Writing For Love.

Slipping a nip and other ways we claw for attention.

“It would be my guess that Madonna is not a very happy woman.” David Bowie

I have a problem with writers — me included. First of all, we’re all love-starved. We want claps so bad, we’ll do absolutely anything to get them — including what I call “Madonna-esque” writing. This can be described as whorish antics, including the adoption of any persona that makes us loveable.

I remember Milton Berle getting a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars, and saying, “You still love me?” Half the audience was too young to know who Berle was, or what he did to revolutionize comedy. He should have come out in a chicken suit. He would have been loved a lot more if he had.

Blake Edwards got the same award a few years later. He appeared in a wheelchair, crashing it into a set. People loved it. They didn’t know who Blake Edwards was, either, but putting your life in peril seems to work.

If you want to be loved, in other words, you have to be Blake Edwards — not Milton Berle. Better yet, be Madonna, since she’s no slapstick artist, preferring instead to show her breasts, which have stood the test of time better than she has. In her world, if you want attention, slip a nip.

“From my own experience,” he [Bowie] said, “having gone through persona changes like Madonna, that clawing need to be the centre of attention isn’t a pleasant place to be.”

Now, before you jump to your keyboard, writing “Why I Slipped My Nip,” there’s a problem with this, and I’ll let David Bowie explain. “From my own experience,” he said, “having gone through persona changes like Madonna, that clawing need to be the centre of attention isn’t a pleasant place to be.”

I guess that all depends on your idea of “pleasant.” Changing personas can be a bit hit and miss. Then again, so can being the same person every day of your life. Actors don’t mind being someone else. It’s lucrative and a great place to hide. Actually, nobody knows you’re hiding because you’re acting.

So how does this apply to you or me? Think of our own personas. Aren’t we ready to “slip a nip” to get noticed? The day someone writes about “tube tits” is a good day on Medium, just not as good as a Woodstock retrospective, counting the “tube tits” swaying to Hendrix’s national anthem. At least we have a historical reference. Just talking about your tube tits is reactionary.

As I said from the start, we write to be loved, or clapped at like a Queen concert. Either way, our motivation is universal, and as old as, well, Milton Berle.

Is David Bowie right, though? Is Madonna an unhappy women? Are all her antics listless rather than lustful? And are we destined for the same unhappiness if we keep “slipping our nips,” hoping the claps are because we’re insightful instead of just stagey?

As I said from the start, we write to be loved, or clapped at like a Queen concert. Either way, our motivation is universal, and as old as, well, Milton Berle. We don’t have to apologize for this. What we do have to avoid is being Madonna or having what Bowie calls a “clawing need for attention.” Okay, we’ll still be clawing, but we could be a little more discreet about it. I mean, we don’t have to walk around in nuclear bras.

Here are a few suggestions for keeping ourselves—and hopefully others—in check:

WILL YOU BE MY NEIGHBOUR?

Fred Rogers may have been sappy as hell, but he understood his audience. Children are inclusive creatures. What better way to include them than asking, “Will you be my neighbour?” Writing is really just Fred Rogers without the sweater and running shoes. If you want readers, include them, ask them to be your neighbour — even if you live in a bachelor north of Van Nuys.

TUBE TITS SHOULD STAY IN YOUR SHIRT

Talking about an irregular body part isn’t wrong. What is wrong is turning it into an anomaly. We’re all irregular in some way and, like most people, we’d like everyone to know we’re dealing with our own personal dragon . Only it isn’t a dragon, is it? It’s a “tube tit.” Stop making out like it’s ThIs Year’s Worst Natural Disaster.

YOU CAN’T DO PHANTOM IN THE PARK

People go on social media thinking their work transcends all categories. Anyone should be honoured to have you, right? Think of it another way. Your work — and ultimately your persona — needs to be against the right backdrop. You won’t see Phantom of the Opera In The Park or Hair At The Bistro. Be where your audience is mostly likely to appreciate you. Arby’s comes to mind.

THE MAN’S JUST TYPING

Writers who promise an article every day aren’t writing anymore. As Norman Mailer once described Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” “the man’s just typing.” As much as I hate Mailer, he had a point. Typing isn’t writing. It’s platitudes. They don’t disappear because you write an article a day. They become ingrained. One writer, describing his daily writing submissions, got a comment back from a reader, saying: “Thanks for this. It’s the kick in the pants I needed.” They definitely need a kick somewhere.

I WANT TO MEET FUTURE WRITERS

Writer’s forums are strange places, mostly because aspiring writers aren’t looking for advice. They want companionship. Unfortunately, that won’t make their writing any better. What they need is a crusty old journalist telling them their work sucks. Most of us spent years being told our work sucked. We got better. We learned how to grovel for love better. Nothing improves grovelling like a crusty old journalist (who’s probably dead now, anyway).

CLAPS DISAPPEAR

Every seasoned writer knows claps eventually disappear. This is where the term “clapped-out” came from. Nobody stays loveable. My grandfather lived in our house until he was ninety-eight. He was a former Shakespearean actor. Every Christmas, he’d recite “Albert and the Lion.” Eventually we hated Albert. We hated Albert’s parents for taking him to the zoo. We hated my grandfather for not knowing another fucking poem.

Maybe we need a big bat attached to some mechanism on the top of our computers. Every time we go to hit “publish,” the bat comes down and knocks us senseless.

So that’s my beef. As much as I think personas have their place, we’re all incorrigible attention-seekers. At least my grandfather kept it to himself for most of the year. We can barely hold off a single day. Maybe we need a big bat attached to some mechanism on the top of our computers. Every time we go to hit “publish,” the bat comes down and knocks us senseless.

We need something. We can’t go on “slipping a nip,” thinking — like Madonna — the whole world’s waiting for this to happen. Trying to remain the centre of attention, as David Bowie said, “isn’t a pleasant place to be.”

He also said, “I re-invented my image so many times, I’m in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman.”

Think about that next time you write an article (God knows, I have).

Robert Cormack is a satirist, novelist and blogger. His first novel “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)”is available online and at most major bookstores. Check out Skyhorse Press or Simon and Schuster for more details.