Broadly speaking, there seem to be two kinds of writers. There are those writers who detach themselves from their societies, their communities, sometimes even their families, and pursue their art with rigorous, perhaps obsessive discipline. Then there are those writers who are maniacally outgoing, sociable, and communicative. The first kind tend to produce only a handful of meticulously-considered works during their lifetimes; the second never seem to stop writing and often deliver everything from novels to autobiographies to popular journalism. In French literature, Gustave Flaubert is the best-known model for the first kind of writing, while Balzac and Georges Simenon are decent models for the second.
So, I put the question to you: Which type of writer do you think is better? At its best, the first model involves inspired intensity and noble self-sacrifice, while the finest principles of the second model are cosmopolitanism, generosity, and social engagement.
Yet each kind of writer faces unique pitfalls. Writers who retire from society are in constant danger of getting lost in their heads--of creating beautiful sentences that have nothing to do with how people (or people other than them) actually think and feel. Super-sociable writers can arrive at the same unfortunate place, but by an entirely different route. They can be caught up in writing activities so hectic that little time is left for self-improvement, or for thinking in increasing depth about human psychology and human nature.
Which of these categories do you prefer? Are most of your favorite writers self-oriented or society-oriented writers? Keep your answers to the last question firmly in mind, since I'll be returning to this issue--and taking a totally new approach--in my next post.