Dear Mr. Blue,

Is one who is dishonest in his/her writing also dishonest in love?

The Plumber

Dear Plumber:

Ordinarily one resists drawing connections between Lit and Actual Life, but here there may be a link to be found: in Life, as in Lit, honesty is in the eye of the victim, and if one can persuade reader or lover that one is smarter or funnier or more elegant than one actually is, then one is not dishonest -- the author finds redemption in the reader, the lover in the lover. In this way, we succeed in being judged for our best moments, which is surely everyone's goal, writer or lover. One thinks immediately of the long and tortuous romance between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, who addressed each other in their poems as "You" and "Camerado." They were crazy about each other, lived for each other, never met each other, inspired each other, and to the very end, she believed that he was a Unitarian faith-healer and he believed that she was a young man named Albert. Was this dishonest? Or artful?

Dear Mr. Blue,

I'm a Minnesota girl living in Philly. I've always maintained that I would return home once I found 1.) a wonderful spouse and 2.) a job that allows me to leave Minnesota three months out of the year. How would you recommend I go about attaining these without resorting to extreme measures?

Jen X

Dear Jen X:

I don't know much about Philly, but I do know that you won't find a spouse there. The class lines are severe. Guys in Philly are either creeps or jerks, effete preppies or street-corner thugs. Your wonderful spouse is back in Minnesota. He's probably a schoolteacher. You can become a teacher too, and the two of you can have June, July and August off.

Dear Mr. Blue,

Some successful writerly acquaintances of mine went to posh universities and got fabulous summer internships because their Uncle Teddy was an editor at such and such publishing house, and now in their 30s they're friends with everyone else who went to the same posh universities and has uncles in the business, and I am trying not to loathe them. I would like to believe that this is the land of the self-made author, but I'm beginning to wonder. So tell me: How much of it is what you write, and how much is who you know?

Hustler from Hoboken

Dear Hustler:

Nepotism and other forms of networking don't count for much in the land of authorship, and I don't think they count much in publishing anymore either. Those glad-handing acquaintances of yours from posh universities (P.U.) may have scores of P.U. friends and uncles in the business, but it's a volatile business, and if they aren't smart and quick, if they back losers and not winners, then their uncles will have to find them other work, perhaps as comptrollers or vice presidents. But no matter what feudal customs remain in the publishing world, the literary world is wide open to ambitious nobodies from Hoboken, graduates of squalid universities, people with bad hair, geeks of all persuasions. What matters in the Lit World is getting the stuff down on the disc that enough people are going to want to read based on a whisper of publicity.

Dear Mr. Blue,

How important is New York, anyway, to a writer? Does one really have to go to posh lunches at 44 in order to be accepted in the publishing world? Does one who lives anywhere except below 14th Street run the risk of being seen as out of it by editors? Is there life in other zip codes?

A New Yorker

Dear Yorker:

There is life out here on the windswept steppes and it's a good life, given the fact that Salon can be accessed as easily from here as from 14th Street, and when did you last attend a publishing lunch where the conversation was better than what you find in Table Talk? And when did editors become authorities on what is hip? The notion is laughable. New York is a grand old city, a living preserve of the '40s and '50s, and hipness is not what one goes there for, so much as nostalgia for the great ideal of the Metropolis, a lovely notion in suburban America. A writer who lives in St. Paul, Minn., however, is living in a city where 1.) there is a terrific bookstore or two, 2.) there are plenty of writers around if you want to know some, and it's easy to get to know them, 3.) it's not so scary to be short of cash, 4.) you don't worry constantly about the world passing you by and 5.) you get a real winter, the monastic season, which is of inestimable value to a writer.

Dear Mr. Blue,

Is there any way in which a work of literary quality can be cooked up by many chefs? Communal (or multiauthor) writing produced some pretty sublime stuff in the past: the Declaration of Independence, "The Iliad," the Bible. Why not again?

