Can’t write a bestseller, or can you?

“You can’t ‘write a bestseller” because that implies more control of the immediate literary universe than anyone has.” – Norman Mailer, July 1984

“The public may be stupid, but they will immediately see the insincerity of a book that was written to be a bestseller.”- William Burroughs, later that day

I came across the above in Literary Outlaw, while brushing up on William Burroughs. I had just seen Queer, the movie based on the Burroughs’s book. I’ve read most of WSB’s works but it had been a while. I could give a quick thought or two on the movie, or even what I think of WSB’s books, but I don’t have a lot of use for reviews (please don’t tell Amazon or any of the dozens and dozens of people I’ve begged to review my books on Amazon).

Thanks.

The exchange below has stuck in my mind and now you’re stuck with it. The quotation marks (his, not mine) in the first one are there to stress that Mailer saying that if you sit down to write a book based on what is popular right now, it will be old news, dated, by the time you get it to market. I am inclined to think that is no longer true.

The second quote follows the first quote and deals with humans more than technology. Humans haven’t changed much but publishing technology clearly has. The second quote is still more relevant than the first.

I would update it, however. Real writing isn’t sourced from SEO, or clicks, or who’s selling best in your genre. You can format and source and manufacture and produce and market a book to be a bestseller these days, I suppose. Just don’t’ call it writing.

So, you ask, what is writing? It’s the cultivation of your own unique, internal, wonderful self and the story that grows from that. It aint’ never externally produced and is never for anyone but yourself. That will always be true.

Thanks.