A writer wants to sell books

Funny when you encounter the same unexpected thing twice in twelve hours.  Last night I was sitting on the sofa reading an essay about Kurt Vonnegut in this Steve Almond collection (it's good, you should read it) and came across this quote: "It's what writers do, this shuck and jive, this nevous dance to balance the emotional needs of those you love against your own need for glory."

Almond goes on to talk, briefly, about the writer's need to be noticed, to have his books read, which he shares with Vonnegut.  I didn't think much of it until I woke up and read this HuffPost piece by Julianna Baggott, which links to an Andre Codrescu piece (full disclosure: I didn't read that, as Codrescu makes me want to claw my eyeballs out) about facebook.  And in it, Baggott says, "And I know I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books... and books in general? Novels and poetry, they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But, after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies, I can't quite muster the guilt anymore."

I feel bad for anyone who has experienced even a moment of guilt for wanting people to buy her books.  In fact, I think Baggott is lying--I don't think she's ever really felt guilty about this.

Because honestly, if we don't want to be read, what the hell are we doing?  If we write and don't send out our stuff, it's because we're afraid of rejection.  If we have writer's block, it's because we're afraid of failure.  But not wanting to be read is not any writer's problem.  If you don't want to be read, you're not a "writer."  You're some other thing.  A diarist, perhaps.

Now, as for Codrescu's complaint, if I am friends with you on facebook, and you use more than, say, 1 in 20 posts to promote your own work, then I find you annoying, and I have you hidden in my news feed.  facebook is for being mildly amusing and posting links to videos of stampeding baby goats and pictures of your kids with ice cream on their faces.  If you listen to your publicist and treat it like an advertising medium, then you're crapping in the pool.

But I sympathize: I want to be noticed, too.  Everyone does.  Am I not blogging right this minute?  The thing is, the correct way to be noticed is not to ask people to notice you, it's to make more stuff for them to notice.  If you want readers, write a lot, unshittily.  Don't post ads on facebook, post content.  (I have at least one friend, Lou Beach, who has a book coming out that consists entirely of short stories written there.)  Same goes for twitter, and your blog.  Listen carefully here, writers, because this is important.  Content.  Do not post reports on how many people came to your reading or what nice things book reviewers said about you.  This is called bragging and it makes you look like an ass.  People will read your books not because you're telling them how much people like you, but because your writing is worth reading.  So, on the internet, give them more of that.  Give people more of yourself.

And quit feeling guilty about wanting people to buy your books.  It's like feeling guilty about wanting sex, or breakfast.  And yes, there are people who feel guilty about those things, too.  Take a good long look at those people.  Do they look happy?  No, they look hungry.  And horny.

Desire readers.  Then write.

Recluse or gadfly?

Image Source: The Internet

Sometimes, such as right now, I am given to wonder how important or useful it is for a writer to be engaged with, and alert to, his own culture.  Is it better to sequester oneself, monklike, so as to avoid distractions and petty desires and dedicate oneself fully to one's work?  Or is it preferable to fling oneself into the river of crap, in the hope of finding some choice flotsam?

This occured to me today because I just started reading Nabokov's Glory, and found I had to force myself through the first couple of pages.  I love Nabokov and I'm sure I'll get into it soon enough, but I decided to go back and figure out what the problem was.  And it was that the opening pages of this novel are written too narrowly for a particular time and culture (the Russian intelligensia of 1932).  There are allusions, references, assumptions that the young Nabokov expected his readers would understand, and at the time they probably did.  But I don't--not instinctively, anyway.  The pages make sense, of course, but they leave a vague sense of obscureness, of exclusion.

You won't get this with Chekhov.  As Rhian was saying yesterday, he holds up awfully well.  One feels he was writing for the ages, not for his culture.  The work is ostensibly about his culture, but its true subject is universal human emotion.  You don't need a footnote in "The Lady With The Dog" to tell you that Yalta is where Muscovites went on vacation.  It doesn't matter; we get it.  What matters is the bit where the civil servant leans out of the carriage and tells Gurov that the sturgeon was a bit off, and Gurov is for some reason deeply wounded.  He desires a certain kind of succor and instead is confronted by his alienation from other people and their petty concerns.  This is universal--as long as people read short stories, this scene will make sense.

I can't help but feel as though all the September 11th novels we've seen so far will be forgotten very very soon.  The novels of contemporary manners, the novels of urban snark and hip self-consciousness: they are too much about what we think we are, not what we actually are.  When we immerse ourselves in the here and now, we lose sight of the fact that most of our daily worries are about things that will be gone in a century, if not next week.  But it's hard to write about what will be left.  Those are the things that hurt us the most, that make us feel the most helpless.

Which is not to say I'll soon be deleting my Twitter account.  Life in 2011 is too damned much fun.  I think I'll try to lock my cave door a little more often, though.

Embracing the tweet

Well, as usual, I contradict myself. I thought Twitter was stupid. Remember this? I should have known better than to blame the tool when people misuse it. No, Twitter is awesome. Not as a forum for extended narrative--as a mojo-restoring tonic. It turns out you can get a fair amount of short story into 140 characters, if you try real hard.

A woman leaves her purse at a restaurant. She returns for it, and finds a note inside that reads "I hate you." The handwriting is her own.

Deep in a bunker in the mountains of Colorado, a general accesses defense secrets that could destroy the world. The password is "ravioli."

Woman pines for famous actor over many years. Wins contest to have dinner with him. During meal he says, "You remind me of my yard man."

Talking dogs, walking upright, explore Cincinnati.

OK, these aren't going to win any awards, but surely any one of them could make a person's bus ride infinitessimally better? And can one ask any more than that of the form?

Share your 140-character stories, if you will. And a link to your lit tweets.