Subject to Interpretation

Musing Between the Lines

Just finished reading Fierce's post, the Glory and Humor of Literary Interpretation, who so perfectly conveyed my thoughts on what I've tapped dance around in many posts. 

Many, many times I've sat back and thought, WoW, should I even dare write another book if this is the way the material is being interpreted? Of course I continue writing, but only because it's so second nature to me. I've just never been a wrapped up in counting fans type of person. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll do my all to treat a fan like gold, but I would not, and let me reemphasize this, I WOULD NOT be writing books if my sole purpose was to buy a lot of fans and make a lot of money. To put it nicely, and hopefully none of what I'm about to put nicely gets lost in translation, but there are millions of other ways to buy-in people and make lots of money. One of the last, and must I add, most difficult and time-consuming ways to make lots of fans and loads of money is writing.

There are as well other incentives I imagine some might employ as a reason to write too. Some may write as a way to garner an audience to hear what they have to say. The only problem I find with this incentive is, and at least this is the case for me, I don't have much to say. I mean not that much that I'd write a book about it.

...because see, and I'll go on and put this out there in case not many realize this, but writers who view themselves as storytellers, which I do, are often also contradictory, and right here I'll share why. Because the world is round. Now, don't go beating yourself up trying to figure out if I've really lost it or not... just as I'm hearing my fond philosophizer friends laughing their heads off. But see, they know exactly what I'm saying here. It has since been discovered that the world really is round, not flat, though we often get caught up trying to draw nice, neat straight conclusions to make our theories connect from one point to the next.

Now that might work fine, well and good in storytelling, but to get caught up doing this straight from what I think, and whoa... there I'll be in a whole new ballpark!

Following that lead, another incentive for writing might be, trying to lend advice. I have a small problem with this one too. Not only does this really cut into the one aspect of writing I enjoy most; crafting stories around a solid premise, but I once worked on another effort, and not from a book-writing disadvantage, but rather from a live, in person, up close and quite personal advantage, where I very quickly came to the realization I would not lend advice in a book. And I'm not saying others shouldn't. I didn't say that at all. I'm saying I wouldn't and my reason here is fairly simple too.

Please see my title, and then skip down to the part where I speak about the world being round, and in conclusion, please summarize this post.