Hubris moves in mysterious ways
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniSo there's a discussion over at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-01 02:27 pm (UTC)"What is utterly mundane to us can be exotic and glamorous to the non-writer."
Amen to that! You all (the writers here :)) write exceedingly well. I find myself constantly in awe of the authors that I read (and re-read) In being able to create a world (worlds?) that are believable and a story that actually hangs together? My Ghods! =)
However *shrug* writing is what you do, you do it every day (most likely) and you get to see all the dead ends and mistakes that you go through in your rough drafts. Stands to reason that y'all aren't going to look on it as anything to shake your tail at.
All I can say, is from my own perspective - Authors are damn interesting people. Maybe not so much for their lives *shrug* I can't really judge that part though, but in what *they* find interesting, never mind the above mentioned stringing a whole bunch of random factoids together and making a gods-bedamned-story.
Ive read some of y'alls books for a while, and I can't tell you, how neat I find it as a fan to be able to talk/post with you all.