Favorite Living Writer

"Focus on the Words - Not on the Writer." (link via Mental Multivitamin) Any essay with that title is sure to get my head nodding, as are words like the following:

What matters is the book, and the book has to stand on its own merit. What the author accomplishes, or doesn't, outside of the book is fine for the gossip pages, but it doesn't merit mentioning in a book review.

So it shouldn't matter whether a writer is a nice guy or a jerk, looks like a cheerleader or a troll, lives like a hermit or a media whore, is a normal mild-mannered person or suffers from a raging narcissistic personality disorder (which might, actually, be the norm for writers), or is living or dead. What matters are the words.

I was therefore surprised to read, in the same essay, that a particular writer was the essayist's "favorite living writer."

Does the essayist also have a favorite dead writer? A favorite ugly writer? A favorite red-haired writer?

Do words on a page read differently while the writer maintains a pulse? If a writer dies while you're reading his book, would his words suddenly lose their appeal? Or, as in some other branches of the arts, would they suddenly improve?

I was also surprised to see the essayist's photo at the top of the essay. If the essay's point is words are all that matters, why is his face the first thing we see? Was he thinking "words are all that matter" as he sat for his head shot?

And at the end of the essay, the last words we read aren't the essayist's well-written and persuasive conclusion, they're instead a short biographical note informing us that the essayist is the author of a novel and erotica collection. Is this to assure us that we have just read are not the wannabee-writerly words of a disgruntled no-name never-published blogger shamefacedly hiding behind a picture of P.G. Wodehouse but, instead, the extra-writerly words of a published novelist and erotica-collection-producer not afraid to display his face for all to see? Or is it just a product plug?

If all that matters is the words, nothing else should matter.

But of course it all matters. Whether we like it or not. We're all human, even the essayist, and being human we have an insatiable curiousity about other humans, particularly those closest to us. That closeness can be actual or virtual. Those who are actually close to us include family, friends, neighbors, co-workers. Those who are virtually close to us include the actors, athletes, musicians and, for the few who still read, writers whose work speaks to us, moves us, so much so that we admit them into our lives.

Gossip is a good indicator closeness; the drinking problem of a friend, or a cousin, or a musician or actor you admire is far more interesting to you than the drinking problem of some guy on the other side of town you've never met and never will, or a musician or actor whose work has never reached you. Some of us resist gossip's allure better than others, but none of us is completely free from its grasp. Except maybe the psychopaths.

Publishers, like other media magnates, recognize this, so while pushing their product they do everything they can to push our human buttons.

We are attracted to attractive people, so if a writer is attractive, you can be sure we'll see a huge professional head shot on the dust cover. We care more about people we know, so if a writer is a celebrity virtually "known" by millions, you can be sure his words will be published and purchased and maybe even read without regard to the merit of the words themselves. We tend to like things other people like, so if a writer has ever touched a bestseller list, even if only for a few minutes, even if only in his local bookstore after he surreptitiously purchases all its copies, all his books for the rest of his life will describe him as a "bestselling" writer. None of these features of the word trade have anything to do with the words themselves, but they strongly influence our reading choices and therefore have become ubiquitous.

I've thought a lot about the importance of words versus the importance of the writer since I started writing this blog.

One of my first decisions was to write anonymously. At the time, I had my reasons, principally a desire to preserve some level of plausible deniability should my initial stabs at writing stink up the room. If anyone ever looked my way, brows arched and nose plugged, I could always point at the dog and say "bad boy!"

But after a while I began to appreciate another reason for writing anonymously: It liberated my words. Without my name, or my picture, or any idea of my background, expertise or experience, all you, the reader, have is my words. If you like them, it's not me or my face or my background or my expertise you're liking, it's just my words. If you hate them, it's not me you're hating, it's yourself, for only an incredibly self-loathing person would stoop as low as to hate inanimate objects like words. Or maybe, just maybe, it was my words you hated. But in any event you weren't hating me.

This anonymity has also liberated me. When I first started writing, I thought anonymity would give me the freedom to shade the truth when convenient but I've since discovered that anonymity actually gives me the freedom to tell the truth, even when it's not convenient. I've got nothing riding on these words, other than the hope that you keeping reading them. So all I have to do is keep them true. I have no reputation to uphold or resurrect. I have no money-making plans for my writing (which is good because no one has any money-paying plans for my writing). I haven't even scored with any high-class literary groupies. All I get out of this is the satisfaction of churning out words others are willing to read.

I've thought of making this process even purer. I could disable comments, removing any temptation that I’d ever twist my words to garner gushing comments. I could also disable my email account, cutting off any possibility that I'd be tempted by gushing comments by email, or hateful comments, or comments offering v1agra or peni5 enlargement pills. I could ignore, or better yet remove, my stat counters, further obscuring the extent of my obscurity. And I could continue alienating you with self-congratulatory screeds like this.

I probably won't do all that, for I've allowed enough of my ego to get entwined with Outer Life that I get a rush when someone says something nice, or links to something I've written. So it's not all about the words. Or, said another way, it is all about the words, but despite my best efforts the words here still retain a little piece of me.