Feeling Like A Fraud

[lydamorehouse]

On Sunday I met with the Second Foundation speculative fiction reading group at O'Gara's Pub. It was strange on a lot of levels. First of all, the core group is only four people... all of them men... all of them over forty (some significantly so.) They were all very nice, but I felt very young and very female. And I got the distinct impression that my books were not their usual preference -- which is fine, but it tends to mean that the conversation consists of softballs, you know? "Did you do a lot of research about Islam before you wrote Fallen Host?" (I mean, what are they expecting me to say? "No, I just channeled all that information from the astral plane while in deep meditation in Tibet"?)

Secondly, it's been years since I wrote the AngeLINK books. I've forgotten the answers to the pertanent questions. What _was_ I thinking when I wrote this or that? It's also generally strange to me when people talk about my books as though they're SIGNIFICANT. It's just stuff I wrote, you know?

I mean, I was an English major. I can talk about "infulences" convincingly. Much of it is probably even true, but sometimes I think that my answers are just so much bull (or, as my father would call it, "smart talkin'").

At a WisCON years ago, David Levine (and Elizabeth Bear?) and I were on a panel about this phenomenon. It was called something like "Feeling Like a Fraud" -- and it's that sensation new writers get when they're first published and people treat them like, well, authors for the first time. Except, what I'm discovering is that the feeling never seems to go away. I still wonder why people think that anything I wrote is more than just so many words on the page -- even while, out of the other side of my mouth, I make all sort of prouncements that science fiction and fantasy is IMPORTANT and should say SOMETHING. I guess, I mean other people's stuff. :-)

Comments

Feeling like a fraud

[muneraven.livejournal.com]

This writer-feeling-like-a fraud thing sometimes makes in-person reader-writer interactions really weird. At least for me. I hate to gush, and I'm shy, but I want to thank writers who write stuff I enjoy. And most writers feels pleased when I offer a compliment, I think, but also like a fraud, and sometimes shy. So . . .it's like a great big socially awkward party!!! Yay!!!

It would be much easier if I had the essential nature of a squealing fan-grrl.

Thank god for the Internet, where nobody can see that I am mumbling and looking at my shoes when I say something. :-)

Re: Feeling like a fraud

[(Anonymous)]

I'm still often a babbling fan-grrl -- I once managed to catch a fan grrl moment of my own on tape. When I was interviewing Neil Gaiman for Science Fiction Chronicle and he told me he was going to be writing an episode for Babylon 5 and I gasped, "You are SO cool!"

I edited that.

*grin*

Re: Feeling like a fraud

[lydamorehouse]

Oops. That's me.

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

I get the fraud thing. Totally. Anyhow, swinging through to say hi. Just finished the TH book. Very fun. I hope the sales are going blisteringly. How are you and Shawn doing? And the kiddo? I wish i could make Wison one of these days. It's been quite a haul since I made it. Anyhow, hello!

Di

[lydamorehouse]

Tate's books are doing well. They went into a third printing and I just received my first royalty check (which I wasn't expecting because this book was joint-accounted with Messiah Node and Apocalypse Array -- neither of which earned out.)

Shawn is doing well. Still working at the Minnesota Historical Society in the State Archives.

Mason is fabulous. Three is my favorite age so far -- because he's making up stories.

And, yes, you should come to WisCON. It's my favorite.

[seanmmurphy.livejournal.com]

I had this experience the first time someone came up to me and shyly asked for my autograph. I mean, it's just my name--sure, I'll sign it. But the whole way they carefully approached, as if theywere somehow afriad to interrupt me because I was somehow more important than they were, really weirds you out. It's completely awesome, but still, there's that sense that someone is about to pop out with a camera and snap a picture, and the headline on the story is going to be "Local Writer Pretends to be Somebody Important, Cheats Reader". It's strange.

[lydamorehouse]

Autographs. Yeah, that whole phenonmenon still thrills me.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought the whole thing would have been strange because it was in sight of the old Chez Jackson. I assume you walked over (or, as that walk is sometimes referred to, "Made the Hadj") to the house and sighed wistfully.

jpj

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, I can't go past Hague without thinking of you guys. *sigh*

Fraud

[holy-toledo.livejournal.com]

I don't usually tell people I'm published because I just find myself almost apologizing for the damned book. First they look me up and down and if they know my *actual* age, they're like, "No way, you're not old enough." Then when they believe me, they make it sound really cool, but for me it was just a job. Sure, it was nice to see my name on the cover of something, but it's not what I wanted to write. Hell, I can still point out 3 errors... and it's a 50-page children's NON-FICTION BOOK!

See, this is why I never say anything about it. When my family makes a big deal, it makes me feel like a BIG fraud. I was kinda hoping the feeling went away when you got published well, well, like you! :D

-Mel