[Prestidigitweeze]

It's interesting to hear about people's reluctance to read a writer they perceive to be fascistic. I personally love reading Ezra Pound's poetry and criticism despite his having made broadcasts in the middle of WWII praising Mussolini and Hitler and suggesting that someone create "a pogrom higher up." I also like T.S. Eliot despite the fact he was supposed to have been a rabid anti-Semite apart from his friendships with Groucho Marx and others. Wyndham Lewis, too, makes a favorable and energetic impression despite the fact he was insane and wrote a laudatory biography of Hitler (Kenneth Rexroth called him "the last uncivilized man since Wotan"). I enjoy music by Richard Strauss as well, despite his stint as Hitler's pet composer.

And the list goes on, even though I lost several maternal relatives in "the" Holocaust. (There have of course been holocausts inflicted on many different races and religious practitioners.)

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I had a look at Steven's page on biometrics. It struck me as unpleasant for entirely different reasons than the author's political outlook. For one thing, the prominent author's photo was too belly-intimate; the inexplicable photo of the fence and the whole graphic placement of the page seemed awkward and eager. It made me want to run for it the way a chops-licking shopkeeper does when he tells you to take your time, but you hear in his tone his barely contained hunger, and realize that the longer you stay, the more likely he is to pounce.

I would argue that desperation in a salesperson automatically makes customers stop buying. There is even a saleperson's term for this false step: "putting a must-sell" on an item. The person who bids too eagerly does something similar: s/he "puts a must-have" on the item for which, s/he has revealed, s/he is willing to pay too much.

I would also argue that one wants a certain level of mystery in an author. No matter how open the books of their souls might seem, most novelists keep their most indecorous struggles to themselves unless the appeal is lurid (William Burroughs) or sympathetic (Joyce). They understand that people grow uncomfortable with a certain physical/intellectual proximity. They do not wish to be hugged too tightly.

It is always a mistake to react too strongly, too quickly and too negatively to criticism or indifference. Let others do that for you or leave it undone. Whatever you do, don't humiliate yourself by defending your own perceived honor.

Long ago, I was upset with a famous science fiction writer who attacked me in a fanzine; I wanted to strike back. William Gibson, who makes it a point never to get into skirmishes with anyone or say anything bad about others in interviews, told me this by way of a mutual friend: "In the cold gray Trailways bus depot of life, [insert name] doesn't matter. Just keep writing."

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I myself write books occasionally and do enjoy interacting with an audience, but I'm also aware that the vocation of writing has died as a widespread thing. Those who manage it are extremely lucky as well as talented and productive.

I write books because I love the act of writing, not because I hope to make my living from it. Think of Whitman and Dickenson; think of all the academics like Arnold and Pater, whose books were perceived as class materials before they became known as classics.

It's the joy of writing and the rhythm of style that interest me personally. Certain of my favorite novelists claimed to write for money and I might have believed them if the writing itself didn't reveal them as the compulsives and linguistic fetishists they actually were. No accident that so many writers are alcoholics: Writing, too, is an addiction.

I would rather be Flaubert and be remembered for four perfect works of fiction, or Proust for one, than have made a living cranking out ninety forgettable pulp novels. (Philip K. Dick is the exception that proves this.) Besides which, we are no longer in the age of pulp. The window closed long ago and E.C. Tubb was there in your place.

My advice to you is this: Stop trying to make a living. Go into your mental attic and dredge out the things which have the greatest emotional power: things which wound you or enrage you, leaving you helplessly sad or elated. Those are the things that readers can feel: the things in your mind that make you come and cry. Those things alone are enough for them to connect with, even though you might never tell them the actual source.

The problem with telling people you wish to lock down the internet is that they know it isn't the real subject. The truer subject is your desire to make them listen.

Let that anxiety fuel the novel itself, not the campaign that surrounds it. Every bit of rage and paranoia and resentment at neglect should go into setting up situations in your stories -- scenarios that are so upsetting that the reader needs to follow you to the end. Your anxiety should not be expressed *around* the book. It needs to electrify your book from the inside like a galvanizing current.