Two and Two: How Much Do You Want It to Be?

A maths problem and a big laugh

I still remember a joke in one of my favourite course books I used to teach by, in a previous life. It stereotyped professions, but it was still funny. Several professionals were called to answer the question how much is two and two. The scientist replied that it depends on the numeric system. The lawyer, that it’s been proved to be somewhere between 3.999 and 4.001. The accountant replied, winking: how much do you want it to be?

Just so you don’t get it wrong: I’m not advocating going criminal.

I’m talking real life here. Big, grand, vast real life. They say we spend half of our lifetime learning to fit in, and the other half dismissing the ballast and learning to be ourselves. Or something along these lines.

There’s a pattern at work. We first need to learn how things are done around here. Cause and effect, rules (written or not), reward and punishment and what they’re awarded for, formal and informal, genre conventions, you name it.

And if we’re lucky – or inspired – we sometimes discover that these colossal thou shalt not’s are simply a construct. Well, maybe not simply. But still: a construct. And what do constructs have in common?

There are always other constructs. They’re interchangeable. They’re not what life’s like; they’re just what we’re like. Which leaves us the door to go out and pick another room (with another view).

Things are not as simple as I present them here, of course. These constructs aren’t fibs of our own imagination; they are shared with the others populating our space. But telling the difference between a hard fact, wired into the universal DNA, and what we, humans, have decided is right (for a while, until the next fad comes on) triggers the liberation. We suddenly see the crack where the light comes in.

My daughter and I have been debating for a while now whether to stay where she is, or go away; whether to take employment, or stick to freelancing. She’s discovering that one path doesn’t necessarily exclude the other, unless she decides so. She said last night in our latest conversation, “it’s up to me whether I keep both on the table.” Eureka! It took me over twenty years longer than her until it even started dawning on me. Thank you, Universe!

Speaking of genres. As I’ve been writing recently, I’m busy getting my novel Lili Comes to Herself published. I knew “you had to have an author website”, but I kept putting it off.  An author website? I’ve got Mentatrix. Some experts here, in the know, claim that you can use your Substack as an author hub.

Smug. No hassle, no extra costs. I’ll take it.

But it took some mindfulness to go back to this choice and ask myself a few things:

• Why did you start Mentatrix? Wasn’t it to practise writing and connect with an audience? Is it really your place as a novel writer? How much Lili promotion can your Mentatrix readers swallow? Would the Lili readers and the Mentatrix readers be the same?

• What do you want your Lili readers to see first when they come across your writing hub? Is it the Substack interface asking them to subscribe? And then the magazine-like first page?

• Do you want to keep the Lili readers and the Mentatrix readers apart, so you can write different stuff for them?

You get the idea. To cut it short, I’m working on my website, but am keen to keep it simple.

So the next construct was – what’s an author website? I asked AI and got the key headings: Bio, Books (cover, synopsis, purchase links), News, Reviews, Events, Contact, Newsletter sign-up.

I learnt how things are done around here. And I did my best. Honest. But between the paragraphs, sub-headings, and add-new-section commands, a voice was screaming in me just like Lili, this isn’t me!

Who reads a bloody author website anyway? Why bother?

The bother’s right, I assented in my inner court, but then make the bloody website worth it. Worth my bother, worth the chance visitor’s bother.

An author website is supposed to – what? Nudge the visitor to buy that writer (not just their books). And it does this how?

By describing how exciting the writing is.

Well, then...

...why don’t I give the visitor a sample? Instead of telling them what a great writer I am, show them? Instead of helping them to imagine what my voice might sound like – give them my voice right then and there?

You get it. I rewrote everything as a fictional book signing event, with questions from the audience. The author is being interviewed on their own website – in a fictional dialogue with their readers. You’re reading about a fiction author? There’s your fiction sample.

Meet Zoe Carada, fiction writer and blogger

… the host announces. Ahead of me is a crowd of readers, some of them already holding my novel, Lili Comes to Herself, on their laps. 

“I was born in Romania,” I begin, “live in the beautiful Black Forest in Germany, and write in English. So I'm a writer between three languages – but also countless quests. First I was an exile, then an expat, now I’m finally at home in my world. Through my fiction writing, I invite you to travel to other spaces and times as I tell stories of becoming, growing, and connecting. Please join me in exploring the fine boundaries between fiction and reality,” I conclude my opening lines, short of breath. 

(...)

“But what kind of writer are you? What’s character-driven fiction?” a somewhat grumpy gentleman in the far left corner interrupts.

Silence. “It means that whatever is going on outside, I look at what goes on inside the character’s mind.”

“Ahem,” an elderly lady comes in clearing her throat. 

Who else writes like Zoe Carada?

I gulp. I need prominent names that everyone might recognise, but I don’t want anyone to believe I compare my writing to their level of excellence.

“Right, let’s say that if you like Jonathan Franzen and Elena Ferrante, you might enjoy my book, too.”

I see some nods in the audience. 

(...)

“In 1986 Romania, brainy and introverted Lili Danes is suffocating with estrangement. Her only hope: get into university, study physics, and become an astrophysicist. She’s got many things wrong about life. To her, standing out is dangerous under the ever-watchful eye of the communist state, so she keeps herself to herself. Taught that embracing pain leads to breakdown, she switches off in the face of adversity to stay strong. Life to her is an equation governed by laws and logic.

“But when this equation is shattered by incomprehensible events, she becomes lost. Blow after blow pushes her further into a sleepwalker’s trance — and an anti-romance. With disaster looming, she will need to speak up at the risk of standing out and will have to embrace pain as a way out. She will need to examine her choices: what version of herself can she still be?”

“1986 Romania? Ha!” someone without a face butts in. “Why should anyone care? Water under the bridge!”

“Well, I guess any book aims to answer at least two questions. One is for the protagonist — to solve their dilemma and move on. The other one is for us, readers. Isn’t that one of the strongest reasons why we keep reading a novel? To see what answer lies at the end?

“And that deeper question for us readers is here: how can we free ourselves from the conditionings created to deal with failure? Even more so, when the society and our role models, in or outside the family, are the very drivers of such mechanisms?

(...)

What’s coming next?

...the young lady raises her voice to cover the shuffle of feet and chairs as the audience is forming a file for the signing. “Are you working on anything?”

“Yes, I am,” I reply, grateful for the question. “It’s a romance,” I say, winking at her.

“A character-driven one, I suppose,” she teases. “What about Lili? I’m already half-way through and I think surely there must be a series so we can follow her later in her life.”

I gasp. Why didn’t I think of it?

Maybe. Watch this space — ahem, sign up for the newsletter, please!

(The website’s not yet live, but will let you know when.)

I laughed while writing, while editing, while re-reading. Yes! That’s me!

Still, some momentary anxiety grips me now and then. Aren’t I breaking colossal laws of the universe here?

I checked some of my favourite authors’ websites this morning. Disappointed. It goes to prove two things: either they don’t give shit about an author website (which I must, for now, until I get Franzen’s sales figures), or their marketing people are self-made website builders of the 1990s (I can relate!).

Genres are good, but dynamiting them is better – when impact is what you’re looking for.

Mapping alternatives is good, mixing and matching is healthier – when that’s what you truly want.

Colossal universal laws turn out to be possibilities.

How much was two and two again?