Given a sympathetic ear – given any ear, in fact – I could talk about my writing projects for hours. This is a bad idea for two reasons. There is the danger that I will talk about the idea so beautifully and at such length that writing it will feel redundant. And there is the danger that the owner of the ear might say something. I only require my ear-owners to nod, refill my wine-glass, and on very special occasions tell me I’m the most marvellous person in the entirety of creation. It’s an easy job, really. And by-and-large, people are sweetly compliant, especially about the wine-glass part.
But some people are on a mission to annoy, upset, and when in good form, crush the soul of, a budding writer. After, alas, exhaustive [Exhausting - Ed] research, I have come up with a Top Ten of Really Actually Quite Bloody Annoying Remarks that tend to crop up within the first three exchanges of a conversation about writing (and often not even a conversation about my writing. Any old writing will do, as long as the person happens to know that I write myself).
1) So, when is it going to be published? I wish I knew what to say to this one. For a few seconds, it seems to be such a nice, supportive sort of remark. But, thinking about it, ummm, never? I haven’t finished writing it, I don’t have an agent, and no, actually, I can’t get an agent before it is finished, fiction doesn’t work like that unless you are a bitch-slapping supermodel or similar, and it could well be crap, and of course, if, as is exceedingly likely, I never get anything published at all, I will have to live with the thought that you now see me as a raving fraud, all that burbling about writing and nary a word in print, and I’ll never be able to face you at dinner-parties ever agin, which is a shame as we’re related and I am now going to have to take to playing dead to get out of seeing you and the social embarrassment is now endless and oh, dear, I need an aspirin…
2) Oh, I don’t like SF/ detective stories/ romance/ poetry/ whatever your chosen genre is… Thanks a sodding bunch. I mean, really, a bunch. Sodding. Absolutely. I bare my soul here and you gob on it. You have never read my stuff, and now of course never will, even if I have to drag you shrieking out of bookstores on the frabjous day that I am actually published to prevent you seeing my name in print on that hateful genre you so despise. And you look shit in lilac too, and your signature dish of cajun pork tastes like the off-cuts from a hand-bag factory. [ Not that we're referring to any particular person here, obviously. - Ed] If you do not care for a genre, and a writer of your acquaintance does said genre, shut up. Yes, I know, and you know, that you are not implying that therefore their particular writing is ipso facto a heap of crap. Nevertheless, you just don’t tell people that their baby is ugly, and you just don’t tell people that their life’s work interests you about as much as their tax return.
3) I have this great idea for a story! Write it then. No, I don’t want to hear it. No, I don’t want to write it for you. You think it’s great, you write it. I’m serious. I’m working on my own ideas. You write it. Come back in three months’ time and we’ll talk about the writing process, and buy each other beer and stuff. La la la I have my fingers in my ears I’m not listening la la la.
And 3) ii, its close companion, Could you just read this novel I wrote… No. Not unless you are A, my very dear friend indeed and we are both feeling exceedingly sturdy about the friendship muscles; or B, in the same writing group as me and we are ALL reading it; or C, my worst enemy. If you are a relation, an acquaintance, a ‘mere’ friend, or God forbid a colleague, no. I value our relationship far far too much to do such a frighteningly awful thing to it. I will never love the novel enough to please you, and anything I say that is not 100% rapturous will wound you, and I am not a professional agent (though I am a damn’ fine proof-reader) and there is no useful advice I can give you. See also point 8.
4) It’s always good to have a hobby. And if I called your glamorous and strenuous and dedicated career in medicine a hobby, would you be pleased? Exactly. Ow.
5) Doesn’t your husband mind? WHAT? I mean WHAT? Is this not the year 2006? Do I not live in Britain? Is this not a polling card with my very own name on it I see on the kitchen table? If he did mind, I would have not exactly married him. I wouldn’t have exactly dated him either. I would have exactly run screaming from him and never looked back. Do I look like a raving masochist? For the record, he’s quite proud of me, in a bewildered sort of way.
6) So, did you watch that documentary about celebrity dieting last night? Ooh, neat subject change. Yes, writing is much the same as dunnykindiving or uro-genital surgery to some people. Only wads of cash can make it respectable, and even then, no one really wants you to bring it up at the dinner table. I promise it’s not catching.
7) Oh, come on, you’re hardly A.S. Byatt/ J.K. Rowling/ Philip Larkin Having taken fifteen very deep breaths, counted to four twice, and bitten clean through my tongue to keep the swearathon outburst in, I shall merely restrict myself to mentioning neither were they when they first started. And no, you most certainly did not mean that kindly, did you, you mastitic cow’s-udder of curdled spite.
Can I read it? This would be lovely if you were an agent or an editor or a creative writing teacher or my husband. As it is, read point 3 ii again. [It would also be lovely if they really meant it - Ed]
9) Does that mean that you are depressed/ promiscuous/ psychotic/ lame/ bonking your own sister? The last time I was asked this sort of thing, I think I simpered and made some nauseating mention of my happily married existance. I am very sorry. I should have said: ‘Of course I am.’
10) Are you going to put me in a novel? You wish, you boring little tit.
