It has been a while since my last update. Here's the reason why. The following is a fantastic variation on an exam question found in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
(Raw link to the article: https://medium.com/just-words/the-eye-of-sauron-d454ed83377a
Since I returned from the Slim and The Beast book tour six months ago, I've felt stuck in this type of double-bind. On the one hand, as an author I want the recognition. I want to sell books. I know in order to do this I must Tweet; I must Facebook; I must Instagram and hand out business cards. In short, I must commodify myself--it isn't just the novel I'm peddling, but capital Me, The Author.
On the other hand, I hate this. It is everything I despise. The paradox of writing, of spending so many hours in my imagination, is that what I'm truly doing is escaping myself, escaping the very notion of being heard by others. For a few hours each day (if I'm lucky), I can forget about Me, The Author. I can forget about the rat race; book sales; online reviews; career goals. I can lose myself in a world that doesn't care about Samuel, The Author ... all that matters when I'm writing is the world I hope to discover.
This obsession with being seen and being followed and being liked in the digital world seems to be in direct opposition to what it truly means to be a good person, not to mention a good writer. The loudest people on Twitter always have the most followers. The more likes you get on Instagram (which requires tapping your thumb twice), the cooler your product. I have a feeling we are addicted to this need for validation, with social media only being the latest, most egregious enabler of narcissism. But the trouble with being someone who dreams of making a living through writing is twofold: 1) In order to write well, to write something authentic and human, I must forget about my ego and about proving myself to others; BUT 2) In order to be seen (i.e. to be bought), I have to sell myself as Me, The Author, as soon as I've stopped writing. Once the book is "finished," it's no longer about spending time confronting myself, my fears, my problems, but turning that confrontation into a product. Something about this turns my stomach. What's worse, it makes me feel like a farce.
So how do I remain authentic while also trying to attract attention? Is it even possible to remain true to what really matters (a life of deference and humility, not celebrity and pomp) while simultaneously trying to get re-Tweeted and liked and obtain more followers? (The word "followers," by the way, makes me think of some selfie-inspired cult following). I have met quite a few pretentious people recently who care more about being seen than being heard--more about the make-up than the art--but they are also successful and well-off. So what does that mean? Is it possible to market myself as an author, rendering myself as some kind of product, without sacrificing the very essence of what it means to be a writer?
It is a double-bind and it's exhausting, but it does help to talk about it. My fellow Inkshares author, Yann Rousselot, and I have been discussing it quite a lot with my twin brother, Aaron, who has been on a music tour in Paris the past 1.5 months. He is an incredible musician and is also (not coincidentally) the most humble, least pretentious human being I know. So in a world that necessitates being seen and being liked, being followed and being admired, being swiped left or right, how do we "get out there" without hashtagging ourselves into oblivion? What does it mean to be a successful yet genuine artist while maintaining so many social media accounts? While reloading the page in case we have a new follower? How do we talk about ourselves as artists without turning our very essence into a consumable product? These are questions I've been struggling with, and they're probably worthy of a future novel(s). It's also why I haven't been pushing Slim and The Beast the past few months.
All this to say I've been thinking about (and avoiding) the
double-bind as much as possible since March, thoroughly happy to lose the "Me, Author" mentality by escaping into the third novel. It's also been helpful to re-read David Foster Wallace and his thoughts on this very infectious human desire to be seen and wanted: “Something happens in your late twenties where you realize that how
other people regard you does not have enough calories in it, to keep you
from blowing your brains out.” It's an extreme statement, but I don't think he's wrong. There aren't any calories in red Facebook flags or Instagram hearts.
So here's to caring less about what others think about me, and more about what's important: the next novel. Note: this is a work in progress and it comes in the middle of the book (divided into three sections). The scene involves a brutal SS officer, which means this section is offensive and is rated R.
http://www.samuelbarrantes.com/excerpt-novel-in-progress/
.jpg)
It has been a while since my last update. Here's the reason why. The following is a fantastic variation on an exam question found in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
(Raw link to the article: https://medium.com/just-words/the-eye-of-sauron-d454ed83377a
Since I returned from the Slim and The Beast book tour six months ago, I've felt stuck in this type of double-bind. On the one hand, as an author I want the recognition. I want to sell books. I know in order to do this I must Tweet; I must Facebook; I must Instagram and hand out business cards. In short, I must commodify myself--it isn't just the novel I'm peddling, but capital Me, The Author.
On the other hand, I hate this. It is everything I despise. The paradox of writing, of spending so many hours in my imagination, is that what I'm truly doing is escaping myself, escaping the very notion of being heard by others. For a few hours each day (if I'm lucky), I can forget about Me, The Author. I can forget about the rat race; book sales; online reviews; career goals. I can lose myself in a world that doesn't care about Samuel, The Author ... all that matters when I'm writing is the world I hope to discover.
This obsession with being seen and being followed and being liked in the digital world seems to be in direct opposition to what it truly means to be a good person, not to mention a good writer. The loudest people on Twitter always have the most followers. The more likes you get on Instagram (which requires tapping your thumb twice), the cooler your product. I have a feeling we are addicted to this need for validation, with social media only being the latest, most egregious enabler of narcissism. But the trouble with being someone who dreams of making a living through writing is twofold: 1) In order to write well, to write something authentic and human, I must forget about my ego and about proving myself to others; BUT 2) In order to be seen (i.e. to be bought), I have to sell myself as Me, The Author, as soon as I've stopped writing. Once the book is "finished," it's no longer about spending time confronting myself, my fears, my problems, but turning that confrontation into a product. Something about this turns my stomach. What's worse, it makes me feel like a farce.
So how do I remain authentic while also trying to attract attention? Is it even possible to remain true to what really matters (a life of deference and humility, not celebrity and pomp) while simultaneously trying to get re-Tweeted and liked and obtain more followers? (The word "followers," by the way, makes me think of some selfie-inspired cult following). I have met quite a few pretentious people recently who care more about being seen than being heard--more about the make-up than the art--but they are also successful and well-off. So what does that mean? Is it possible to market myself as an author, rendering myself as some kind of product, without sacrificing the very essence of what it means to be a writer?
It is a double-bind and it's exhausting, but it does help to talk about it. My fellow Inkshares author, Yann Rousselot, and I have been discussing it quite a lot with my twin brother, Aaron, who has been on a music tour in Paris the past 1.5 months. He is an incredible musician and is also (not coincidentally) the most humble, least pretentious human being I know. So in a world that necessitates being seen and being liked, being followed and being admired, being swiped left or right, how do we "get out there" without hashtagging ourselves into oblivion? What does it mean to be a successful yet genuine artist while maintaining so many social media accounts? While reloading the page in case we have a new follower? How do we talk about ourselves as artists without turning our very essence into a consumable product? These are questions I've been struggling with, and they're probably worthy of a future novel(s). It's also why I haven't been pushing Slim and The Beast the past few months.
All this to say I've been thinking about (and avoiding) the double-bind as much as possible since March, thoroughly happy to lose the "Me, Author" mentality by escaping into the third novel. It's also been helpful to re-read David Foster Wallace and his thoughts on this very infectious human desire to be seen and wanted: “Something happens in your late twenties where you realize that how other people regard you does not have enough calories in it, to keep you from blowing your brains out.” It's an extreme statement, but I don't think he's wrong. There aren't any calories in red Facebook flags or Instagram hearts.
So here's to caring less about what others think about me, and more about what's important: the next novel. Note: this is a work in progress and it comes in the middle of the book (divided into three sections). The scene involves a brutal SS officer, which means this section is offensive and is rated R.
http://www.samuelbarrantes.com/excerpt-novel-in-progress/