Quiet Forest

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?“ A common treatise to one of the many philosophical questions concerning subjective and objective reality. If I restructure it to fit my latest existential crisis, it would read:If an author writes, but no one reads his books, is he really writing anything at all?

CRASH!

The sound I would hear if I heard the tree fall.

So could I assume trees fall all the time? Can I imagine the sound in my head all day, every day in the hopes that I am privy to an event heretofore unseen by me, by anyone?

CRASH!

I write books and it can easily be compared to a tree falling. The Earth shakes, the wood splinters, ripping, tearing, and the trees around tremble and await the impact of the fall.

The dust settles, small animals scurry out and around the anomaly, and soon, the quiet of the forest prevails again. Until the next scene, chapter, part, book. Until the next tree falls.

There is a certain freedom in writing for an unknown audience. I have no expectations bearing down on me. I have no one calling out for TDTM part deux. I have accepted that my audience will ultimately be small. But if I’m to fell a tree, I want more than crickets and the sound of a solitary devotee, his applause the forlorn sound of metered clapping in an empty hall. I write, finally, to be read.

I lack the primitive desire to herald my tomes from the rooftops. I loathe selling myself. I want my words to sell me, to create a furor such that when one tree falls, the next has no choice but to buckle under the Domino effect.

But this is not realistic thinking, is it? There are many who believe this process is just that. But the authors who have this kind of following had a good, loud jump-start. Take Dan Brown. His Angels & Demons tome never quite took off, even though Pocket Books–respectable enough, bought it. Only when The DaVinci Code exploded on the scene backed by Random House, did Angels & Demons get an audience.

But who was his audience? I can tell you who was not his audience: most of the writers I read and critics whom I respect.

So is it really, as Jonathan Franzen says, “status” vs. “contract?”

We can’t do both? Oh, we can…we just choose not to. But ,wait, the American public cares about quality, right? They care about more than…than…okay. Example.

If the American public was given a choice between an awesome, talented actress of no notable beauty or sex appeal or Megan Fox, whom would they choose?