That is not a BOOK. That is a PHONICS EXERCISE

I'm going to talk candidly today about something that's been bothering me for a long time. I should note that most things that bother me a lot have absolutely no bearing on my personal life, but irritate me all the same. It's not like I'm going to tell you that there's a food shortage in my town or that I don't have an arm and therefore find it difficult to type, or that my neighbor beats his dog or his child. I'm going to tell you something that probably sounds inane and stupid, but I'm sort of offended by it as a writer or more accurately, as a person who writes and so I need to express it here. And no, no one's life will be improved by this declaration. Nothing will change. and I realize complaining about irrelevant things is a characteristic of the bougie and disaffected, but maybe it's time to call it like it is.

I should actually first note that my decision to speak candidly about this thing that irritates me stems from a larger decision to call out bullshit when I see it. I made this decision yesterday. I realized that at this stage of my life, I am old enough and have enough life experience to look something in the eye and say, "I'm sorry. But I don't buy it. I can't reconcile your bullshit with what I have come to believe about the world and about life, and therefore, I am declaring it bullshit. No hard feelings. I hope we can still be friends."

Actually, the decision to call out bullshit stems from an even larger decision. It's a decision to do something drastic on a weekly basis. Not like going skydiving drastic, or moving to another country drastic. But psychic drastic. A decision to change something about my writing or my thinking. One thing a week. 52 weeks in a year. I suggest you do it with me. Or don't, it's cool. Actually, I've recruited four of my close friends to do the 1 thing a week/52 things a year thing with me. And the first thing I'm going to start with is not letting published writers irritate me with the stupid things they sometimes say.

I spend an inordinate amount of time reading interviews given by writers. Often writers are asked that quintessential interview question that should elicit a good, creative, original, even made-up answer. Many times, writers are asked to pinpoint the moment they knew they would become writers or even when they wrote their first book, and I'm thoroughly irritated by the number of times I encounter this remarkably lazy, amazingly uncreative and irritatingly smug answer: "I wrote my first book when I was four years old. It was a booklet put together with staples about a bear and his mom. It was like I knew even then that I would be a writer" or this, "I wrote a book when I was three. It was about the plants my dad grew in his backyard. I've always liked putting stories together." or "I was really creative as a child. I wrote a book about an office. My parents said, 'You're going to be a writer someday.'" Sometimes really well-known writers give asshole answers like this (Yeah, I'm talking about you, Nicole Krauss). And there are two components to this answer that are really fucking irritating. The first is tightly encapsulated in the subtext: "I was special when I was four years old. I was a a precocious little writer hard at work doing something NO ONE ELSE was doing back then." I just want to put this out there: didn't we ALL write stories as children? Wasn't this a mandate of the American public school system? Didn't we all write stories about our moms and play with Legos and Transformers? Does this make everyone a writer? Yes, I suppose. And no. The point is, don't throw this answer out during an interview. It's bullshit. You didn't know back then that you would grow up to be a writer. You became a writer because you didn't get into law school. And that's fine. Because the people who did get into law school now wish they were writers. So, looks like you got a leg up in that situation, but if you're going to offer up an experience that foreshadows your supposed chosen profession, don't make it so cutesy and smug. You didn't know you were a writer when you were four. It was more like 28 and most likely because you found yourself unemployed and single and depressed. And when you give me that answer and tell me how much better your life is now, it actually makes me like you better. It makes me happy for you, and it makes me trust you. It makes me want to read your book. Not that you care, successful writer. Because the truth is, once you become successful, you don't actually care about your readers. And they don't particularly like you very much anymore either. Except for you, Arundhati Roy. I'll always love you. And you, Haruki Murakami. And you, Joan Didion. And Milan Kundera, I kind of love you too, although I've always suspected you became a writer in part to get laid. But I don't doubt you'd admit that, or probably already have, in some interview I have not yet unearthed. D.H. Lawrence, I know you respect your readers too. Especially your female readers. And Nabakov, you too. I don't know about you, though, John Steinbeck. I've never really trusted you. But I have to give you credit for never telling people you knew you were a writer at the age of six.

Also, I want to make a distinction between a BOOK and a PHONICS EXERCISE. What you are talking about, published, well-remunerated, successful author is not a BOOK. It is a PHONICS EXERCISE. And if I have to make that distinction for you, we're in trouble here. I mean, can you imagine Proust going around telling people "I wrote my first book when I was four. It was about a Madeleine I ate with a cup of tea." or Frank Gehry declaring that he's an amazing architect because he played with blocks as a child? I mean, I would even forgive Gehry if he made that statement because he doesn't make a living making stories with words. Writers get paid to come up with interesting narratives. So make something up if you don't have anything interesting to say. Or tell the absolute truth. Just don't tell me you wrote your first book at four. Because only deeply unlikable assholes do that. So just don't be one, okay?