Am I the only one who finds literary readings boring? I usually avoided them. Then I had to go on book tour and tried not to bore people. I learned to think of myself as a performer rather than a reader. Here are some tips for writers who have to speak in front of audiences:
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Replying to @viet_t_nguyen
You are not the only one. You are one of many. Or was that Q rhetorical.
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Replying to @ruizzoe
I'm wondering if there is a species of sincere, enthusiastic, good-hearted people out there who love literary readings and I'm just a jerk for being bored.
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Replying to @viet_t_nguyen @ruizzoe
Most attendees come hoping to learn more about the author than they can from reading blurbs, or an inside-flap publisher's bio. Many authors resent this intrusive curiosity and pointedly decline to gratify it; they feel (rightly) they have no obligation to do so. But it persists.
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Authors understand the miseries and demands of an author's life, but most readers do not; to them, authors are enviable, magical creatures who somehow conjure art from the blank page. Readers long to know how these feats are performed, and what it costs to perform them.
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Experienced readers have, of course, listened to enough authors address these matters to know that not much illumination may be expected from them. In the end, there simply is no trick to writing. Or, rather, the trick, as T E Lawrence once put it, "is not minding that it hurts."
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But even experienced readers still hope for more than they are entitled to, or have any reason to expect. Ultimately, all readers long to write, and marvel at those who do. It is certainly an author's right to ignore this. But ignoring it will not lessen it, nor make it go away.
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Of course everyone loves a good performance, and an author who provides one will certainly be appreciated. But readers do not expect authors to be stage actors, or motivational speakers. Kazuo Ishiguro is neither, but his author events are riveting; his magic is candor.
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