Fan or stalker?
November 22nd 2006 22:36
A month or so back, after reading a book I was particularly moved by (“Dispatches from the Edge” by Anderson Cooper), I wrote a letter to the author. I called the letter one professional author communicating with another. My editorial assistant calls the letter Exhibit A.
Now, as a person who has, to her shame, stalked people before, I can tell you right now, that letter was not a stalkers letter. There were no proclamations of undying admiration or higher spiritual connections, and there was no hidden agenda. It was a simple, hi, loved your book, well done. Nothing wrong with that – in fact, I think that if my letter makes the author (I hope) feel proud of his work, that makes me a very nice person.
But it made me realise that the world in divided into two groups – those who write fan letters and those who don’t.
When my book was first released the shoe was planted firmly on the other foot. I began to receive letters from people I didn’t know who had read my book. And I have to tell you, it was a little bit odd. They were all lovely letters from people who had enjoyed the book. That wasn’t the odd bit. The odd bit was that they all felt they knew me. They wrote as through they were writing to a friend. Some invited me to stay with them in their homes in France.
I replied to all of them (clearly I either have too much time on my hands or not enough mail) and some replied back to me. One woman wrote that she was going to “treasure” my letter. It was sweet and heart-felt, but unlike anything I expected.
However, having said that, if Anderson Cooper ever writes back to me, I won’t be throwing that letter out in a hurry.
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Comment by Bulamakanka
When you write to an audience, and this is what we, as writers, do, then yes it can become a personal thing between reader and writer. We give our consent to this by publishing our writing.
What we have written defines us to the reader.
Is this definition the truth of us? To the reader it is.
If we don't like the definition assigned to us then perhaps we should change our writing.
But then we risk believing our own hype, never a good thing.
Is a person who haunts the book store waiting for our next work stalking us? Or does it become stalking when they start collecting all our works from secondhand book stores as well.
Beats me I just like being published.
Comment by Margaret