[From CYGAWA]

Author’s Note

First, there’s something I have to get off my chest in this writer’s memoir. 

If you’ve ever said or even thought the words “I’m going to write a book,” you may eventually do so, write a book. But if you tacked on at the end the word someday, as in “I’m going to write a book someday,” you never will. Trust me on this. I’ve done the research. 

Along the same lines: If you’ve ever said or even thought the words “I could write a book” – with or without the emphasis on “I” – you never will do so, write a book. This is just the way it is. It’s annoying when people who’ve never written anything make these statements to people who actually do write. And it happens all the time, at least to me. One time this guy, in finding out I’d written a book he read, said, “I could write three books.” I wanted to pop him then and there.

    That writing is difficult is best exemplified by the Gene Fowler quote I
use as the opening epigraph: Writing is easy. You just stare at the blank page
until your forehead bleeds.

    Someone could write a whole book, a good book, let’s assume, about
how difficult writing is and it would not come close to saying as much as
Mr. Fowler does in that second sentence, and I very much hope you agree.
If not, it may not work out between us.

    But what’s my point? 

    If you’re one of those non-writers who has said, or has thought of saying,
or is capable of saying, “I’m going to write a book someday,” or “I could
write a book,” maybe now, knowing my attitude about these sentiments
and with the imparted image of your forehead bleeding while you stare at
the blank page, you’ll shut the fuck up.

    But I doubt it. You’ll say it anyway. You and I happen to meet somewhere,
you’ll probably even say it to me.

    In one ear and out the other is the expression that comes to mind.

 

Another Author’s Note 

Aside from the actual writing of a book, titles are tough too. In fact, I
sweated over the title of this book. 

    Publishers consider a title to be no more than a marketing tool – point
of sale and all that – so they don’t much care what a customer thinks of the
title once he’s finished reading the book, since by then he’s already bought
it. A writer, on the other hand, wants the title of his book to make sense, be
satisfying, after the book has been read, especially then.

    It’s nice when a title has a couple meanings and they both make sense.
A great example of this is Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, which is about a
doomed ascent of Mount Everest. What a great title. You know, “into
thin air” being an expression meaning where something goes when it
disappears completely, which happens in the story to some climbers. Also,
the air is thin up on Mount Everest, where the climbers disappear.

   I bet when Krakauer thought of that title he more or less said to himself,
“Whoopee!”*

    It’s also good if a title asks a question that is ultimately answered by
the book itself, as is the case with this book, I hope. Can’t You Get Along
With Anyone? sounds like a good title, has a familiar yet abstract ring to
it, plus there’s subtext about conflict, plus the You subtly challenges the
reader, meaning you, the personal you (not the abstract, impersonal you),
asks you the question and so forth, but what if after reading the book you
wonder what was the point of the title since the question was not answered
satisfactorily? So you might hold off judgment as to whether you like the
title until you’re done, assuming you hang in. 

    “Can’t you get along with anyone?” is the body of the email I received
from my Hollywood movie-writing agent (as opposed to my book agent)
in response to the email I sent her firing her. While I was sweating over the
title of this book I stumbled across the email, which I had forgotten about,
via a ridiculous chain of coincidences. So don’t give me too much credit for
the title, assuming you hang in and end up liking it. I’m only peripherally
involved. 

    But the point being: As soon as I saw the email I more or less said to
myself, “Whoopee!”

    There’s another reason for my liking the title, which has to do with my
former movie-writing agent. Imagine that this book becomes a howling
success, as already I do, not often but occasionally, mainly when my bad
chemicals are particularly active and I need to feel better about myself, or
at least my writing.**  Imagine my former movie-writing agent going to a
bookstore and seeing her words – the body of the email she sent me, which
I believe is laden with negative subtext – all over the place, in displays in
the front window, stacked up in towering pyramids on the floor, covering
tables; dozens of people holding the book (with the title facing out) while
waiting in the cashier line. Everywhere she looks there they are, her words:
Can’t You Get Along With Anyone? 

    Hold on. A good question: What’s someone in the movie business doing
in a bookstore?

    Here’s what would happen in real life Hollywood as opposed to my
fantasy. Rather than go to a book store to buy this book, my former movie-
writing agent would order “coverage” from one of the readers at the mega-
talent agency where she works, where she pimps out writers, their talent
– or lack thereof, if you get my bad-movie drift – to thieves and idiots.
Coverage is sort of the Hollywood version of Cliff Notes. Prevents people
in the movie business from having to read books – or to be in bookstores.
She’d probably say to the reader down in the coverage department, “Never
mind the usual crapola, just sum up what the asshole says about me.” 

    But back to my fantasy. My former movie-writing agent would see the
title of this book all over the place and realize that she is the public butt of
my clever irony and likely get aggravated.

    By the way, did you catch the little redundancy in the subtitle, the A
Writer’s Memoir part of it? See, a memoir is always a writer’s memoir:
whoever wrote it is by definition a writer since only a writer could have
done that, i.e., written the fucking thing.  

    I didn’t sweat much over this problem, though. I figured Who’s going to
notice?

— 

* Unfortunately, though, Into Thin Air isn’t such a great title when translated to certain other
languages. For example, in the language of the Ogala Sioux, the expression “thin air” refers
to the situation that results when someone passes gas in a crowded teepee. Given the subject
matter of Krakauer’s book, the title Into Thin Air could be confusing in an Ogala Sioux edition.

** I’m sweating over this Author’s Note in late May, 2006, after completion of the book but several
months before publication. This is always a bad time for me, as all sorts of fears and self-doubts
and even self-loathing surface regarding what I’ve written. Not only do I sweat but some
days my forehead even hemorrhages a bit, although not as much as during the writing. So to
overpower the dispiriting thoughts I fantasize about great success.

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