Storytellersunplugged

Where Words Meet

“He Slapped The Bitch To Orgasm,” And Other Ingratiation Faux Pas

We humans are by nature social creatures, barring the occasional woeful exceptions. Like that guy down the street who, if greeted, will glare at you as though you’ve grown a syphilitic second head. And that desk clerk who couldn’t be any less approachable if she was wearing porcupine quills and a skunk’s tail. But the rest of us? We thrive in the welcoming light of others’ eyes and wither in the darkness of their apathy.

Writers in particular. For us, reader/peer appreciation ranks right up there with food and oxygen … even for those disdainful authors who claim they don’t give a flying fornication for what you think. But I daresay the hunger rages most frantically in those who have accomplished the least. Because they’re desperate for believers.

Which can turn them into their own most bubonically effective saboteurs.

Maybe, as kids, they were daydreaming during etiquette lessons. Maybe their artistic souls molded them from an early age into growth-stunted misfits. Or maybe it’s just a side effect of whatever divine madness impels a perfectly good machine cog to pick up a quill pen in the first place.

Whatever the cause, here’s the bitter paradox: a novice, an aspirant — or a fan, too, while we’re at it — who seeks the company of others of like mind, or those suspected of being of like mind, who craves their acceptance, who hungers for their validation of his or her essential core … and who then goes after it with all the comportment of that weird uncle who likes to demo his hernia at family dinners.

Seriously. In the world of high-, middle-, and lowbrow letters, there’s a scary number of people out there trying to sidle up to the creators, employing strategies that are the stuff of humiliation and restraining orders. And it’s only gotten worse now that we’re all out there with web sites and public e-mail addresses.

So. In the interest of getting things off on the right foot when paths do cross, here are a few thou-shalts and thou-shalt-nots. Mostly shalt-nots. And pray you recognize yourself only as the receiver, rather than the perpetrator.

• Never tell a writer that the best thing he or she ever wrote was this piece of work from 10 or 15 or 43 years ago. Sure, you’re entitled to your opinion. It may even be objectively valid. Just the same, keep that nugget of flattery to yourself.

• If you want to get something signed via long distance, most writers are happy to accommodate. Just don’t expect the writer to foot the bill for sending it back to you, ya cheap bastard. Include a SASE, or loose postage and a mailing label.

• Don’t send a writer you don’t know your unpublished or self-published stuff out of the blue, unsolicited. We realize you only want to know what we think. We’ve been there, and we’ve felt your anxiety. But you probably have unrealistic expectations of what we can do for you … which ain’t much. We aren’t agents, most of us don’t run critiquing services, and we’re all swamped with our own work and some combination of relationships, families, side interests, day jobs, and all-consuming fetishes that leave us quaking and ashamed in the deepest dark of night.

• If you still want feedback, at least ask first, in the full knowledge that the answer will likely be no. The real reason most of us would rather pull out our eyelashes with tweezers than read the unsolicited, unpublished work of strangers? There’s a noxious strain of parasite out there just waiting for the chance to level a charge of plagiarism at someone for stealing his ideas. Not you, I know. Perish the thought. But the safest policy is still a blanket, all-purpose no. Your best bet: Prove yourself in the arena first, on your own, the way we all had to, and always be at your diplomatic best.

• Please disabuse yourself of the notion that published writers and their editors constitute some sort of secret cabal intent on keeping you out. It makes you sound like your headgear of choice is tinfoil. Plus it will resonate only with other foilheads, and all you’ll do is reinforce each other’s delusions. The truth is, most of us spend a lot more time talking to our dogs, cats, iguanas, and refrigerators than to each other.

• Never suggest a collaboration with a writer you haven’t been drunk with at least four times. Especially on your autobiography. I don’t care how many alien abductions or skin grafts you’ve been through.

• And don’t offer to share your ideas, especially when envisioning a division of labor that involves the writer doing all the work and you both splitting the money. If your ideas are so wonderful they belong before the goggled eyes of the world, take a class to improve your craft and usher them in yourself. My lack of faith in your project’s viability only means I can’t muster up sufficient enthusiasm to work on it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. I could be wrong. I’m wrong about lots of stuff. Yes, I am a retard for declining your offer. But I’m at least a retard with my own ideas.

• Even though we’re on friendly terms, and I really do like you, please quit asking when I’m going to dedicate a book to you. I’m sorry. But if it hasn’t happened by now, it probably never will, and every time you bring it up it gives me a six-second case of lockjaw.

• If you join a read-aloud/critique group, be it a formal local crew, or an impromptu gathering of friends and acquaintances at a convention, don’t sour your first impression by reading the entirety of a work that would thud if you dropped it. Brevity, remember, is the soul of wit. Be witty, lest you be the one who goes thud.

• And in that group, try to be mindful of your audience relative to your material. For instance: If that audience consists of anything other than knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers, they may not be the target market for your thinly-disguised rape fantasy featuring such lines as “He slapped the bitch to orgasm.” Yes, I’ve actually heard that one … and one or two of the contributors here can vouch for it, because they were present, too. You know what’s going to happen? “He slapped the bitch to orgasm” is going to become that group’s private punchline for a long, long, long, long time.

It could even end up in the title of an essay someday.

Bottom line, we all thirst for our little sip of immortality.

If you get it, just be sure it’s for the reasons you wanted.

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