By John Milton Edwards
Being the Experience of a Writer who, for Twenty-two Years, has kept a Story-mill Grinding Successfully
The Editor Company
RIDGEWOOD, NEW JERSEY
Copyright 1912 by The Editor Company.
THE WRITER
TO THE READER
It was in 1893 that John Milton Edwards (who sets his hand to this book of experiences and prefers using the third person to overworking the egotistical pronoun) turned wholly to his pen as a means of livelihood. In this connection, of course, the word “pen” is figurative. What he really turned to was his good friend, the Typewriter.
For two years previous to this (to him) momentous event he had hearkened earnestly to the counsel that “literature is a good stick but a poor crutch,” and had cleaved to a position as paymaster for a firm of contractors solely because of the pay envelope that insured food and raiment. Spare hours alone were spent in his Fiction Factory. In the summer of 1893, however, when his evening and Sunday work brought returns that dwarfed his salary as paymaster, he had a heart to heart talk with Mrs. John Milton Edwards, and, as a result, the paymaster-crutch was dropped by the wayside. This came to pass not without many fears and anxieties, and later there arrived gray days when the literary pace became unsteady and John Milton turned wistful eyes backward in the direction of his discarded crutch. But he never returned to pick it up.
From then till now John Milton Edwards has worked early and late in his Factory, and his output has supported himself and wife and enabled him to bear a number of other financial responsibilities. There have been fat years and lean – years when plenty invited foolish extravagance and years when poverty compelled painful sacrifices – yet John Milton Edwards can truly say that the work has been its own exceeding great reward.
With never a “best seller” nor a successful play to run up his income, John Milton has, in a score and two years of work, wrested more than $100,000 from the tills of the publishers. Short stories, novelettes, serials, books, a few moving picture scenarios and a little verse have all contributed to the sum total. Industry was rowelled by necessity, and when a short story must fill the flour barrel, a poem buy a pair of shoes or a serial take up a note at the bank, the muse is provided with an atmosphere at which genius balks. True, Genius has emerged triumphant from many a Grub street attic, but that was in another day when conditions were different from what they are now. In these twentieth century times the writer must give the public what the publisher thinks the public wants. Although the element of quality is a sine qua non, it seems not to be incompatible with the element of quantity.
It is hoped that this book will be found of interest to writers, not alone to those who have arrived but also to those who are on the way. Writers with name and fame secure may perhaps be entertained, while writers who are struggling for recognition may discover something helpful here and there throughout John Milton Edwards’ twenty-two years of literary endeavor. And is it too fair a hope that the reader of fiction will here find something to his taste? He has an acquaintance with the finished article, and it may chance that he has the curiosity to discover how the raw material was taken, beaten into shape and finally laid before his eyes in his favorite periodical.
John Milton Edwards, in the pages that follow, will spin the slender thread of a story recounting his successes and failures. Extracts of correspondence between him and his publishers will be introduced, and other personal matters will be conjured with, by way of illustrating the theme and giving the text a helpful value. This slender thread of narrative will be broken at intervals to permit of sandwiching in a few chapters not germane to the story but en rapport with the work which made the story possible. In other words, while life goes forward within the Factory-walls it will not be amiss to give some attention to the Factory itself, to its equipment and methods, and to anything of possible interest that has to do with its output.
And finally, of course John Milton Edwards is not the author’s real name. Shielded by a nom de plume, the author’s experiences here chronicled may be of the most intimate nature. In point of fact, they will be helpful and entertaining in a direct ratio with their sincerity and frankness.
“A LITTLE GIFT”
A little gift I have of words,
A little talent, Lord, is all,
And yet be mine the faith that girds
An humble heart for duty's call.
Where Genius soars to distant skies,
And plumes herself in proud acclaim,
O Thou, let plodding talent prize
The modest goal, the lesser fame.
Let this suffice, make this my code,
As I go forward day by day,
To cheer one heart upon life's road,
To ease one burden by the way.
I would not scale the mountain-peak,
But I would have the strength of ten
To labor for the poor and weak,
And win my way to hearts of men.
A little gift Thou gavest me,
A little talent, Lord, is all,
Yet humble as my art may be
I hold it waiting for Thy call.September 20, 1911. John Milton Edwards.
