Why Writers Like to Hear From Readers.
Without wanting to sound too pathetic or confrontational...
Writing
is essentially a lonely occupation. Those of you who have real jobs are usually unaware of how much contact you have with the rest
of the human race during your average workday. Writers, fiction writers in particular, spend most of their days alone in small rooms,
locked in mortal combat with a computer screen. I work in a basement where the only outside light comes from a couple of window-wells
and a distant door. That's the way I like it. In my youth, I once lived in Montana in a fine big house where I outfitted a writing
room with bright white walls, a beautiful oak desk and a glorious view of the Bitterroot Mountains. It was fabulous. I was miserable.
After two weeks I moved everything down into the basement to a dank, dark room I shared with an ancient furnace. Ahhh, much better.
The
rewards of the writing life are few and thin. Dinner party conversations with civilians (non writers) often consist of variations
of the following -- "Your sense of accomplishment must be huge when you see that new book fresh from the publisher or in the
bookstore." "Just finishing a novel must make you feel great." "Working your own hours, taking time off whenever you please, it
must be wonderful." "I'd love to have the time to write, you must have a great life." And on. As a writer, one learns to smile and
agree, nodding one's head, tamping down the biting remark, the sarcastic quip, because to give in to these base urges only makes you
look churlish and ungrateful. Here's the truth of the matter -- unless you make a lot of money doing it, professional writing
is brutal work. And beware any writer who tells you anything dififferent, who says he or she loves the act of creation,
that doing the work itself is magic, that he or she writes because they are driven by some inner muse to do so, that they would
write even if there was no monetary reward. That writer is either an amateur, a fool or bad at what he does. Probably all three.
Writing is difficult and unrewarding (for the most part). Lawrence Kasden, the screenwriter, once said that being a writer is
like having homework for the rest of your life. He's exactly right.
Most writers I know make very little money. Just enough to
keep going in the hope that one day they will hit it big and start earning as much money as a gainfully employed carpenter or plumber
or postal worker. They have long-suffering husbands or wives who, if the writer is lucky, share this distant dream while working
to bring in the money that keeps their families in food and shelter. If a writer sells a project he might get an advance on future
royalties, but by the time the money is parcled out it doesn't usually add up to much. But at least an advance shows
some publisher interest, which is enough to keep most writers hacking away for years at a time. Hope, as we all know, springs eternal.
And once a book is completed and off to the publisher there's no chance to relax and savor the moment because the next project
has to be sold and work begun. And all the time, like a permanent wound, there's the knowledge that festers just below the surface
that the book that is now in the publisher pipeline will quite probably come out in a year or so, hit the shelves and fail like the
writer's other books. Like most of the other books on those same shelves. (Let me pause for a moment. Why am I continuing with this
bitter screed? Because I know that buried here in this overly long and clumsy website it will probably be read by a total of 10 people
in the next ten years. I can do what I want, rant on, and only a few will think me ungrateful. Is this freedom? Of a sort. Is this
one of a writer's rewards. I guess so, though it's a poor one at best.)
You get the point. So what's the answer? What was the
question? Oh yes, Why do writers like to hear from readers? Because it's usually just about the only encouragement they get. Even
the letters from the raving lunatics who berate you for using the wrong caliber when describing a handgun are at least proof that
someone is reading your work. But the nice ones are different. Here's an example:
Dear Mr. Appel. Im an eight grader in
seward alaska where are middle school and high school were combined until recently so we are predisposed to all the books in the library.
well last year when i read your book Time after Time I loved it, since I have read it once more. My friend Becky and I both love it,
the whole book I was riveted and wanted to know more; the story just seemed so realistic. I read more than anyone youve probably met
and I must confess that Time after time is one of my favorits. Sincerely, Name Witheld to Protect an Innocent Child.
Of
course I wrote back to her. I respond to everyone who sends me a message. Most writers I know write back to everyone who bothers to
write them. It's not like I'm Stephen King with a roomful of letters that I'm never going to get to. Besides, when I'm writing a letter
to a kind fan, I'm not sweating blood trying to solve a plot problem, trying to come up with dialogue that doesn't sound stilted and
stupid, trying to create characters that are compelling. For at least that moment I'm sitting at the computer typing and I'm
not wrestling with the gorilla that I know is going to beat me in the end, beat me as he does time and again. But still,
every day, I get into the ring with this great, cruel, smelly beast, because I can't really do anything else. I'm not good at anything
else. I'm a writer, dammit.
And that, my friends, is why you should write to your favorite authors. After a day of gorilla-wrestling,
a kind word is a soothing balm to an aching heart. You would be amazed at how much these messages are appreciated.