"I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains."

– James Michener

Well. That says a lot.

I’ve been doing some heavy duty thinking lately. Brainstorming on a new book mostly, but also about some of my goals for the year. I maintain a personal blog on my website, and one of my goals for this year was to create a world that was predicated on what I enjoy reading from other personal blogs – snippets of the author’s life.

There’s just one big issue with that for me. I’m not good at sharing.

Quit guffawing… it’s true. You’re different. You’ve been kindly allowing me to grapple with issues, weighty and otherwise, in this slot for five years now. I feel like we know one another, even if it’s just a little.

For the rest of it - I try, very hard, to measure out my words and thoughts with care, making sure that only the things I want out in the world are out in the world. I am the Queen of the regretful tweet – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back and deleted one after it was sent, cringing for some reason or another. I can’t seem to just toss a little ‘this is what happened to me today’ blog together, either. Oh yes, sharing news is easy, but sharing me? Not so much.

I think it’s more than a natural reticence to be open with relative strangers. I’m barely open with the people who know me.

I think it all comes down to the fact that while we’re all circling the sausage factory, none of us truly want to go inside and see how it’s made.

Because making a book is a very, very messy business.

There’s the title search. The plot development. The character names. And then, the actual writing. The hair-pulling, the cowardice, the grand plans, the failures. The calloused fingers and cramped wrists and lost nights. The attempts to settle your overactive mind with a glass (or two) of wine and prayers to an unknown deity that it will turn off, just for a bit, so you can be normal. See this for some stark reality into what goes on in our brains.

Writing a book is so much more than writing a book.

And nowadays, being a writer doesn’t mean the same thing it did 5, 10, 15 years ago. Being a “writer” now means you’re responsible for creating an amazing product, bleeding onto the page, meeting that deadline and wowing your team, editing and revising and copyediting and galleying, THEN going on the road, tweeting, facebooking, blogging, bookclubbing, skyping, conferencing, and sharing the intimate details of the process with everyone and their brother, all while coming up with and writing yet another masterpiece.

Yikes!

Here’s one of the problems.

Writing is a solitary endeavor. It’s meant to be. I don’t know how many writers could be collaborators as well; I know for a fact that it’s not up my alley. I like to live in my own head. I like to observe. But I also really enjoy talking to my writer friends. I love talking to fans. Sometimes, a little note on Facebook is all we need to turn a bad writing day into a good one. Our virtual water cooler is our office.

Here’s the other thing. Writers are interested in writing. We read books about it. We’re interested in others “process.” We’re fascinated by the agony everyone else seems to go through, and identify because it’s our agony as well. 

We talk at length about our daily word counts. We openly discuss our blocks, our peccadilloes, our nightmares. Our impetus. Our concerns. We gossip and teach and discuss at length. We extrapolate our worlds into the minds of others, daily, hourly, as the thoughts occur to us.

Even our editors and agents are forced into this overshare. My agent doesn’t tweet or blog, but my editor does. They too are expected to open the doors on their process. And I have to admit, it’s disconcerting to know that not only are our fans and friends watching our every move, our bosses are as well. There isn’t a corner of our creative lives that is private anymore. 

Does this transparency help us, or hurt us?

Are we devaluing our art through constant discussion of HOW it’s created, rather than enjoying the end product alone? Because every word that’s written discussing writing is another word that isn’t part of a creation. And creation, to be honest, is the writer’s paramount responsibility.

Do you see James Patterson tweeting? Hardly. But he can put out 17 new books in a year, because he’s focused on creating. Same with some of the other big dogs I admire – the Stephen Kings and Nora Roberts of the world. I look at them in awe and wonder. HOW do they write so much? HOW are all their ideas so clever and original? WHAT IS THEIR PROCESS LIKE?

See, I’m guilty of my own argument – I’m just as curious as the next person. This unknown veil we’ve lifted is quite entertaining, and enlightening. I’ve learned a great deal by following the right people on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve made great friends. And lost a few along the way, when they didn’t agree with me, or vice versa.

But what, exactly, is the point? Are we to be writers, or networkers? I think the time has come to choose.

I read something last week that started me down this primrose path – about the designer, former ballerina Jamie Wolf, who created Natalie Portman’s engagement ring. It was an interesting article, but one line at the end leapt out and smacked me in the face. She said: 

 “To quote one of my favorite ballet teachers, ‘No one wants to see how hard you are working.’”

I read that, and it shook me.

Because it's true.

Think about the ballerina. She bleeds for her art, in the most literal of senses. Have you ever seen a dancer's feet? They're painful to look at. Torn and shredded, bruised and deformed. But will she ever show you the steps that it took to get those feet? The hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears? That the deformities are a point of pride? That if her feet aren't mangled, it shows she hasn't been working hard enough? Remember the old quote, never let them see you sweat? Ballet epitomizes that saying for me. Dancers work incredibly hard so that when you experience their art, it looks effortless.

So do writers.

But for a writer ...I can't help but wonder.... Am I littering the world with sausage casings? Do my thoughts on "things" matter? Is that what I’ve been doing for the past five years? Is that what social networking boils down to? Letting the world see how hard you work?

That concept sucked the sharing right out of me.

Maybe it’s what I needed to hear at the moment I needed to hear it. The pressure of continuing a constant chatter of information has started to take its toll on me. I really like my bi-monthly blog here. I don't know that I need more than that. I want to go back to the days, just a few years past, when the interaction with readers and friends would be through thoughtful essays rather than thoughtless quips. Even as much as I enjoy Twitter....

I seem to have drifted a bit off course here. Apologies. It seemed important to make clear that I love my interactions here, that we all do. I’ve always loved it.

But I think the truth of the matter is this. I've started to wonder if readers truly want to see how hard we’re working. Part of creating a product that people adore is the mystique that surrounds it. Do you want to see the desk littered with empty whiskey glasses and spilled bottles of mood stabilizers? Or do you want the fantasy, the aura of the successful writer—the quiet, hardworking wordsmith who’s bringing down the house with an amazingly well crafted story?

Look again at the Michener quote.

"I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains."

I want to be that writer. I want my work to eclipse me. I want my work to be the only thing that matters.

My question for you today – do you think writers should go back to Michener’s era and shut up? Or do you want to see how the sausage is made?

And writers – do you think having to lay bare your soul on a personal level as well as bleed onto the page for your art is worth it?

Wine of the Week: Cline Ancient Vine Carignane - so delicious it almost made me cry. You have to try this. Let it open for at least fifteen minutes though.