Great quote in Harvey Pekar’s obit, “I always wanted praise and I always wanted attention; I won’t lie to you…I wanted people to write about me, not me about them.”
I think we are extremely ambivalent about praise and attention in this country. Everyone wants it, but it’s seen as craven to seek it too openly. There’s Pynchon on one of the spectrum and Paris Hilton on the other.
Are writers private people, uncomfortable with fame and spotlight? God knows, many are awkward as hell. Watch any writer on the Today Show and cringe. Writers are not actors. But at the same time, doesn’t some burning desire for attention, to be heard, go hand in hand with the act of writing. Or are they two separate endeavors?
I’ve tried to tease this out over a lifetime in publishing. I used to think the best writers were the worse self-promoters, and the best self-promoters were the worst writers. But it doesn’t hold up. Look at Dave Eggers, a terrific writer and a virtual marketing machine. Or Walt Whitman for that matter.
Are there brilliant works out there that will never see the light of day because the writer didn’t have it in him? Is wanting attention an intrinsic component in the act of writing?
Filed under: neurosis, Writers, Writing | 20 Comments »
I apologize for posting late. My third floor attic office isn’t air conditioned, and I couldn’t face the stairwell let alone broasting up there when my daughter had just started “Dear John” On Demand with Channing Tatum, Tatum Channing, Tatum O’Neil, frankly who cares so long as he never speaks and keeps his shirt off.
Dear Betsy:
What do you really want out of this rodeo? Publication, money, literary acclaim, celebrity? Do you want to write every day, find words every day, that sweet spot two hours in when the blessed motherfucker starts to write itself and you are roping it? Do you want that perfect solitude when you and the keyboard are one, when your brain exists only to bring forth words? Or do you want to help others? Yourself? Make someone proud? Dad? Mom? Someone jealous? Do you seek revenge, adoration, admiration? Or something spiritual, transcendent? Do you want power, dominance, do you want to tip? Blink? Do you want pussy? Looking to get out or get in? Do you want mastery over a subject? Do you want the last word? Do you want to make people laugh? Stay up past their bedtime? Afraid to turn off the lights? Are you a healer, a preacher, a teacher, a showman, a scholar? Are you storyteller?
Away for holiday weekend. In laws, then my husband’s old friends from college newspaper. I am always a bit nostalgic around these people, that is if you can be nostalgic for something you didn’t have. In my case, that would be college friends. I did have some, but I blew through them pretty quickly mostly because I didn’t have a clue who I was, and basically walked up to people like the little bird in the P.D. Eastman 
I’ve been in therapy on and off (mostly on) for thirty-five years. None of these charlatans ever seemed to be able to remember the names of the people I spoke about. Most of the time I didn’t care. Who could expect them to remember every clown who made me feel bad?
Yesterday, I asked people what they did to escape. I think red wine was a front runner. But this remark from Shanna is the subject of today’s post, “It used to be books but I’ve hit a rough patch with reading escapism since I started writing. Which, by the way, makes me really sad.”
Betsy Lerner 
