Persona
July 13, 2001
10:03 a.m.
Sorry if this sounds like a one-sided discussion. It sounds that way because that is what it is. This is an answer to an unasked question. I'm thinking today about a writer's personality. His or her front--the aura or the stigma or the basic celebrity associated with the idea that people read your words and like them enough to actually follow what you put together. It's an interesting thing, this persona. It can make people do weird things. Go to a convention and see the line that backs up when a big name takes a seat and you'll know what I mean. But to me a big name pro is basically just a guy (or a gal) who is in a place I would like to be in. Among my first convention experiences was a trip to Context, which is a small little convention in Columbus, Ohio. Maybe 150 people, all dedicated to the written word. That was where I met Mike Resnick, and Dennis McKiernan, and Tim Wagonner, and Lois McMaster Bujold, and Maureen McHugh. I remember being very excited about it all. These were people I could learn from. I listened to them. I watched the way they talked to the public and the different way they talked when they were more by themselves. Maybe it's the corporate politician in me, but I never expected they wouldn't have a set of different persona's that they would put on and take off depending on the environment and the people who they were talking to. So, going into my conversations expecting them, I saw them quite clearly. A professional writer wants recognition, but not so much that it interferes with the rest of his life. He wants you to buy his book, because he lives in a strange world of desperation--always wondering if sales are going up or down, perpetually in the dark until well past the time when he can really affect things. Even more desperately, though, he wants you to like his book. Even more that that, he wants you to like his favorite works more than he wants you to like works he considers lesser. Even a grizzled pro knows the sweat he puts into his work. He wants to have people walk away thinking he's a interesting guy--interesting, I'll note is in the eye of the beholder (or in this case, the writer). He wants to have fun talking about his work, and the field he works in. He wants to look slick, and professional. He wants to be heard. He wants to be stopped often enough to stroke his ego, but still be able to eat his dinner in peaceful quiet. In other words, he's a regular, everyday human being who is pretty much like the rest of us. But there's a second side--the "darker" side for those who see it that way--to each of these pieces of a big name writer's persona. A professional writer sees every contact with another person as a possible sale. Sorry if that bursts your bubble. But I believe that's true. And I don't believe that's a bad thing. Why does the fact that a writer has a book that they would like you to buy dampen the fact that they can also have a good time just chatting? It doesn't. A professional writer loves to talk about the field even if you aren't going to buy his book...it's just that they would rather not hear you say that. They would rather you picked up a couple spare copies and give them as gifts. Don't you need a copy in each bathroom? they think. I believe this is true of every professional writer from Stephen King to Tom Clancy to well...someone really dinky like me and a lot of other folks. Maybe the writers who become icons actually become icons because they connect to their followers with such blazing strength that the readers become blind to this bond between the writer and his sales. Maybe readers think that the writer is so well off or so powerfully gifted or touched by magnificent powers that this writer has some inhuman distance between himself and his sales. Obviously, I don't know. What I know--what I believe I know--is that every writer worth his salt works as hard as he can to produce work that is true to his heart. And I know that despite all that, the truest work will never see light of day if it doesn't sell. And I know that professional writers are all intelligent enough to know these two rules apply at all times.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"The satisfaction of actually finishing that album is still something that I'm very grateful for." - Emmylou Harris - On working on "The Ballad of Sally Rose" |
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