The Worst Interview Question Ever (Substack Chunk One)

I’ve been sending out a Substack newsletter with some frequency, lately.

But people still come to this blog, to read blog posts.

So I thought I would post some of the things I’ve put in my substack here on Bloggie.

Why not self-plaigarize, when I’m giving all this stuff away for free anyway?

Here goes.

I think my least favorite thing in the whole world, right now at least, because I just saw it somewhere online, is when someone asks a writer or other creative person to name something that was made by a different artist that they wish they themselves had made.

I don’t understand the question. And I’m convinced that the first time anyone asked it of anyone, the person doing the asking must have had no creative inclination whatsoever.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m weird. Maybe I’m the one who doesn’t understand life and the world. Maybe I need to take some time to figure things out that other people have no trouble with.

Maybe I should try meditating, but I have not once in my life read the work of another writer, in any genre, and thought, Wow. I sure wish I had written that.

The only way I can make sense of the question is to imagine that this is what people who aren’t creative think creative people are like. That when we’re reading a novel we think is cool as hell, or whatever, we are thinking, all along, If only I had written this!

It just doesn’t make any sense. I read the novel Big Swiss, by Jen Beagin, a few weeks ago. It’s soon to be adapted to a TV show I’ll probably hate, if the adaptation of I Love Dick is any indication. But I like the novel a lot—it’s so damn funny, I can hardly believe it—and I didn’t once think to myself, in all the time I spent reading it, If only I had thought to write this first! What was I thinking, not writing this book myself?

It just seems so greedy. Someone makes something great, and your response is to wish you’d made it instead of them? I can’t fathom that.

I guess that kind of thinking would make sense if you were, let’s say, an entrepreneur. It would make sense to look at the successful company Nike and think, Damn. If only it had occurred to me to invent the swoosh and build sweatshops where they are applied to shoes that are also made at the sweatshops.

There’s something to covet, there, I guess. They’re making lots of money. But creative work is not the same thing.

Or maybe it is for other people. I don’t know.

Do painters go to art museums and get flooded with envy when they see a work of art that strikes them a certain way? Am I supposed to be gnashing my teeth out of jealousy anytime I read a good book?

The only time I’ve ever seen someone asked that question and been satisfied by the answer they gave was when someone on the internet asked Taylor Swift what song, if any, she wished she had written that was written by someone else. She said she wished she’d written the theme song from the TV show Friends, because she would have made so much money from the royalties.

That answer makes sense to me. I get it completely.

I wouldn’t say I wish I’d written The Firm, by John Grisham, because it’s nothing like anything I’d have ever written. But it did make that guy a lot of money, so I can see how I would benefit from having written it.

I’m not a fan of Taylor Swift, but I’m a fan of how she answered that horrible question.