I write about things as if I know what I’m talking about.
It’s part of the package with writing for money. Or maybe just with writing, period. You feel like, as a writer, you should be able to present some authoritative view or revelatory moment to your readers. Having readers is a big responsibility, people. You may not know what a burden you are to us writers, but really, you are. Obviously we’d all want to kill ourselves if you weren’t around, but writing for you people is serious work.
You want to know all sorts of stuff.
You want fact-checking and witty commentary, all in one.
You demand a lot from us writers.
And we strive to give it to you, really we do, because the biggest fear we have is that you’ll leave us.
You’ll decide we’re not witty enough.
Or that we’re too witty, self-consciously painfully witty like a ponytail pulled too tight.
Or we’ll give you too few facts, or the wrong facts, or not enough facts. You readers, these days, you’re so inundated with information, you have so many options, you can get multimedia anything; the chance that you’ll simply sit and read some words we wrote? Slim, slim, slim. So those of you that do stay with us (and we bless you fervently as we drift to writerly dreams at night) may not be surprised to find us kind of clingy. A little desperate. And so very, very aware of the responsibility of keeping you here with us.
And that’s why we kind of resent you people sometimes.
It’s not your fault.
It’s just the weird little dichotomy we live, writing these posts and articles and books as if we know what we’re talking about, when the one thing running through our head is just desperate, clingy, 5th-grader’s refrain: please like me please like me please like me please like me.
Please?
Because as distantly higher-than-thou as we act like we are sometimes, we really really like you. Really.