Presidio Sentinel San Diego, September 2012
By Laura Walcher
I don’t really worry THAT much
about whether any of you are devoted readers of my (occasionally)
semi-brilliant columns. Such fretting would be such a burden; as any columnist
knows, it’s quite enough to figure what to write about, than to pine over the
size of one’s readership.
Still, I can’t
help but be thrilled - THRILLED – when up popped my international readership:
United States - 3038
Russia - 52
United Kingdom
- 41
Germany - 28
Malaysia -27
Israel- 26
Mexico - 24
Latvia -12
Slovenia -11
France - 10
Latvia - 2
Canada -7
Who knew I
could be big in Britain? Of
course! I was there once. Who knew the Russians SO love my stuff?
Their country is half my heritage!
Readers! Embrace me!
Has there ever
been an interview with a prolific or famous author wherein he/she does not say
“I love to write?” It’s a lie. What writers mean is, we “love to be read!”
This is
historic. Mark Twain dedicated his
first book to “John Smith,” an everyman name, in the hope of attracting more
readers. (You get this, don’t you?)
Cuban dictator
Fidel Castro published his six-hour speeches, but even under threat of
imprisonment (or worse) for not reading them,
his hapless
subjects took the risk. Craving an audience, he switched to haikus.
We writers today
just don’t like anonymity. At
most, said Robert McCrum in NewsWeek, “publishing anonymously is only an
emotional game, designed to tease.” (The Story of O?) He cites Shakespeare, Jane Austin, the Bronte sisters,
George Eliot among others, who, a few centuries ago, published their work anonymously. But then, you could get drawn,
quartered, ex-communicated, hung for your craft. Today - at
least in America - the worst is to
be … ignored. (Singapore, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Thailand are just a few countries
that still imprison their writers!)
It’s possible I take this whole attention thing too seriously.
“I write because
… I like to eat,” says sportswriter Barry Bloom, among the miniscule number of
writers who actually make a living at it. (mlb.com)
Mimi Brodsky-Chenfeld writes for
teachers and children. If she hadn’t fallen in love with Jo March (Little
Women, Little Men), who scribbled away about everything in life – she herself
might not even
be a writer
today. “Without my words places, people, names, plots, my random thoughts would be lost!. “she says.
But who, exactly, would miss them? Ouch.
Yes, when Louisa
May Alcott was writing, people took time to read.
Now, David Carr
(NY Times), noted the “Web’s ferocious appetite for content – you are only as
visible as your last post.”
It’s not
that writing is easy work. Sighs
Peter Jensen,: " ‘Writing’
implies opening one's veins with Mont Blanc’s Meisterstuck fountain pen.”
That’s the
problem; we labor so long, so hard over every word, nuance, direction, we feel
we’ve earned - indeed, we hunger for your attention.
There are
limited exceptions. Allan Retsky
has been an international commodities trader; now he writes fiction. His “Vanished in the Dunes; A Hamptons Mystery,” is newly
published (Oceanview Publishing).
But go figure.
He offers me not one word about craving to be read; an unusually balanced
writer:
“ “Writing provides a rejuvination
process that rekindles creative juices,” he opines.. “It's exciting to create
your own world… but the bigger high comes
from the journey.”
I don’t begrudge
him his lack of need for attention, so go ahead, buy his book.
But only after you’ve
read all my columns. . ###
