I was talking a while back about doing school visits to promote the paperback of GONE and the launch of HUNGER (GONE 2) and the editor I was talking to made a good point.  She said, “Look, the question is how you’re going to present yourself.  You have to put some thought into that.”

The gold standard is someone like Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler.)  He would play the accordion and tell jokes and basically put on everything just short of a Broadway show.  I only met Mr. Snicket while getting a book signed for my kids.  So I didn’t have a chance to talk to him and say what I would like to say.  Which would be, “Thanks a lot, jerk, you’ve really raised the bar for the rest of us.”

I don’t play a musical instrument.  I don’t tell jokes.  I’m a big, fat, baldheaded, cranky old man.  The things I care deeply about are politics and food.  If I had to sit down and talk to a group of YA readers the topics of conversation that would come naturally to me would be, 1) My preference for the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force, 2) Why food ideologies are ridiculous and beside the point.  I can do a good extemporaneous half hour on either.  Or on any number of other topics that would cause a 14 year-old (and most other sensible people,) to fall into a coma.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy talking.  It’s hard to shut me up unless you have a baseball bat handy and are prepared to use it.  But, man, what do I talk to “the kids” about?  The things I’m interested in are things that will either cause students to consider jumping out of the window, or, things that will make their teachers want to throw me out of that same window.

This is not a new problem for me.  I’ve always sucked at small talk.  I’ve never been very good at relating to, um, humans.  When I was in school myself I was clique-less.  I had no friends.  But please, no “Awww.”  People occasionally wanted to be my friends (something was obviously wrong with those kids) but I would always come up with an excuse for why I couldn’t join, or sleep over, or play, or hang out.  I think that was my earliest fiction writing.  ”Sorry, I can’t come to the party tonight because I’ve broken my leg. But I expect I’ll be all better by tomorrow.  Nope:  no cast.  I’m a quick healer.”

Bullies didn’t beat me up because they couldn’t quite figure out which category of victim I was.    (Hmmm, he’s not smart enough to be a geek, not interesting enough to be a freak, doesn’t skateboard, too uncool to be a punk.  Gentlemen, we must find an acceptable grounds for giving Michael the beat-down he deserves!)

The cliche advice is, “Be yourself.”   Well, that’s no good.

So, I guess it will come down to talking about writing.  Unfortunately my approach on that runs pretty much counter to what kids are taught in school.  I don’t know the first thing about literary theory.  My son would come back from his fifth grade class and show me some writing assignment he’d have to work on and my usual response would be, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

I can show someone how to create a character, or how to work through a plot, or build a backstory.  I can talk fairly authoritatively about self-discipline and work habits.  I’m very good at creating “series bibles.” I’m good at reading markets.  But anything I have to contribute assumes that people are looking to get published, not just write.  And I can never use the words “muse” or “inspiration” without smirking.

Anyway, I could honestly use some advice.  I can’t be the only cranky, introverted loner in the writing business.  So if anyone has some, please . . .