 

I have friends who are huge fans of Pullman’s Dark Materials books, though, and the first essay in the collection was more than enough to convince me it was worth ponying up the cash. The essay, Magic Carpets, details the responsibilities Pullman feels as a storyteller. He leads off with something unexpected: your first responsibility is financial. Like every other member of a capitalist society, you need money to support your loved ones.  

When we start writing books we’re all poor; we all have to do another job in the daytime and write at night; and, frankly, it’s not as romantic as it seems to those who aren’t doing it. Worry –constant low-level unremitting anxiety about bank statements and mortgages and bills –is not a good state of mind to write in. I’ve done it. It drains your energy; it distracts you; it weakens your concentration. The only good thing about being poor and obscure is the obscurity –just as the only trouble with being rich and famous is the fame.

But if we find we can make money by writing books, by telling stories, we have the responsibility – the responsibility to our families, and those we look after – of doing it as well and as profitably as we can. Here’s a useful piece of advice to young writers: cultivate a reputation – which need have no basis in reality – but cultivate a reputation of being very fond of money. If the people you have to deal with think that you like the folding stuff a great deal, they’ll think twice before they offer you very small amounts of it. What’s more, by expecting to get paid properly for the work we do, we’re helping our fellow writers in their subsequent dealings with schools, or festivals, or prisons, or whatever. I feel not a flicker of shame about declaring that I want as much money for my work as I can get. But, of course, what that money is buying, what it’s for, is security, and space, and peace and quiet, and time.

Pullman, Philip. Daemon Voices: Essays on Storytelling. 

As distillations of the tension between art and commerce go, this is one of the best. While I don’t agree with Pullman on every aspect of storytelling, he starts strong and the collection is worth checking out.