Dramatis Personae

The BBC used to have a service called Great Writing, but when they shut it down, a bunch of enthusiastic individuals banded together to start their own version, which has just launched. But since they wanted to forge their own identity and deviate somewhat from the Beeb's stuffy language policy, they went ahead and interviewed John Rickards, author of some incredibly genteel cat mysteries and tea cozies -- oh wait, that's a lie.

Anyway, he makes an interesting point (when asked if his "impatient editorial voice" is really him) about public and private personas, and whether they should even exist for a writer:

Actually, no, that's just me. I'm like that - that is to say, I swear and bitch about stuff, as well as tell daft jokes and screw around as by and large I'm a friendly guy - in person. To be honest, most people are like that to one extent or another, but a lot of writers and people in the industry maintain a kind of professional persona and a separate private one, where they won't, say, swear. They'll talk about murdering (fictional) people for the entertainment of others, but they won't use bad language, which seems like an odd choice of priorities to me. But I can't complain really - everyone makes their own choices. It's just too much effort for me, maintaining the two sides, and to be fair I'd rather give people an honest impression of what I'm like so that if they ever meet me in person I don't come as a horrible shock to the system.

Persona can be a very, very tricky thing. In my own case I tend to present different sides of myself to different people so who knows how many different versions of "me" actually exist. But I remember when I first met Jennifer Weiner last fall, and she has a very open public manner -- the kind that makes people believe they could instantly be her friend. And I definitely felt that, but also wondered how easy it could be for people to misinterpret that vibe and try to get "too close" and possibly overstep boundaries. Which is probably why she has this in her FAQ:

I haven’t written a novel, and I don’t have an idea for one, but you seem really cool, so maybe we could get together and have coffee!

I am not cool. In person, I am incredibly boring. My conversational topics are almost entirely limited to what I saw on television the night before, and about how I don’t like old people. I rarely manage to look even a tenth as good as I do in my author photo. My table manners are iffy. Many days I don’t even comb my hair, and when I’m not writing I’m usually shlepping around a pre-verbal kiddo in a stroller with pureed pears smeared somewhere on my person, so in the interests of not having you be disappointed by the real deal, I am going to respectfully decline. But thanks! And please come to one of my readings, where I’m usually without the pre-verbal kiddo in the stroller, and nine times out of ten my hair is combed.

So how do you navigate the persona divide, if there actually is one for you -- or is this even something to worry about at all?

Comments

[Keith]

I believe consistency is key to preventing persona tangle, so I'm a huge pain in the ass whenever possible.

[Ed]

It's an interesting point, Sarah. But I don't think it's limited to writers.

Some people are just naturally bubbly all the time. I had a girlfriend once who was like this. It was interesting to see how other people often confused this with immediate intimacy. (And in fact, this has happened to me a few times. Because I speak and write so openly about many things, while keeping my private world to myself, I find that some folks tell me remarkable tales within a few hours of meeting me, leaving me in a discomfiting zone of quietude.)

What separates an idolatorous, socially maladjusted person from a regular Joe/Jane is that the latter will respect the other person's barrier of privacy. Misperceived friendliness and the resultant slavishness isn't limited to the publishing world.

[christin]

so Sarah, what you're telling me is - when I meet you in person, I may be disappointed?
I won't be if you wear that maple leaf centerpiece on your head. cuz' that's what I picture you wearing every time I talk to you, I can't help it. I love it.

[Jim Winter]

I have worked very hard to hide the fact that I'm really a little old Jewish lady from Queens. The fight white guy costume gets stuffy after a while.

(Don't say it, Laura.)

[Joseph Goodrich]

Sarah---

Once, at a theatre event in Los Angeles, I met Mead Hunter, who at that time was associated with the Mark Taper Forum. We'd never met until then, but he'd seen my work. 'I'd have thought from your plays,' he said after we'd talked a while, 'that you were much older and much more bitter.'

That was a number of years ago. I'm older now, and probably more bitter, too. Ah, well...

[Donna]

I'm far quieter in person than I seem online. I try and come across a bit more professional at work. And, of course, my mother doesn't know that I swear, drink and go out with strange men. But other than that I think I'm the same all the time. I find it hard to be anything other than I am, so would find it difficult to have a public persona and a private one. Having said that, when I was in my 20s a friend and I used to confuse men who chatted us up by pretending to be things we weren't. In my time I've been a pilot, a gravedigger (lots of jokes about the job being a dead end etc), Scotland's foremost forensic pathologist (Kay McScarpetta) who consulted on Taggart (remember the episode with the facial reconstuction? That was me), and a psychoananlist (half way through that conversation I decided that wasn't exotic enough so suddenly developed a Latvian accent). Ummmm, what was the question? No, I'm just me.

Donna

[Donna]

psychoanalyst. Jeez, you'd think I could spell my chosen profession

[Dave White]

Oh no. Christin's started on the maple leaf centerpiece... SHE DOESN'T KNOW THE RULES...

[John Rickards]

Jim -- the disguise would be more effective if you didn't keep pinching people's cheeks at conventions, telling them how much they've grown and asking whether they've had any children yet.

And Jennifer's FAQ answer and Donna's McScarpetta tale are far too funny. :-D

[Otis]

Loved Jennifer's FAQ and have a vague memory of chatting up a beautiful gravedigger on one of my lost weekends some time back.

As to Rickard's interview on "Great Writing," it's true, John doesn't smoke.

[Bill Peschel]

I like to think that I was merely hiding my light under a bushel and that my brilliant wit and intellectual insights would become apparent to all once I'm published, but as I'm a creaky 45 I've comfortably grown into my mediocrity and concluded that, if it weren't for the Internet, I would become older and crotchier, accumulate far too many cats and be found dead of a heart attack after the postman investigates the stack of mail building on my front porch and finds my dissicated, partially cat-chewed body. Jennifer Weiner's problem will never become mine.