Hubris moves in mysterious ways

[rolanni]

So there's a discussion over at jaylake's place about the nature of writers, the contention being that interesting writers are interesting people. I disagreed, based on my own wide-ranging uninteresting-ness (with which kaygo begged to disagree), and the even wider-ranging charm of my characters, based on reader report.

This morning at the gym, I fell to talking with a woman who I had worked with during the Bean Christmas Season. She, retired of something to do with accounting, banking, or perhaps both, is casting about for a summer job, to keep herself busy, and confessed that she was looking forward to November, when she would sign on again with Bean. I may have looked a mite dubious, because she asked what I was doing to keep myself busy.

Well, I said, I've been writing a book.

Oh? On what subject?

I did the short form of husband co-author, twelve books, available at Children's Bookstore right here in town, or at Barnes and Noble and Borders, down to Augusta or Portland, and gave her a card.

That was interesting. As in, my being a writer was interesting to someone who is not a writer, and she instantly grasped why I might not be eager to go "out" to work.

Then she realized that, though we had worked together and see each other occasionally at the gym, I had never been properly "placed", which she speedily proceeded to do: Where did I live? Did I know so-and-so? Where had I lived before? Was I related to the Albion Lees or the Waterville Lees?

So, being a writer is interesting, perhaps, to those in other lines of work. But I still don't believe that one needs to be a deeply interesting person in order to write compelling stories. An observer with a good ear, yes. Possessed of esoteric information and a store of bon mots and witticisms, which are delivered with charm and grace in face-to-face situations -- no.

Comments

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I don't think writers are any better judges of how interesting they are to the world at large than they are of their own work. What is utterly mundane to us can be exotic and glamorous to the non-writer.

I find most writers quite interesting, and usually, the better they write, the more interesting they are. They have quick minds and delightful wit, and they're great fun to talk to. The only truly horrible bores I've met have been, in my experience, pretty poor writers as well; seems to me there is an inverse relation between the quality of the work and the willingness of the author to bend your ear about every tiny detail of it.