all about the writing
Reaching for conversation I once said to Ron Carlson, author of many short story collections including The Hotel Eden and At the Jim Bridger, after his book reading in Emporia, KS (USA) that touring has got to be one of the best things about being a writer.“No,” he said. “It’s all about the writing.” Yeah, I said, but knowing that people actually want to hear you read has got to stroke your ego just a bit. He insisted still that “it’s all about the writing.”
Okay, so it’s all about the writing, but the occasional piece of fan mail must help push through the days, weeks, months of solitude as the writer writes what he can later claim it was all about. Can I say this from experience? Yes and no.
Last month I received a couple pieces of fan mail. How, I thought, do I have a single fan, let alone a group whose tensions might provoke one member to single him-or-herself out to make such boisterous claim? I have very few pieces on the public forum and very few people have read what I haven’t yet placed publicly, so how do I have a fan (or two)?
Turns out I don’t. But Caleb Ross, the star of some show called The Tribe, does. In fact he has at least two fans of which I am aware, both with brief tongues and an annoyingly proud sense of self. Please observe these two emails sent to Caleb Ross the writer, addressed to Caleb Ross the actor:
Subject: Letter from a big fan
From: (hidden)
To: bookrecs@calebjross.com Hi Caleb! I´m a big fan of yours. I have watch you as “Lex” in “the tribe” for almost every part of it. I´m from Sweden in Europe and I hope that you are going to visit my country soon. My name is (hidden) and my e-mail adress is:
(hidden) So please write to me and I can tell you that I also act in teaters and films in my own country.
Impassioned? Moderately. Flawless use of broken English? I like is say YES.
Subject: Tja
From: (hidden)
To: (hidden)
I am Maria. I am 14 years old. I Live in Sweden. You are My Idol! I see Tribe every day
From Maria
Darling? A little. Less desperate than the first email? Definitely.
Do I poke fun out of jealously? Maybe, but to be honest my true beef stems from the fact that these people care almost enough about their “idol” to read a website bearing his name before submitting a fan letter. Look here for the first ever news post on this site. At least two Caleb Ross’s exist on this planet of ours and until “fans” are able to discern one from the other I claim the right to poke all the fun I want.
But instead of poking fun my time would probably better be spent writing. I’ll go do that now.
Hi Caleb!
I love The Tribe, you and Beth Allen is the best there.
/ Sara from sweden
Hey,
Sorry to say this, but I was a tribefan too, a few years ago. I’d watched every episode, liked it a lot. This week I thought of it again, and I searched for some video’s on youtube. That was the reason to look around a bit further, and now it seems that you’re a writer! That’s really cool, would love to read some of your work, but my english isn’t very well – which you’ve already noticed I guess. But anyway, I just read this text, and I had to laugh a bit. You’re right ’bout poking fun, I guess, but I still have al little question. What’s your reason to write? Is it about the writing? Got tho much fantasy? What’s it for?
I write some stuff my one too, but that’s…well…that’s about the writing… It’s not that good, but it’s fun to do.
It’s an old text I comment, but I hope you just would take the time to read it. Curious if you can laugh about my fabulous english.
Greetz
[…] On “it really is about the work”: One of the first blog posts on my homepage references an interaction I had with author Ron Carlson back in 2005-ish. Essentially, Carlson told […]