I had an actual face-to-face, use-your-inside-voice conversation with someone I don’t know very well (a rare event, and with good reason), and somebody threw my writing into it during an awkward lull, resulting in the token expression of interest and vague question about the subject matter.
I sometimes forget normal people don’t see words written out in their heads the way I do, so when I say I wrote a romance novel about djinn, they hear “gin” and think I tell tales of alcoholic love.
NEW HOT SUBGENRE ALERT!
I even have the tagline for my new Boozehounds in Love web site:
He likes you if he holds your hair while you puke, but if he kisses you after, you know it’s TRUE LOVE.
May 26th, 2008
May 29th, 2008 at 10:02 AM
When someone in the “real world” mentions my writing — or, God forbid, my clueless husband introduces me as “my wife, she’s a writer,” and he is SO cut off for a WEEK every FRIGGIN’ TIME, you’d think he’d LEARN — I turn into a stuttering fool. Even at RT — where EVERYBODY is a writer or at least wants to meet one — I found myself deflecting all conversation that had anything to do with my work.
Why do I DO that, Dr. Kerry?
*makes self comfortable on couch*
May 29th, 2008 at 11:04 AM
Dr. Kerry sez:
You haf deep feelings of insecurity and penis envy originating in your childhood because your mother didn’t breastfeed you long enough.
Or something.
That’ll be $300, please.
:goofball:
Personally, I’d just rather talk about ANYTHING other than myself at any given time. I like gathering information more than dispensing it, listening much more than talking.
Plus, I think writing is kind of like doing magic–it’s better if the audience doesn’t know how you pull it off. Because it’s not glamorous or even particularly explicable most of the time.
“How do you write?”
“Well, I sit down and put one letter after another.”
“Wow. Riveting stuff.”
“Yeah, and then I erase half of them and write some more.”
“I think I hear somebody calling me.”
“I don’t hear… Hey, where’d he go?”
And, hmm… superstition? (The Muse will take the ideas away if I flash them around indiscriminately.) Paranoia? (If I talk about my idea, somebody will steal it.) Many writers just don’t have great people skills? (Hence the solitary occupation.) Protective feeling toward your writing?
I don’t know. I’m really the wrong person to ask. Hell, I turn into a stuttering fool if I call to order a pizza and the person on the other end deviates from my script. (Yes, I write a script if I have to call for a pizza. What part of stuttering fool don’t you understand?)
May 29th, 2008 at 4:02 PM
I feel much better now. Little worried about YOU, though.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:20 PM
This is my therapeutic process: See, you’re not crazy. Look at me. Now, I’M crazy.
And this was your first clue that I’m not quite “right”? Where HAVE you BEEN?
May 29th, 2008 at 5:31 PM
Where HAVE you BEEN?
Converting my website to WordPress. Pay attention, will ya?
:goofball: