Dear Margaret Atwood,
Today for our meeting, we've come to a church, but no matter where we look or who we talk to, we can't seem to figure out who or what they worship. The doors are locked, so we're walking around the grounds, looking at the inspiring arrangement of the garden and talking about the morality of the writer.
Prospero, the Wizard of Oz, Mephisto & Co.
I chuckle. I enjoyed your chapter. Once I wrote a character who wears a Mephisto mask revealing that he secretly wants to experiment with being the devil or that he's a devil under the persona he usually wears. It was all quite wonderful.
Questions about the morality of the author don't bother me. Regarding how I spend the money I earn as a novelist and do I have a social responsibility to give that money away?
As a novelist, I am a beggar living. Even though according to my inner accountant, I should have dropped dead already. Frankly, I would love to have enough money as a novelist to have this problem. I would wager that something crazy like 0.00001% of all people who call themselves novelists actually has this conundrum.
I find most of the time, people use the words 'writer', 'author', and 'novelist' ignorantly when referring to themselves. They don't write novels to instruct, delight, or even as a way of making money. They don't write novels (plural) at all. They use the labels as a way of boasting about themselves. They want to seem interesting and mysterious and they think the one book they wrote on their laptop that one summer and they really want to finish, qualifies them to use the word. After all, any person who picks up a pen and writes a sentence is a writer. They wrote, so they're a writer.
They're taking a gamble labeling themselves as such, but it's a measured risk. Most people are not enthusiastic readers and vague words describing literary success are more than enough to achieve the desired effect of appearing as both an intellectual and a mystic. The risk pays off... unless they are talking to me. I have no desire to flatter the arrogant and the lazy, so I ask pointed questions like, "Where can I buy your book?", "When was this published?", and the ever painful, "Are you going to have a book published this year?"
They are exposed as charlatans and they are ashamed. And that is the exact place where they are wrong.
They are wrong because they misunderstood the true meaning of the words 'writer', 'author', and 'novelist'. There is nothing particularly noble about being a writer. All writing is derived from real life, real ideas, work other writers have created, and other things the author has seen. It didn't come from nowhere. A good author is someone who takes a truth they have discovered somewhere, picks it off the ground, puts it in their mouth, and chews on it until they can blow it out like bubblegum and no one can tell what it was to begin with.
This can be done on the fly, thus that 'writer' should be able to, with the grace of their tongue, lead me away from the topic of their unpublished self so skillfully, so charmingly, that I don't even remember that they didn't really answer my questions.
Me: "Where can I buy your book?"
Them: "Oh, it's not in print."
Me: "When was it published?"
Them: "On multiple dates. I can't remember exactly. Maybe it was the end of 2018. Maybe the beginning of 2019."
Me: "Are you going to have a book published this year?"
Them: "It's hard to say. I'm struggling with the cover art. I have a limited budget, so I'm having a hard time deciding which artist to hire. I only get one shot at this and I want the cover to represent my inner vision."
At that point, I'll start asking them questions about their 'inner vision' because the mentioning of it would remove my focus from anything with permanence. It's the way most women get carried away. However, most people lack the skill to BS on this level. People are used to their dialogue reading like a news release, a history class, or a documentary. Nothing but the truth. They're not used to using their creative brain to make their dialogue every day more evocative.
People who do that are liars--silver-tongued devils.
Now, we've arrived at the truth. Writers are liars. But we're good liars, right? However, we can't just say it. We have to prove it with our writing. That's why we have to work so hard to justify the morality of the writer. The true nature of what we're doing is fundamentally against the moral code of our society. We have to convince our readers that our lying is for a good cause.
When I was 13, my bishop (who was also one of my English teachers) approached my mother and told her that I was the best BS artist there ever was. "That girl could convince anyone of anything," he said. It is interesting to note that he said this with a smile, praising me. Like that was a trait that was admirable.
When reviewing the Ten Commandments given to Moses in the Old Testament, it is interesting to notice that 'Thou shalt not lie' is not one of them. Instead, the Lord gives Moses the commandment, 'Thou shalt not bear false witness', which goes more along the lines of not digging a hole for your neighbor with the hope of them losing and you winning. This means that... BIG BREATH IN... If you are trying to make encourage injustice with your writing--that's immoral.
What's justice?
That's where you are absolutely right, Margaret. The author doesn't get to decide what's justice and what's injustice. That's for the reader to decide.
Perhaps the most humiliating thing that could ever happen to a writer would be for the audience to feel that the work destroyed the principles the author was trying to promote. That would be a good deal more embarrassing than merely being called out as being a bit of a phony, as happens to our wanna-be writers mentioned above.
As it stands, even very earnest writers feel fake on the inside because no one can really measure up to what other authors have built in the minds of others. Writers have the power to change the definition of words, therefore they can make the word 'author' mean anything they want. They can create that dignity, power, mysticism, and authority they desire and the people around them are so suggestible, they believe it. I blink funny when I read quotes from Stephen King or Earnest Hemmingway where they say that the best thing in the world is reading. Yup boys, if you honestly felt that way you would never have written a word. They're promoting themselves with every flick of their tongues.
We've walked all the way around the church now and there's a woman coming up the walk carrying armfuls of shopping bags wondering what we're doing on her property. It turns out the building was a church once, but now it's someone's home. We apologize and offer to help her with her bags, but she's very annoyed, so we try not to giggle while we run away.
Thank you for spending the afternoon with me,
Stephanie Van Orman
Novelist
