In which I answer five questions posed by The Cynical Girl. (If you want me to interview you, leave a request in comments.)
1. What is the most important commitment you have ever made? What’s the biggest commitment you’ve ever broken?
That’s two questions, you sneaky bitch.
I tend to eschew commitments unless I feel absolutely certain I won’t end up breaking them, so there aren’t a lot of answers springing to mind. I’m not married, don’t have kids, and don’t have a proper career in large part because I can’t stand not having an escape hatch. But okay, I’ll try.
The important commitments I’ve made that do spring to mind are:
- Asking Al to uproot his entire life and move to a different city to be with me. Moving in together is a big enough commitment in itself, but asking someone to abandon his home, job, and friends for the sake of twoo wuv is asking a lot, so I definitely wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t been in this for the long haul, and prepared to do my level best to make it worth his while. (I’ll thank you not to remind me that I made this profound commitment about 15 minutes after meeting him.)
- Deciding to use a modest windfall to drop out of the rat race temporarily and focus on my writing. Everyone thinks they’d quit their job immediately if they came into some money, but most don’t, and it’s really not as easy as it looks. I AM NOT COMPLAINING, mind you, because hello, windfall + no rat race. But it was a far more complicated emotional process than I expected. It takes a lot of courage, confidence, and overinflated ego to declare yourself—and, if you’re doing it because you’re an artist, your talent—worthy of this opportunity that most people will never get. Then it takes a lot of discipline—not a characteristic I was ever noted for—to make yourself do something other than watch HGTV and refresh Cute Overload all day. It takes nerves of steel to face social situations in which the question “What do you do?” will inevitably be asked again and again. (To say nothing of, “What’s your novel about?” Oy.) It takes a certain faith in miracles to put a honking big hole in your resume, knowing that one day you’ll need to get a real job again. So it definitely wasn’t easy—although it also wasn’t especially unpleasant, so again, NOT COMPLAINING OVER HERE. But I’d say that’s the most important commitment I’ve ever made to myself.
- Either that, or sticking with yoga.
- Finally, I feel kinda dumb saying it, but I think the most important commitment I’ve ever made overall is to my dogs. When I adopted them, I made a financial and ethical commitment to take care of these creatures for the rest of their lives. I’m seven and a half years in and still walking them, feeding them, and snuggling with them every day, taking them to the vet as necessary, worrying about them, scheduling my life around them, etc. It’s a far cry from parenthood, obviously, but it’s the only long-term, daily responsibility I’ve taken on voluntarily—as opposed to your basic being-a-grown-up responsibilities, which were forced upon me, and which I still furiously resent.
The most important commitment I’ve ever broken? I started smoking again, after having quit for a year and a half. I hate myself for that, even though I know I’ve got a powerful addiction, and it almost always takes several attempts before you quit for good. But put it this way: if I hadn’t fallen off the wagon, there would have been a single short, unambiguous answer to “What’s the most important commitment you ever made?”: I quit smoking. The enormity of that accomplishment would have easily outweighed anything else. And the enormity of my disappointment with myself for starting again made this half of the question a no-brainer.
2. Who is the most overrated, most successful fiction writer in the marketplace?
Oh, god. It would be so easy to say “Dan Brown” or “Danielle Steele,” except I not-so-secretly enjoy Dan Brown’s ability to plot (you’ll note I didn’t say I enjoy his writing), and I haven’t ever read Danielle Steele, so it’s really only the concept of her I object to. I unabashedly love Stephen King—though I think every book he’s published since he got famous enough to steamroll editors has needed to be pruned by at least 30 percent—and I have no quarrel with John Grisham or Michael Crichton or Jonathan Kellerman. I think all those people are doing their jobs extremely well, and most of the invective directed at them issues from a deliberate misinterpretation of what their job is. They’re commercial writers, period. I never cease to be baffled by literary writers who rail against those guys for becoming so successful with non-literary writing—as if the Grishams and Kings and Browns of the world are siphoning off the true artistes‘ potential readership. They’re just not; most commercial fiction readers wouldn’t read literary novels even if there were no other kind. Sucks for those of us who would love to make a living writing literary novels, but it’s the reality, and it seems pretty straightforward to me.
(And yes, btw, I have now set a personal challenge to see how many times I can link to myself in one post.)
But ooh, wait, I’ve got one!! James Fucking Patterson. I saw some movie based on one of his books a few years back, dug the plotting, and bought one of his books—expecting to enjoy it in the same uncomplicated way I enjoy the aforementioned writers. DUDE. I could not get past the first five pages. The writing was way too bad to carry even the most gripping plot in the history of writing. His success makes me despair a little, even if the others’ don’t.
3. Is there more joy in being a humorless feminist or a conservative, married woman who belongs to the Eagle Forum?
Well, I’ve never been and never will be the latter, so I can’t really say. They could be having more fun than I ever thought possible. But I still wouldn’t trade in being a humorless feminist. We get to have orgasms and swear a lot.
4. You’re about to enter celebrity rehab and you want to have one final drink. What is it?
Hmm. My alcoholic pragmatic side says that if I’m only allowed one, I should go to Chinatown and get some three-gallon Scorpion Bowl. But my slightly more refined side would probably choose a grio kir from the D&J Bistro (circa 1997, anyway; the last one I had there was uninsipiring).
5. Karl Rove or Dick Cheney? You must choose one and tell me why.
I HATE YOU.
All right, Cheney. 1) I think he’s the smarter of the two, and since I can’t think of a single other positive characteristic of either, I’m left with that. 2) He’ll die sooner.
