If you can't annoy somebody with what you write...

I think there's little point in writing. ~ Kingsley Amis

And some days, I think the only person I annoy is myself. The days when the words are working against me and not for me, when I can't for the life of me get this stupid passage right. When the inside of the brain isn't matching the screen or the paper in front of me. But I guess annoying myself is better than nothing.

Sure it's really easy to push a few political buttons and tick people off, but where's the fun in that? Anyone can do that. It's the idea of writing a story that can get under the skin. Not just the annoying, as in angry kind, or the pull the carpet out of normal people's lives kind, but kind of like Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, where you finish the book and walk around for three days saying to yourself, "Oh, so that's why so and so is like that." Not out loud of course. But you finish the book and feel like you understand the world better. Not because of some obscure facts about old secret societies, but because there was some measure of truth (not truthiness) and you really can understand people better.

I guess that's why Smiley won the National Book Award. Go figure.