The Blog

AUG 29 Why are writers so pretentious?

I listened to an author’s interview tonight, an author I’d never heard about, but is apparently published. She said things like, “When I write, I look at the world in a different way. Take a scene about a tree. You can’t just look at the tree, and see a green and brown thing. You must become one with the tree. You must hold the tree in your hand and ask it to take a walk with you. You must hug the tree and listen for its inner thoughts and dreams. You must respect and love the tree, and then good writing will happen.”

Okay, that’s a little exaggerated, but you get the idea.

So many writers must feel like they have to speak in this way. They want to sound creative, lyrical, abstract and free-spirited.

To further enhance their pretentiousness, writers even have their own dress code. Where there is a group of writers, their are gypsy broom skirts, frizz-out hair tied loosely into schoolmarm buns, and toe-loop leather sandals from the hippie days of high school.

It’s quite intimidating. At my very first writer’s workshop, I made the mistake of wearing a hot pink dress and five-inch gold heels–I was coming from work. I was clearly the only one in the room who knew the difference between Ann Tyler and Ann Taylor.

The writing industry needs a serious makeover. To start, we need to sex up bio photos. No more drab, half-body shots of a writer out on their back porch (and have you noticed how they trade in their gypsy clothes for a black turtleneck for this occasion? Go figure.)

For my first bio photo, I plan to glam it up in a swanky, Victorian hotel….but that’s another article.

In the short term, I just wish writers could interview more like Stephanie Meyer. Here’s what she said on Ellen DeGeneres:

“I did a lot of writing with my one-year-old on my lap. He’s kind of a monkey, so he could cling. I could type around him while he was watching TV under my arm, you know, Blue’s Clues.”

Tell it like it is, Stephanie!