If I'm Selling Books, Am I Selling Sex?

 Cathy Day's piece about the life of a novel was both inspiring and incredibly dispiriting. Let's begin with the dispiriting aspects so that we can end on a positive note, shall we? Cathy Day called attention to a whole host of things that I already suspected. Things like the way that marketing, luck and chance play into the degree of "success" that a book can have. (Here we are defining success by sales, the way that her piece seems to do at least initially).
     Incredibly, Day points out that a portion of the population (in her example men) will only consider reading a book if it might increase their odds of getting a woman in bed. She purports a situation where a man sees a woman reading "your book" and then considering whether he should acquire "your book" so he can then have something to talk to the woman about. It's all very interesting to ponder, and I have no doubt that this scenario plays out all across the country, but as a writer it makes the effort--the  agonizing over every word and sentence--seem somehow futile or at the very least, cheap.
     All that time and thought spent pouring over pages and at the end of the day, "your book" is being used as a tool to get into someone's pants? Does this make me a matchmaker or a madame? Who knows, but it's definitely a new way of thinking about the way that my words could change a person's life.
     But at least after running "your book" and the reaction to "your book" and the feelings that you might have over the worlds reaction to "your book" through the spectrum of depressing possibilities, Day gives us writers hope, or at least she gave this writer hope.
     The beauty of writing, like any art, is that it outlives us. While the chances of my work winding up in obscurity are much higher than any other outcome, there is also the chance that my writing might touch people I have never met, that it might change their minds or change their souls. It is this chance that keeps me writing, this possibility that lifts me up.