Well, hello and welcome!
I’m so glad you’ve joined me for yet another riveting installment of everyone’s favorite alcohol-soaked masterpiece, Am I the Literary Asshole? An advice column that only wants what’s best for you, dear. I’m your host, Kristen Arnett, and I’m beyond excited to be back in the saddle again. It brings me a lot of joy to share these silly thoughts with you every other week. As a gentle reminder, this a comedy advice column (emphasis on the comedy part), and any guidance or instruction I offer up here is meant purely for entertainment and casual enjoyment. Sometimes I receive messages that seem to forget the humor part of this equation? I know it’s tough out there for everyone, but maybe journal about your feelings instead of getting mad at me because I didn’t answer a question the “right way.” Life is short and hey, so is my patience.
But enough of that! Why don’t we cool things down with a beautiful bottle of white wine? There’s a lovely breeze stirring the leaves in the trees and a couple of glasses calling our names.
Onto our first caller of the day:
1) I’m looking for words of encouragement to keep reading, writing, and engaging in the literary world. A lot of recently published works seem to lack editing and chase trending topics. Agents and editors solicit influencers for books. AI is writing things that, honestly, aren’t half-bad (of course, this likely due to plagiarism). But major publishers use AI for their workflow too (understandably so with low salaries and understaffing), so it’s AI-on-AI all the way down. My friends who read the most don’t even seem to like books anymore. Everything new is quickly digested and called mid. Everyone’s jealous of each other. The global landscape is so dismal that books feel unimportant. Well… Are they?
Every once in a while we get one of these letters, and even though I don’t respond to all of them, I think it’s important to occasionally bring them into the mix. The reason? Plenty of people are feeling life burnout, which subsequently translates into reading/art burnout. How could it not? Things are really tough out there. And I think it’s important that we address that issue head-on.
The first thing I’ll say is that I disagree with your take on AI. AI isn’t “writing things.” It is generating slop. And it is terrible. These AI generations are worse than half-bad; they are fully awful. Here at AITLA, we are 100 percent anti-AI (and I’d wager pretty much all of my meagre savings that so is everyone at Literary Hub). And regardless of the fact that many major publishers are “introducing AI” into their workflow, I would argue that it is not AI all the way down. Once we start thinking this way, I feel like a doom mentality essentially takes over. We can’t afford to live like that!
And I can tell that you do care, friend. That’s why you feel so bad right now. It’s why you’ve come here hoping for encouragement. That’s important.
You’ve said that your friends who read the most don’t even seem to like books anymore. Is this actually true? Because I would say that I’m reading all the time, and I don’t feel that way. Sure, there are books that I feel kind of “mid” about. That happens to everyone. But there are also a lot of books that have captured my attention and my heart. New, exciting work. There is a lot of beautiful writing still out in the world. People continue to make great and lovely things. Is it possible that you’re overwhelmed right now, and feeling bad about the state of the world, so art itself has now come under fire?
When we approach life with the view that everything is broken, we inevitably see nothing but a wasteland. It is hard to leave yourself open to possibility, I know. It requires vulnerability, which is hard to achieve and even harder to keep hold of in this slippery, difficult moment. Books are not unimportant. They are part of what keeps us rooted in the world. They help us continue to care. To want to try. To engage. To push and attempt change.
These are not small things.
Perhaps it’s time to take a step back and assess your relationship with literature with an eye toward openness and opportunity. Not every book is poorly edited. Not every book is chasing trending topics. Everyone isn’t jealous of each other (I say this with love, that is simply not the case). Influencers do get solicited for books, but so do plenty of other people. It can be easy to allow ourselves to fall into an all or nothing mentality. But the truth is that the world and everything in it is broader than that kind of binary thinking. It’s hard to write in the age of AI, especially with it infiltrating everything, a lot of it outside our control. But it’s not impossible. And we must continue to care about that!
Maybe take a moment and spend time with work that makes you excited. Even if that work is older, even if you’ve read that book a million times. Try to remember why you loved to read in the first place. Get yourself back to a sense of possibility. And move forward from there.
Let’s have another glass of wine. I need it! And hey, here’s our second question:
2) Am I the asshole for not reading my friends’ newly published work right when it comes out?
I like all my writer friends and think they’re talented! But in the past few years I’ve ended up with a growing mass of unread books, stories, and essays published by friends. There seem to be several reasons for this: I’m a slow reader; it’s very hard to make myself read something on command, unless there’s a specific reason; and I tend to have a save the best for last approach to reading, which means that I sometimes put off books I know I’ll enjoy but that don’t grab me in the moment, maybe because they’re long, or take a lot of concentration, or are on a topic I don’t have bandwidth to get excited about.
No one is shaming me about not reading their published work, but I’m starting to feel bad about this pile of neglected books. I want to be able to see my friends and tell them I read and loved their work. I also want to give their work as much attention as I can.
Can you suggest any techniques to work through this pile of reading material so I can be less of an asshole to people I love?
Oh, this is actually really nice. Good problems!
First off, you don’t need to feel bad about not reading everything right away. This happens to all of us, sincerely. Especially if we’re friends with lots of writers! It means that we’re inundated with work. Trying to keep up with everything would mean jettisoning other important activities from our lives, including jobs, spending time with our families, eating, and sleeping. There are simply not enough hours in the day!
However, I think there are ways that you could finagle a routine here. Maybe give yourself one day a week (or every other week) where you sit down and address the elephant (pile of books) in the room. By putting it on your calendar and making it a regular occurrence, you’ll get in the habit of reading some of this work trapped in the perpetual backlog. I’m certain that once you do start reading some of it, you’ll feel really good. And feeling good is habit forming. You’ll find yourself reading more because you’ll want to keep that good feeling going.
But at the end of the day, no one’s going to be mad that you’re not reading everything that’s getting published by all your fabulously talented friends. People just want to feel supported, and it sounds like you’re doing exactly that.
Happy reading, friend.
One more glass of wine and then we’ve gotta hit the bricks!
In lieu of a third question today, I’m going to post a response from a bookseller who was kind enough to give me the 4-1-1 about how you should behave regarding preorder pick up at your local indie (you can read that original question in my last column right here):
Hey there–
Bookseller writing in about picking up special orders! If you’ve prepaid, then you can wait forever if you like. It’s your book and we’re just holding on to it for you until you’re ready. Take your time, Queen. If you’ve just called in for us to hold a book, of if you preordered without paying, then please be timely in your pickup! Books that are held are often books that are popular, and I hate telling someone I’m sold out while there is a book languishing on hold behind the counter. The real asshole behavior? Not checking your voicemails or emails! The number of phones I call that have full mailboxes is astounding. The people who call in demanding to know why they haven’t been contacted when I have miles of email outreach drive us all up the wall. Just be cool!
And there you have it! The bookseller has spoken!
That’s all the time we have for today, folks. Join me next column when we answer more of your excellent anonymous question (send those RIGHT HERE) and hopefully I’ll have a few more bottles of wine for us to consume!
Yours in fermentation,
Dad
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Are you worried you’re the literary asshole? Ask Kristen via email at AskKristen@lithub.com, or anonymously here.
