A Warning from Your Author

    But we are still Beings. Like anyone else, we Writers have programmed needs for real conversation, natural urges that can only be denied for a short time. This is why we must venture out of our basements (or attics or libraries or lighthouses) every year or so and attend what's called a Writer's convention (or workshop or seminar or retreat or what have you; it's all the same). These events exist for the solitary purpose of scratching all those pesky social itches that accumulate over time. Now, if you've never been to one of these yourself, you can just imagine a large, squirming, incestuous orgy of Authors and Reporters and Poets, and you won't be too far from the reality of it.

    Our race enjoys certain twisted pleasures that only our own kind can appreciate. We take turns listening to lectures about grammar and style, allowing the speaker to pretend, just for a brief time, that she is the only person who has writing figured out. (Oh yes! Show, don't tell! How very profound of you!) We pat each other on the back for not using the passive voice and for cutting out all those amateur adverbs. We criticize all writing that is not our own and then go to sleep effortlessly for the first time in months.

    An unsettling visual, I know. Yet I myself can only be so judgemental, for I am no stranger to such gatherings or to the comforts that they offer.

    The first one I ever attended was themed "Getting to Know Your Reader". The opening exercise was to envision my average audience member and then describe this person aloud. When it was my turn to present, I stood up and said something along the lines of: "My reader is intelligent, well-traveled, cultured, digs yoga, has a great sense of humor, drinks only craft beer, and climbs tall rocks. He may also have a gambling problem."

    Well! By the looks on their faces you would have thought I had just strangled a toddler.

    I knew my issue at once. The word "he" was too assuming. So, at the next exercise where I had to write a pretend luncheon between me and my cherished reader (you), I made quite sure to use the phrase "he or she" whenever possible. Once again, I was scoffed at by my peers. "How tiresome to read," they said. "Tell us a story, not a crime report."

    Humiliated once again, I chose to play it safe in the next exercise and only use plurals. As in, "If your spouse paints their toenails without first consulting you, they are probably having an affair." Seemed like a reasonable approach. Alas, this idea was not well-received either. "Not only is that ungrammatical," they said this time around, "but that solution is so outdated! What writing guide are you using? The Pangea Manual of Style?"

    Oh, ha-ha! How witty, Shelby. Where'd you find that comment? At the same yardsale as that circus tent you're calling a dress? Go to hell.

    I finally gave up after shoehorning the words "one" and "oneself" into all of my sentences and failing still. What did my fellow Authors say to that approach? "Now you're just being pretentious." I had visions of napalm and mushroom clouds when I heard that.

    It wasn't until I gave up and started exclusively using "she" and "her" and "them women" that the shaming stopped. In fact, I saw a fair amount of impressed looks when I began feminizing all of my third-person pronouns. No one ever came right out and said, "Unless you are told otherwise, assume everyone on the planet, including your reader and God Herself, is a woman," probably because, if she had any self-respect, she would also have to immediately follow that up with either a public apology or a private hanging.

    That's the kind of pompous attitude these events perpetuate. Grad students decades my younger would read excerpts from their college theses about "Quantifying the Prevalence of Gruginian Sentiments in Post-War Refugees" or "Quietism and the Heterosexual Paradigm". Poets wrote of "delusional forks" and "Father's breast milk". One workshop's itinerary was even written in Pig Latin for creative reasons that could not be questioned. I swear it.

    I can remember looking around at all the other Authors hoping to find at least someone that looked as lost or as dumbfounded as I. But no. All I saw were faces saturated with intrigue and contemplation and understanding. Fingers stroking chin hairs. Eyebrows crinkled. Nodding. Lots and lots of nodding. Like a washing machine full of Bobbleheads.

    I've only ever attended four writing workshops, but, even so, I left all of them before brunch. I wish I could say that I departed these events angry or full of pity or provoked into writing something truly intriguing, but the only feelings felt were of humiliation and panic. What if, since I couldn't understand any of these things, I wasn't a true Writer? What if I wasn't cultured enough to connect with my peers? Or worse! What if I was a...moron?

    The more I fretted over this the more I withdrew from my caste. I knew they would banish me eventually anyway once they discovered my incompetence, so I decided to go ahead and spare them the effort by banishing myself.

    Which left me with a troubling dilemma. How was I suppose to quell my social appetite now? I tried to hold it off as long as I could, but I barely lasted a decade. Then one day I snapped, and I had no choice but to put on a scarf, comb my hair, open my door, and bite the bloody bullet. I was going to go out into public.

    I decided to go to the local farmer's market...and it was nothing like I had feared. Sure, there was more soybean than I would have preferred, but all-in-all the experience was pleasantly tolerable (or tolerably pleasant, maybe?). The more time I spent with people outside of my own caste, the more I realized that I wasn't as alone as I thought. As it turns out, a majority of the world was just as uncultured and moronic as I.

    That's when it clicked: Writers write for other Writers, no one else. This is proven by the fact that we Authors, when finally making an effort to get to know our readers, don't go out and actually get to know these people, but instead go to a conference that only Writer's can attend. Not to mention that if any Author chooses to write "for the masses", she(!) is immediately labeled as a creator of page-turning smut. Oh, it makes me so mad just thinking about it!

    And now here I am. Tasked with writing my first book. As I have always promised myself to do when this day arrived, my highest objective is to not follow in the footsteps of my caste by catering only to the Critics and Professors and book-club lushes. I am hoping to make this book readable by even the most uneducated among us. I make the assumption that you can decipher simple sentences and nothing more.

    So, if you wonder why I might be explaining a fact as obvious as "What's a lizardgirl?", now you will know the reason. Because who knows who could be reading this book one day? What if a meteor falls out of the sky (and our Superheroes are all on strike again) and some far-off planet of Aliens (newer ones, different from those who live in reservations out West) stumble across our remains and the only tangible relic they can locate is this book? Can you imagine what they might think? How weird they might find our world of talking Fish and reanimated corpses? Such things may be commonplace to you or me, but that's just because we've grown used to them. Imagine if you were a Cannibalady who has lived her entire life on an island isolated from the rest of the world, if you were just plopped right into the middle of modern-day Worldian society. Don't you think you would find everything absolutely horrifying and—I don't know—kind of absurd?

    Here's what I'm getting at: if you start to feel as if I am treating you like an idiot, well...that is because I am. Just know that I am not trying to be condescending, just accessible. And, even if I were treating you like an idiot, so what? As long as I treat idiots with compassion and respect, what does it even matter? I just don't want you to think I have no respect for you because I am treating you like an imbecile. Oh no. Heavens no. I have no respect for you because you are a woman.

    Anywho. Enjoy the show, sweetheart.

    Sincerely, Your Author,

    Rudolph G. Authorman