tiredI waited until The Author was properly settled, and then went up, introduced myself, flailed a bit, and said, with deep sincerity, "I've read everything."
Without missing a beat, and without laughing or otherwise tempering the statement, The Author replied, "No, you haven't."
It wasn't nicely said. It wasn't kindly said. It was just said, flatly and declaratively, like I would tell you to remove the dead rat from my kitchen table.
I was, to be absolutely honest, floored. The rest of the interaction was awkward and strained, and I walked away feeling utterly dismissed. I had been looking for a moment of connection with someone whose work had been enormously important to my life. I wound up wondering if I should have apologized for my enthusiasm, like I had somehow broken a rule. And that isn't how it's supposed to be.
I've been on both sides of this table. I've done signings where I was tired, where I had a headache, where my feet hurt so badly from pounding pavement all day that I just wanted to crawl back to my hotel room and die (guess which of these was at the San Diego Comic Convention). I know that sometimes, the last thing in the world you want is icepick enthusiasm drilling another hole in your head.
But.
If you have come to see me, unless I am so sick that you're getting hand sanitizer with your signature, I feel that I should answer your enthusiasm with a smile, and say "thank you" until I turn blue in the face. I am my own person when I'm not behind an autographing table. I have likes and dislikes and opinions, and even my best friends in the whole world sometimes make me want to hit them with a shoe. I get grumpy, I get crabby, I threaten to ignite the biosphere. If you accost me on my way to the bathroom, I probably won't be all that charming. I'm a human being, not whatever creator/author construct you may have in your head. When I sit down behind a table and pick up a pen, that changes.
When I am seated behind an autographing table, you get to expect my attention (although how focused it is will be heavily influenced by how hard it is to spell your name). You get to tell me how much you loved (or hated) my most recent book, how much you loved (or hated) that plot twist, whatever it is you want. And yeah, if you tell me you're planning to murder me in an alley, I'll holler for security so fast that you'll believe my teenage scream queen dreams came true, but that's an extreme case.
I'm sure that I, and every author, will eventually cause a fan to walk around feeling the way I felt when I met one of my childhood idols. Sometimes the tired gets through; sometimes the cranky shows. But I am going to hold fast to that feeling, and do my best to remember that graciousness counts, especially when I'm behind that table. Because one harsh word changes everything.
(*Names withheld to protect the innocent, and because "oh oh oh it was THIS PERSON OVER HERE" is sort of counter to the point.)
October 5 2011, 17:22:46 UTC 5 years ago
I ask partly because I know I have been so influenced by learning more about an author, whether by meeting them, or by being in the audience when they are on a panel or give a reading. I feel as if I have a little more idea what the author's point of view is, and read what they have writing in this light. Once or twice I have found the mental point of view to enjoy something that I had previously missed the point of.
I reckon I'd find myself unconsciously re-evaluating after such an encounter.
October 5 2011, 18:35:12 UTC 5 years ago
For instance, Orson Scott Card's handling of female characters and gay characters, which suddenly all made sense once I knew what he really thought--or some of John C Wright's attitudes toward emotional/mental disability, not to mention the complete lack of alternate sexualities in a world where people were genetically altering themselves to be/do all kinds of odd things, yet none of this completely normal behaviour took place. JKR's gender politics, too, though they are immensely less awful than those of either those two jackanapes.
On the other hand, I will never read SM Stirling because he was such a jackrod to me on the Bujold list about a topic I care a whole lot about--the rights of kids and teens--and I killfiled him because I intend to go the rest of my life without ever having to read/see/hear another word he says. So if I haven't read an author, and they're a jackanapes, they've just ensured that it will stay that way.
But it does have to be major jackassery.
There's a major YA author who humiliated me a little for getting the name of my favourite character slightly wrong at the end of a long day and who has always struck me as a bit of an egotistical asshat, but I have no plans to girlcott him or name him, because I know I'm a bit oversensitive to personal embarrassment and also because while I'm no great fan of him as an individual, I still think his books are fantastic, and being a great artist isn't always the same as being a nice person--I can live with him not being nice, it's not the same as if he were homophobic, racist, ageist, cissexist or ableist. He's just kind of a jerk, and he may not be that way to everyone. (On the other hand, he has several series and I'm only a fan of one--it has NOT, let me tell you, made me want to run out and get all the others right away.)
October 5 2011, 18:47:42 UTC 5 years ago
There is an author that I met at a con who was a real jerk to me - pushy-flirty and not taking "no" for an answer until a few really loud repeats. Ever since then I've not really been interested in anything he had to say.
Then there are authors that I met at cons and thought "Gee, he seems like kind of a nice guy - I should probably go read something of his" and was pleased that I had.
October 5 2011, 19:44:15 UTC 5 years ago
October 27 2011, 16:32:19 UTC 5 years ago
October 5 2011, 19:31:12 UTC 5 years ago
I have never spoken to Stirling but there was enough dubious in the one or two books of his that I've read that I rejected further purchases on that account alone.
October 5 2011, 19:41:40 UTC 5 years ago
Suddenly everything that I had hated about the Songbird stuff made sense, and it was not a kind of sense I wanted it to make.
I hear you on Stirling; I had already thought some of it was dubious but then he was just such a jerk. Unfortunately I do have friends who like the Draka stuff who are annoyed when I say, sorry, no, I do not want to read that, but they are mostly all used to it and over it now.
October 5 2011, 21:23:52 UTC 5 years ago