Together alone.

            It’s received wisdom that writers are the world’s most inveterate introverts.  Who else could spend hours, days, years alone hunched over a keyboard or pad of paper?  It’s so obvious.  Most normal human beings couldn’t stand it.  Which is why most normal human beings don’t become writers, for their own sakes. 

            And yet, most of the mystery and thriller writers I know are more than agreeably sociable.  If you want proof, just hang out at the rambunctious hotel bar during Bouchercon, or any of the regional writers conferences that take place around the country. 

            Thinking about this, I was reminded of my college era playing in a rock and roll band.  We performed constantly throughout the school year.  After a while, some patterns

I'm hoping a guest singer will remember the lyrics

emerged.  Parties contrived to bring dispirit groups together took forever to get rolling, while the close-knit communities, like fraternities and sororities, launched on the first chord.  Thursdays often produced wilder nights than Saturday or Sunday.  I’m not sure why, unless it was anticipation of the coming weekend, or the thrill of rebellion – launching youthful mania while there was still a day of classes in the offing.  

Another high point was the first party after the end of exams.  Our college had a disproportionate number of pre-med and pre-law students, people we rarely saw during the passing months, having sequestered themselves in feverish study.  But after exams, with nothing left to prove, they’d emerge, pasty and unclean, and go completely nuts.  Their undeveloped social skills didn’t help, nor did a deep unfamiliarity with the plentiful intoxicants available at the time. 

So it could be that writers are a lot like college kids who spend their undergraduate years, and their parent’s tuition money, actually studying (I held down the other end of that curve).  Since we’re biologically pack animals, long periods of time isolated from human contact probably creates a pent-up demand.  A chance to re-engage ones vocal cords after hours in monkish silence.  An irresistible need to satisfy the intraspecies fellowship programmed into our DNA.

        That’s probably true, but I think an even greater impetus is mingling with people who do the same thing you do.  As with any reference group, be it police chiefs or philatelists, common experience short-circuits all the meandering, and stilted, searches for common ground that characterize social interaction.  Blessedly, when hanging with writers we don’t have to parry the usual inane questions, like “Have you written anything I heard of?” or “When are they going to make a movie out of your book?”  None of us is really very interested in the other’s childhood inspirations, choice of writing software, or process, whatever the hell that means.  In fact, most of my casual conversations with writers have absolutely nothing to do with writing at all.  Sometimes the travails of promotion come up, or an impending book launch, or a new project/agent/publisher, but usually we just talk about our kids and dogs, and recent vacations, just like everyone else. 

Still, I think common sense dictates that writers lean toward introversion, though there are plenty of exceptions.  Somehow a monstruous, flaming ego like Earnest Hemingway managed to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.  As did Winston Churchill, no one’s idea of a wall flower.  I could easily provide a list of mystery and thriller writers who could have

succeeded as standups or late-night talk show hosts (though Johnny Carson was, in fact, an introvert; deviations litter every argument.)  The most flamboyant of my closest friends started out his career as a freelance journalist.  I imagine someone had to strap him into his chair until the article was finished. 

Introverts do have one clear advantage.  While extroverts are shaking hands, kissing cheeks and angling for attention, introverts are watching the room.  They notice little slights and flirtations, they size up personalities and sniff out phony posturing.  Their nerves tingle from the social dynamic, registering envy, vanity and lust.  All of this gets stored away on mental file cards for future use.

        Most of the writers I know fit this description, yet they have a small contingent of people to whom they are very attached.  They prefer to go deep rather than wide.  I’ll cop to being one of those. 

We can turn it on when we need to, then quietly slip back to the keyboard.