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, 18:23:37 UTC 5 years ago
WHAT.
Ew. That's horrible. I have never been able to read anything by John C Wright after reading some of the things he has said about gay people, though I suspected him of being an asshole about halfway through his second book. :(
I'm put in mind of a Certain Big Name Fantasy Author who told a group of fans that his books had Christian themes and if you weren't a Christian, you would not "understand" his work and shouldn't bother reading him.
Wait, isn't one of the points of writing fantasy with religious themes to put your views out there so that people who don't already know all about them, but would agree with/believe them if they did, can see them in action?
October 5 2011, 19:07:54 UTC 5 years ago
You know, when I was Christian, that's basically the way I thought. I have a novella somewhere about a hardcore Christian falling for a Wiccan woman, because despite their differences, they still have much the same core values. And because of it, he learns and grows and becomes more Christ-like. (Book needs a lot of work and since I'm pagan now, I really haven't wanted to touch that since just because of the marketing side, but hey.)
October 5 2011, 19:38:57 UTC 5 years ago
I am not Christian at all, but I am Jewish with a Thelemic streak, and since I know I cannot keep my views on religion out of my writing about magic and religion, I have decided that it's better for everyone if I just don't try. I don't for instance think that I could write the kind of pagan fantasy world that's really popular in some markets right now (and was even more so 10-15 years ago) because I cannot really make that work inside my head. I used to be able to, before I found out that everything I had wanted in paganism was in Judaism, only I hadn't looked. But not any more.
But I would never say that you have to believe or practise anything that I believe or practise to read and understand my fiction. I mean that's just stupid. I admit that knowing more about where CS Lewis was coming from gave me more understanding of why Narnia and Perelandra were what they were (and oh did I not like some aspects of that, although I do like The Great Divorce quite a lot...)
I have really been extremely happy when people have told me they got something out of the ideas I put before them, whether or not they decided they wanted to go anywhere with it, though I think that actively proselytising to people is a boundary violation and I do not do it. I do not write with the idea of pushing ANY message (and am irritated when I'm accused of it) but I did think that's what self-proclaimed inspirational writers were trying to do.
I mean I guess it must be fun to preach to the choir, but I don't think I'd care to limit my audience that much since my audience is already kind of limited to people who can put up with my love of intricate plots and characters who are not necessarily easy to like at first.
October 5 2011, 20:28:25 UTC 5 years ago
I didn't actually know that she was in Card's church, though. That's interesting. I pay no attention to blurbs, lol.
I like seeing religious diversity in novels. It gets old seeing the same religious bases -- most popularly the all-good pagan religion vs. the evil obviously Abrahamic based religion. It's actually something that frustrated me a lot reading Mists of Avalon, which I know a lot of other people adored. I hated that all the pagan characters were the Good Guys and all the Christian characters were unrepentantly cruel, vicious, and downright evil in some cases. Sorry, it doesn't work like that.
October 5 2011, 20:43:32 UTC 5 years ago
Card and Meyer are both Mormons.
I have serious issues with Christianity, but if Christians themselves were all evil, the problems would have been dealt with long ago! The problem is that some of them are very good and some of them are very bad and they both use their religion to justify their actions. Except when they're blaming MY religion and MY holy books, which they claim to interpret "literally" (which G-d never intended anyway) to justify their actions. :)
October 5 2011, 20:50:53 UTC 5 years ago
In-freaking-deed. That was my biggest complaint when I was a Christian. All the other people who tried to follow the letter of the law but entirely missed the spirit in which it was meant. And ignored key passages like, oh, "Judge not". *sigh*