Tax Day, Crime Fiction, and Who We Owe by Jack Sharman

April 15 is Tax Day, a day that reminds us, as citizens and as writers, that we owe. Owing something or being in debt to someone—financially, spiritually, practically—seems endemic to the human condition. In this matter, our faith or lack thereof does not seem to matter. As Bob Dylan noted on Slow Train Coming (1979), You got to serve somebody.

The notions of what we owe and whom we serve have practical application for fiction writers and, I suspect, for most people who treat their daily work as “art.” A practical challenge in writing fiction is that I put off the work in favor of something else. The “something else” is often useful or even commendable—I practice law and run a blog about crime fiction and cocktails—but it has struck me how easily I kick down the road of the future the can of writing fiction, something I told myself is a priority in life.  (For some curious reason, the only place I do not kick the can is in airplanes, even though there is something special about drinking on airplanes. I wrote a blog post about it). Why would one do such a thing? Sticking with our hermeneutic, who do I owe? Who am I serving?

English psychologist Oliver Burkeman thinks we kick the can because, when we settle on a priority at the expense of closing off other options, we are reminded of our mortality. In other words, if I turn to the fiction this morning but the tax returns go unprepared for another day, I am ranking activities. Ranking is just another way of closing off options. The only reason to close off options is because I know that, one day, I will run out of time—I will die. In contrast, people who keep all their options open all the time, Burkeman says, do so at least in part to maintain the pleasant self-delusion that there will always be time, someday—time to write the novel, paint the series, research the biography, or re-plant the garden.

As Burkeman likes to say, How is that working for you?

If, like me, it does not work so well, consider one of Burkeman's tools: break down the project—novel manuscript, ad campaign, financial presentation, endless rows of code, or any other large unwieldy task—into small units of time (work for 15 minutes then stop); or words (500 words); or pages and slides (one page, one slide). It is not for everybody, but there is real value in this micro-approach. Plus, over time, one finds that the parameters can be extended.

Whatever the tools one uses, the antecedent must be the answer to the question: Who do you serve? Who do you owe? As a financial counselor might say, Who do you pay first? Perhaps in fiction as in finance, the answer, in order to produce art, must always be me.

A native of Alabama and a graduate of Harvard Law School, Jack Sharman is a white-collar criminal defense lawyer. His comments on white-collar trials and government investigations have appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Guardian, and other national outlets. He blogs about white-collar matters, crime fiction, and cocktails at “White Collar Wire” (jacksharman.com). Jack holds an MFA in fiction from Washington University in St. Louis, a B.A. from Washington and Lee University, and has been published in The Southern Review and elsewhere.