Thursday, February 10: Femme Fatale
WHY? WHY? WHY?
by Deborah Elliott-Upton
This week I have nothing but questions. While I ponder them and find a few answers for myself, I pose a series of those that I have been asked concerning writing.
- Why should we still be reading old-fashioned books when technology is throwing entertainment at us faster than we can understand all the apps before a new and improved model is announced?
- Why are some people allowed to change a revered author’s masterpieces just because they think they have a reason to censor some of the wording that was popular at the time the novel was written?
- Why read mystery or crime fiction at all? Isn’t it non-fiction books that educate us?
- Why are some really great authors not selling as much as they used to do?
- Why do mystery writers write about crime? Isn’t it terribly depressing writing about bad things happening?
- Won’t writing crime stories just show someone how to commit a crime and get away with it since you’ll tell how they get caught?
- Why read when we can just wait for the movie — if the book’s really any good?
- Why do writers always think so much different than the rest of us? You guys are kinda crazy.
- You said the book was finished a month ago, so why can’t I find it at the book store yet?
- When are you going to write a real book? You know, one that Oprah would like?
- What made you think you could be a writer?
I wish I could say I have answers to all these questions that would be palatable to everyone who has asked them. I don’t. However, I do have a notebook where I write these down and every once in a while, I take them out and re-read them to see if I have a new insight. As of today, I do not. Many of them make me smile. Some make me shudder and a few make me want to punch someone in the mouth.
Can you guess which reaction belongs to which question?
Excellent questions all! A Facebook Friend posted a few days ago that he couldn’t believe his son had not yet seen ‘Where The Red Fern Grows’ in school. I replied with, “SEEN?? Don’t you mean why hasn’t he READ it in school?” Movies are great, and I love them, but they are not substitute for the written word.
A wonderful array of questions. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in each of your homes when some of these are asked and answered! (grin)
Several of these make my blood boil. Especially (1) why read fiction when you can read nonfiction, (2) why read when you can wait for the movie, and (3) the censorship issue.
A great group of questions, Deborah.
I’m glad that woman Leigh wrote about has been arrested because when I first saw your title I thought of the “why” stage of myself and then my children and now my grandchildren.
She’d have thought you were “mouthing off” and you have way too beautiful a face to be blasted away.
First, excellent questions and I for one, love questions because it keeps (most) people on their toes to take a deeper look into “fill-in-the-blank”—
My biggest and foremost pet peeve is censorship. Just don’t believe in it because I don’t want someone in a government or school telling me what I can or can’t read/see/do.
I have a husband for that. 🙂
Another great article.
(laughing) Good, alisa!
I read the column in the early morning hours and I like your questions, Deborah. Made me want to answer them.
Leigh (and everyone!), please feel free to answer any or all these questions. There’s nothing I like better than hearing someone else’s point of view and always welcome a debate issue. We’re all friends here and I really wouldn’t punch anyone in the face…without warning, of course.
Love it! Hmmmm….the answer to the last question would be interesting for any of us…
Thank you for the laugh and introspection. I have indeed asked myself some of these questions. Here is a funny thing, just the other day, a lady asked me what I write, and when I said science fiction, she asked if I was ever going to write a “real” book like the ones Oprah talks about. I swear that’s true. LOL