My book showed up in a magazine profile of the bag of famed fashion blogger and friend Anita Clarke. This means my book probably goes to more parties than I do.

She says:

My good friend Ryan Oakley had his first novel, Technicolor Ultra Mall, published this year. I pre-ordered it months in advance and even got him to sign my copy. I’ve been reading it during my commutes to work. Ryan’s writing is so good that it makes me forget that the author is a friend.

This is actually quite a compliment. I’ve known Anita for many years but never let her read any of my books. She read a few short stories when they were published.

I subscribed to the idea that friends make terrible critics. Not because they’re soft but because they know the artist and, therefore, cannot know the art. They’re either aware of the man behind the curtain or looking for him. Since the artist is just an imperfect transmitting device for art, the view of friends is destructive.

I might have picked that notion up from Nietzsche during high-school. Can’t really remember.

But, for as long as I remember, I hid my work from those closest to me.

My wife didn’t even read this book until a few weeks ago.

As I’ve aged, I’ve developed a much more acute sense of the loneliness of writing a novel. Which is odd, considering that its end result is communication. But the making of it? When no one is reading it but you? It’s isolation.

Not only do you have to lock yourself in a room away from everyone to do god knows what for god knows what reason but, when you leave the room, your whole personality is invisible. It’s like a double life. One that makes the written word the truth and the lived experience the disguise.

To this day, that very private approach works for me. I hate discussing my work while it’s in progress and long-time readers will know how little I’ve ever discussed writing on this blog.

But, in being published, one becomes exposed.

In being exposed, one kind of has to deal with it.

At least publication assigns some sort of purpose to all that time spent alone — a practise that is hard to explain to people who don’t share your madness. That first cheque provides some evidence that something is actually happening when no one is looking. It might sound trite but, after a while, you need some sort of proof.

I’ve spent much more time not being published than being published.

During that period, the private road was the best one to take. For me. Not for the people around me. And probably not for you. At any rate, I couldn’t recommend it.

For starters, it’s lonely. It too easily leads to a lot of drugs, misery and, maybe, even suicide. It’s a dangerous way to live. Fucks up one’s sense of reality.

Killed by book might sound glamorous but it’s just sad. Particularly when its not the author who dies or suffers. It can leave a lot of your life looking like so much road-kill.

It’s not even necessary. A lot of people have a lot of success while sharing their work with their friends. I’ve just never been able to do it. I’m trying to be a bit more open these days but it’s hard.

Not sure the hinges on the door even work any more.

If I’m totally honest, a lot of that is probably due to a complete lack of confidence. I find it really difficult to be friends with a creative person if I don’t respect what they create. Expecting other people to be the same, I’ve never been willing to stake a friendship on my work.

But I’m probably not as bad a writer as I think and my friends probably aren’t as ruthless as I’d hope.

So it’s really nice and personally meaningful to have an old friend read my work and to forget that I wrote it. Because it makes me irrelevant and that’s what I want to be. I only get in my way.