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I am petty and shallow
As at least one person reading this knows, I'm a big fan of Pam Houston. She was in town last night as part of "celebrity author night" at our local independent bookstore, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
She writes short stories about outdoorsy women in the western mountains and deserts, mostly, river trips and hunting and backpacking with men who aren't worth it and dogs who are, and you can tell she's been there. Her novel is coming out in January. She also has a collection of essays out which are pretty much the same thing from a nonfiction perspective. Her writing is impressive and her stories are amazing, ridiculous deathmarches (heh, you thought mine were bad) and fly-fishing in midwinter in Montana in freezing water to her chest because she got invited with a group of guys and didn't want them to think she was a weak woman. That sort of thing.
When she walked in, the first thing I thought was, "gee, she's gained a lot of weight since her book jacket cover photo was taken. I could out-hike you now, fat girl."
Yeah, I pick the one thing I can assert my superiority in. She's still a more famous writer than I am, though.
And when I commented that I really enjoyed her essays and asked if she was writing more nonfiction, she basically said, "oh, essays are just what I toss off to make money, they're nothing, my fiction is all that I care about." Made me feel like I have poor taste. And that all my nonfiction writing is for naught. If I want to be a Writer I must write fiction, I suppose. Oh well. At least I've got a better body.
She writes short stories about outdoorsy women in the western mountains and deserts, mostly, river trips and hunting and backpacking with men who aren't worth it and dogs who are, and you can tell she's been there. Her novel is coming out in January. She also has a collection of essays out which are pretty much the same thing from a nonfiction perspective. Her writing is impressive and her stories are amazing, ridiculous deathmarches (heh, you thought mine were bad) and fly-fishing in midwinter in Montana in freezing water to her chest because she got invited with a group of guys and didn't want them to think she was a weak woman. That sort of thing.
When she walked in, the first thing I thought was, "gee, she's gained a lot of weight since her book jacket cover photo was taken. I could out-hike you now, fat girl."
Yeah, I pick the one thing I can assert my superiority in. She's still a more famous writer than I am, though.
And when I commented that I really enjoyed her essays and asked if she was writing more nonfiction, she basically said, "oh, essays are just what I toss off to make money, they're nothing, my fiction is all that I care about." Made me feel like I have poor taste. And that all my nonfiction writing is for naught. If I want to be a Writer I must write fiction, I suppose. Oh well. At least I've got a better body.
no subject
Yeah, well, to me it sounded a little more like, "My ego is so large, you'd need a crane and a wrecking ball to get it out of my lovely New Orleans home, which you can find at this address, and I certainly don't need any of your help, you nattering nabobs of negativity, because my prose, like my hero, is deathless. Deathless, you hear me!? By the way, who are you?"
And yeah, I guess by comparison, I'd really rather hear, "Oh that! I just knock those out." Although I guess I also sorta like to hear, "It's a knack, I guess!"
Come to think of it, I've had a couple of conversations like this with talented artists lately. Both of them have basically dismissed the products of their talent casually to me, saying they didn't have to work at it, and it didn't satisfy them the way honing the things they really care about did. It sounds like Houston, too, is coming from that rough area, no doubt pleased that she can find a market for that stuff, and (one hopes) aware that it beats a day job temping, but wanting to be honest and open about where it fits in her Maslovian pyramid.
Those talented friends of mine, by the way, are both guys who are losing their hair, whereas my hair is thick and lustrous.