Plumber in Vortex

Dear Plumber:

The Declaration of Independence is basically Jefferson edited by a committee; "The Iliad" is Homer's, even though he drew on earlier writers; and the Bible is inspired of God, who has apparently chosen not to produce a sequel. As examples of communal writing, one could better cite the Windows 95 manual or the Republican Party platform. History shows that the writing of literature is a solo enterprise and that if you hitch 40 brilliant soloists to one wagon, you only find out how banal brilliant people can be.

Dear Mr. Blue,

Have you any suggestions as to where, besides a bar, a first date might take place, or what activities it might consist of?

Wisdom Seeker

Dear Seeker:

The purpose of a first date is to let the two of you size each other up quickly, and I don't think a bar is a good place for that. Too dim, too safe. Better to have the date out in the open, at a bowling alley, a pool hall, a dog show, a baseball game, a tractor pull, a walk in the woods. A bar is a clichi. A poetry reading is better. A sheep judging. An auction. A public hanging. Take a look at each other out in the real world, I say.

Dear Mr. Blue,

What do I do with my active 4-year-old son when my urge to write strikes hard?

Hopkins

Dear Hopkins:

When my son was 4 and I was writing freelance and took care of him during the day, I was lucky to live in a safe neighborhood where little kids traveled around in packs and looked out for each other. Quiet streets, big attractive parks. You could let a kid out in the morning to roam and he came back for lunch and that's when I got my work done. A child-safe neighborhood is a godsend to a writer. After that, there's paid babysitters, Grandma or Uncle TV.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I've read your sage advice on writers not dating other writers and am inclined to agree. However, what's a writer to do when he/she finds the writerly profession has consumed every facet of life -- social, professional and otherwise -- and there are no nonwriters to be found? Is it necessary to take up some silly hobby, say, spelunking or C++ programming, to meet nonwriterly potential significant others?

Bookish One

Dear Bookish:

Break out of your circle. Don't let your life get that narrow. Writers are supposed to circulate and soak up the talk and observe other lives, including those of unliterary people. Go find some people you don't entirely approve of and hang out with them for a change. You may find dating material there. If not, see if one of your friends doesn't know a nice mathematician. I've heard they are wonderful company.

Dear Mr. Blue,

I recently spent a weekend with a group of authors, unpublished neophytes such as myself beside writers with decades of critical praise. How does one approach an author whose work one has enjoyed and tell them so? And what does one say to an author who has received much praise from fans and critics, but whose work one has never read?

Harry

Dear Harry:

You say the same thing to the author whose work you've enjoyed and to the author you've never read: upon introduction, you shake hands, look Author in the eye and say, "I like your work." That's all you need. Gush if you must, but then you run the risk of looking like a bootlicker or a shill. Authors do not stand around and flatter each other; they're not like theater people. Authors are busy people and do not have to apologize for what they haven't read. "Like your work" is a phrase that takes care of old business pretty well, and then you can go on to talk about what's really interesting.

Dear Mr. Blue,

A wise freelancer friend of mine once said: "Working for smart, creative types is like being an abused child. But working for business types is like being an abused dog." This was to console me in my attempts to work in public radio. The consolation has worked for about a year, but now I need a new one. Have you got any?

Lassie B.

Dear Lassie B:

I wouldn't dream of trying to console you. The work itself is consolation, and if it isn't you should get out of public radio and make a wad of money selling trivets or something. (Money can be a wonderful consolation.) I've seen it from both sides -- as a lousy boss and a disgruntled employee -- and the only good solution, if an employee cannot get gruntled, is to quit. All of that happy therapeutic BS that came into the workplace when Personnel became Human Resources is of limited usefulness. You've got to love the work to be happy in a place, period. If you don't love the work, then you have to learn how to content yourself with it. If you can't do that, you have to go. If you're really feeling badly used, don't negotiate with your oppressors, is my advice. Walk. If you're a crucial employee, they will beg you to come back, if they have a brain in their heads. (Do you know what a chore it is to replace a capable employee? It's no fun.) If you're not a crucial employee, then go and become crucial to somebody somewhere else.