by Lisa Black

1. “So you’re a writer. Anything I might have read?” Unless you just handed me a list, how would I possibly know what’s in your personal library? People’s tastes are vast, varied and unpredictable. Some subsist on a focused diet of romances, or history, or celebrity memoirs. Some wouldn’t touch a book with pink in its cover art and others will go from Proust to Janet Evanovich and back again without a hiccup.

Even if you read murder mysteries, do you like hard boiled PIs or courtroom dramas or country-dwellers with multiple psychic cats? And how am I supposed to know?

2. “I’d love to write a book, but I don’t have time.” You think I have time? You think I don’t have to do the laundry and pay bills and cut the grass and go grocery shopping and, oh yes, work full-time at a day job because Lord knows I’d never make it on writing alone? Now, yes, sometimes real life does interfere—like right now, my current work in progress is on the back burner because my day job has to take priority. But on the whole writing is like exercise—if you only do it when you have time/feel like it, you’ll never do it.

3. “I have this great idea. Would you be interested in writing it with me?” Maybe, if you already have a string of successful books under your belt–collaborations can be stunning. But people who don’t have that experience often have no idea how much work it is to write a book. What they mean is, I have an idea so how about you do everything else and give me half the profits that all writers have rolling in?

I hate to break it to you, but the idea is the easy part. Actually churning out eighty thousand words or so and making them reasonably compelling is where things get tough.

4. “Do you have a platform?” This one usually comes from publishers and agents. Authors are informed almost daily that we have to come up with entertaining, personal, engaging posts on a host of different platforms, giveaways, contests, and newsletters as well as keeping our websites constantly updated with new material. I could probably do all that, but then I really wouldn’t have any time to write. (See #2)

5. “You should write about [fill in the blank].” Unless I’ve specifically asked you what you, Ms. Total Stranger I Only Met Ten Seconds Ago, think I should write, please don’t tell me. After my first book was published, an old boyfriend super-helpfully told me that authors often try writing something in a different genre to help them freshen their work. He hadn’t even read what was my very first published book, but knew my work needed ‘freshening.’

Of all the boyfriends I’ve had, he’s the one I’m most glad I didn’t marry.

So if you’re talking to a writer and don’t want to watch their smile go from genuine to pained in two seconds flat, you might want to avoid these topics. But do talk to us, because the truth is, we’re fragile, insecure human beings who spend a huge amount of time alone in a room conversing with people who don’t exist.

Just don’t bring up platforms.

Guest Author Bio: Lisa Black is the New York Times bestselling author of 17 suspense novels, including the Gardiner & Renner series and the Locard Institute series. Her works that have been translated into six languages, optioned for film, and shortlisted for both the inaugural Sue Grafton Memorial Award and the Nero. She is also a full-time CSI at a police department in Cape Coral, Florida. She has spoken to readers and writers at numerous conferences, been a consultant for CourtTV, and was a Guest of Honor at 2021 Killer Nashville. Sign up for her quarterly newsletter delving into travel, forensics and the writing life.