“I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss — you can’t do it alone.” — John Cheever
Writers who say they don’t need readers remind me of those who say they don’t care what others think. Both are fooling themselves. Writers need readers, as Cheever says in the quote of the day, in the same way that a kisser needs another pair of lips. Without that meeting of the lips, you’re just blowing air kisses into the void. Mwah mwah.
Without an audience for a writer (like an actor) to play to, he might as well stay in his room and write diary entries. Ricocheters know all of this full well. We write for a great audience, our fellow Ricocheters. And that’s why I pony up my five bucks each month.
It’s not always easy for an artist or a writer to find an audience. I’m reminded of a remark by the archetypical curmudgeon, Samuel Johnson, who grouched to a friend that he would “condescend” to review a certain book as long as he didn’t have to read it. Closer to home, I have to bribe my wife with a dinner out to read my posts. Before I forget, Marie has ordered me to tell you that she worked years on a genealogy of the Forresters, which included many lively stories of migrating Okies. And I have put off reading it— much to my everlasting shame, says Marie. But that only proves my point, doesn’t it? It’s hard to find good readers.
But I never have to bribe Ricochet readers. I once wrote a post that was so light and full of gas that it threatened to waft into the atmosphere and disappear. Yet more than 100 Ricochet readers took the trouble to read and comment on it. A few months later, I wrote on a controversial topic that got over 537 responses. And yes, I’m petty enough to keep track of those kinds of things. (Arahant told me, much to my disappointment, that my 537 wasn’t a record. Not even close, he added — unnecessarily, I thought.)
That’s the best part of writing for Ricochet, isn’t it? We have readers who will actually read our posts with understanding and respond with discernment. That’s a rare thing. It’s true that a few of those readers respond with a bit too much discernment for my taste. That is, their responses upstage me and expose my superficial understanding of the subject. (If that little note of self-deprecation seems familiar, that’s because I used it a while back. Sorry, but I’m fond of it and refuse to let it go.)
Writers need readers as desperately as Trump needs a new barber; one who will take some of the fluffiness out of his hair and do a better job of disguising his combover. (Does that guy ever look in the mirror?)
Whoops, I wandered off there for a bit of Trump-bashing. Trump will do that to a writer, even a conservative one like me. So back to the thesis: Writers need readers as much as lips need other lips. Mwah mwah.
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