With the very best of intentions and a birthday dinner to boot, my neighbor questioned me once again if I’d yet read her gift to me last year, Janet Evanovich’s Three Plums in One. I could see she was disappointed that I hadn’t, and once again I reminded her that I’ve got about a couple hundred books to read and i’m trying to get in some of the classic literary novels as well as some of the philosophical writings of ages long past.
Then came the real reason she’s pushing me to read it: she thinks I should write books like that. It’s what she likes reading (she wasn’t nuts about the text version of Path in otto, admitting she got lost and didn’t see the sense of it). When I told her that I was excited about the true hypertext version of Paths that I’ve been working on for the past several weeks, her eyes glazed and I knew that I’d lost her.
She tried to convince me that I’m a good writer (how would she know?) and I should concentrate on what sells and what she and her friends enjoy reading. And, that I’d be terrific in writing the genre.
Good thing I didn’t have more than a glass and a half of wine.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
It’s so easy for people to tell us what they think we should write. But I’m convinced we should write what’s in us to write. Whether it gets us anywhere or not, at least it’s what we want to do, and there are so many risks in writing, why on earth would we expend all that effort and risk on something we don’t even like? I doubt that Janet Evanovich wrote her Stephanie Plum series because anyone else told her she should write that sort of thing. She did it because she wanted to.
Yes, I understand where she’s coming from and folks like that mean well, but they’re looking at writing as form versus content, and totally disregarding the personality of the writer and what, as you say, he/she wants to do.
It’s nice to have someone who believes in you…even if they don’t quite ‘get it’.
Perhaps she should be the one to write that sort of work.
She’s not a writer nor have any aspirations, but I do appreciate her “helpful” support. All too often people merely snicker when you tell them you’re writing.
It is nice to have friends who are interested enough in the fact that you write to give opinions, I’m just glad that you write where your heart is.
Very weird – one of my managers was talking to me about starting a book club – and the first book she wanted to discuss was a Janet Evanovich.
I stayed closed mouth. Need my job.
Just wondered – what the hell is there to DISCUSS about an Evanovich book???