Lake the Writer

It’s been a while since I last posted, so I figure it’s only appropriate I balance out my silence by upping the controversy, and thus the level of interest. I’ll try to write both ideas in my head right now in one sitting, and post them a bit apart. (I do that sort of thing more often than you might think.)

A suspicious number of people in my life have suggested I become a writer. Now before many of you (correctly) point out that my prose has a lot in common with Mercury (think density), I have to qualify that a bit.

Some people have suggested that I become a technical writer. I would probably be good at that. I say that primarily because the existing technical writers, in general, are not good at what they do. But unless we’re talking professorial work in academia, this line of work does not much interest me.

The more amusing line of thought is the people who have suggested I write fiction. They’re more common than you might think. However, in general, I worry that (while I could probably scare up a small, devoted cult following) most people would find any book I would write to be an excellent makeshift high chair, but otherwise indecipherable (and harmful to children). That is not the path to success in a writing career, as I know them.

But here’s the amusing spin. There’s a subgroup of the fiction-suggestion-makers that I think might just be onto something. Specifically, the subgroup of people who suggest I write overwhelmingly salacious novels targeted at people with short attention spans.

Here’s why that could work. If I was writing for the purpose of (how to say…?) “pointed entertainment,” I would never think, “Hmmm. What would be a good word here? How about ‘salacious’? Yes, that’s definitely the word that most of my readers will really appreciate and savor in this paragraph.” Instead of humoring my instinct to frighten readers away with obtuse metaphors and onomonopoetic vocabulary (it’s a strong instinct), I would have another mindset at work entirely. Specifically, the mindset of “Hmmm. How could I seduce everyone worthy in this room as quickly and efficiently as possible?” That’s an even stronger instinct, and people seem to find that one less intimidating than the one about heavy writing. (An aside: I have always found it extremely amusing that many more people find my instinct to casually, yet discriminately seduce far more charming than my instinct to write accurate, but playful narratives. This is bad news for social conservatives.)

I am aware that most of the people who will read this blog will have never read a word from me that actually resembles outright naughty fiction. In fact, some of you might still be numb from my seven (I mean, two) page essay on endothelial binding domains on artificial substrates.

But I would be very curious to know this: How many people who read this would be interested to see me write naughty fiction?