James Oliver Curwood, Disciple of the Wilds

by Hobart Donald Swiggett

The remainder of that winter Jim kept everlastingly at his work, pounding away feverishly on the rebuilt typewriter, with the ever-present desire of having his stories published burning deep within him. His native love for writing, aided by the unceasing encouragement of his parents and Fred Janette, drove him constantly forward. For even when the young boy would grow tired Janette and Jim’s mother saw to it that the boy’s imagination was never led astray or left to linger. They saw to it that his rapidly developing brain was continually at work.

It was during the last half of his sixteenth year that Jim Curwood, young as he was, realized that he was on the right road to success. However, he did not imagine just how long and how tiresome that road would later prove itself to be.

Shortly after Jim had passed his seventeenth birthday, he began sending out his stories with fond hopes of acceptance and remuneration. These hopes were short-lived, for just as fast as he would mail the manuscripts out others would be returned with a neat pink, blue or white rejection slip attached.

Time and time again Jim had fits of despondency that all but drove both him and his parents insane. He grew to hate the very sight of one of those pink or white pieces of paper. Upon receiving a rejection slip he vowed that he would never write another line. Always within twenty-four hours he would be back at his typewriter, pounding away as usual.

Throughout all those lean, hard years of climbing slowly but surely uphill in his claim to success and fame, Jim Curwood prayed to his God for guidance and a brain that was capable of turning out a saleable story. He, like so many other authors, knew that prayer alone would never turn the trick. Everlasting persistence and staunch, bulldog tenacity must be present if success is to come.

Jim did have the foresight, however, to realize that he must work continually in order for him to achieve any minor degree of victory. And work continually he did. Always from the crack of dawn to the wee, small hours of the night he could have been found in his study, hard at work.

Curwood’s prayers during his teen age experiences were not so much that he become wealthy or famous. Nor were they for the clamoring for recognition. They were simply that people could get to read his stories. Then he would be able to write yarns that people would want to read. Publication and a ready audience were all that the young man craved.

During those times when fits of despondency would overcome him at the sight of a rejection slip, there was but one thing Jim would do. He would have his outburst of temper, take a long walk and then return to his typewriter. Unlike most writers who receive, as a rule, not more than two or three rejects in the day’s mail, Jim often got as many as twelve to fifteen. Always they seemed to come in great avalanches. This was all due to his prodigious output of words and stories.

When he would receive several of his tales back from the different publishers, Jim would merely send them on their way to different ones. He was not one to give up easily and consequently could not be whipped in his determination to succeed. The postage bill at the Curwood home as a rule varied from as little as $1.00 to as high as $3.00 and $4.00 a month. But his parents concerned themselves little at the expense for somehow they knew that the cause was a worthy one.

In due time the youthful author, who by this time had published over a dozen different stories, came to believe just what the printed rejection slip said—that rejection of a story did not necessarily mean that it was not good, but that the story was unsuited to this or that particular editor’s needs at the time.