At Riis this weekend, I ran into an old friend, another writer.
Hello, how’ve you been, what are you up to these days? At our feet, a sea of gay people reclined on towels and blankets, their patchwork forded by leering gulls and nutcracker merchants. Speakers blasted house, latin trap, pop. A hundred yards off, an American flag decorated with headshots of the angelic Ice Spice rippled in the breeze. This summer’s beach reads—Big Swiss, Mrs. S—were out in force. Hello, I’m good, just finished the new book.
My friend had a friend, to whom I was introduced. I asked my friend’s friend if they were a writer, too. From the look on their face, I knew what their answer would be before they said a word.
I often ask people if they’re writers because the answer is often Yes. Actually, the answer is very rarely Yes, but it it’s nevertheless usually in the affirmative. When you ask someone Are you a writer?, and they don’t immediately reply No, you can rest assured that they desperately wish to say Yes, and perhaps may even eventually do so, but not without your help (and a lot of litigation, while they’re at it).
Well, the accused will begin, I mean, I have been working on something…
Or they’ll say: I know I can’t actually call myself a writer because…
Or: I had this [insert project], but there’s my job and laundry and everything. I don’t know how you find the time…
Long-winded and self-deprecating, their answers telegraph a heady blend of relief and anxiety. They’ve been caught red-handed at something (laziness? fakeness? delusions of grandeur?), but there’s defiance in this saga of inadequacy, too, as well as the blissful surrender of disclosure. This, I think, is what a priest must feel like when he’s listening in from behind his alveolate screen: sympathetic, but ruthless.
Only gradually have I realized that my favorite question—Are you a writer?—is a somewhat sadistic one. Curious about people but for the most part too nervous for most normal socializing, I’ve learned, in a sort of instinctual way, that putting someone on their guard is a great way to control the conversation. Any good interviewer knows that simply giving their subject enough rope is likely to be more successful than even the most incisive line of inquiry. Gently prompt someone to account for something they feel even a little conflicted about and nine times out of ten you can sit back, relax, and let their neuroses carry you away.
What does this sadistic tendency reveal about me and my sense of myself as a writer? Nothing flattering, I suppose, but then again, perhaps it starts to get at the problem at hand. I think that those who struggle so mightily with whether or not they’re a real writer are missing the point, a mistake they can only afford less as the advantages of being a writer continue to shrivel up and blow away. As the ability to exchange the labor of writing for money or career prospects, let alone something even flashier, continues to diminish, the question of why we write becomes even more pressing, at least for me.
If after the collapsing media industry, economy, and climate all that’s left for an artist is their own satisfaction, or the pursuit of it, then why not just call yourself a writer? What reason is there not to?
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in my country, “are you a writer” means “can i learn more about you without having to be near people”