Writing About Writing

(Beware, you who agreed with Lane's post about introductions: Even though this is only a blog, and not addressed to anybody in particular, I am going to preface it with a greeting.) 

Hello! My name is Brooklyn (or so you think), and I am Lane's sister. We don't share a nose, but we do share a cynical outlook.

My name may or may not be Brooklyn.

I don't know who you are, but if you're reading my post, I like you already. Do you know why?
Because nobody reads anything that I write. Actually, that's an exaggeration. Just last Friday somebody read something I had written. I was in the car with my little sister Abby and our friend Tyler; although I was too tired to form a complete sentence, being the only person of the three who possesses a driver's license, I had to somehow muster the energy to drive us nearly the entire circumference of our city. On the way to our destination, I told Abby to dig around in the back of my car (there will be another post on that subject) for my printout of the first two chapters of a novel I had recently begun rewriting.
(Beware, another greeting is coming, for in the first one I neglected to mention something about myself that you might like to know.)
Hello! My name is Brooklyn, and I am a novelist.

Tyler is subtle. If you can find him in this picture, I applaud your eyesight.

So anyways, Abby found the manuscript and handed it to Tyler per my request. Tyler is a fun guy. He's fourteen years old and has probably read more books than I have. Before I begin a new reading or writing project, I consult him to request his opinion, and he is always right. Therefore I asked him to read my two chapters while we (I) drove. (...although, in truth, at this point in my energy level Tyler should have been the one driving, license or none, and I should have read the script to him. But I survived to tell this story, didn't I?)
15 minutes later, Tyler set the pages down on his lap and nodded almost imperceptibly. He does almost everything imperceptibly, so I've learned to pick up on his signals. I asked him if he liked it, and he said yes. Any other writer would have been discouraged at the shortness of this response, but I could hear the faint vibration of genuine excitement behind his voice, and confidently I pressed on. 
"Are you intrigued?"
"Yes," said Tyler.
"Do you want to know more?"
"Yes."
"Do you like Josiah [one of the main characters]?"
"Yes."
"Do you like Novella [another character, obviously]?"
"Yes." There was a pondering pause before he continued: "I think I like Novella better than Josiah." 
Spurred on by all this positivity, I suppose I became a little overconfident when I ventured to ask a question to which he could not simply reply "Yes" or "No".
"Why?" I asked.
We were stuck in traffic, which gave Tyler what should have been a sufficient amount of time to ponder. But it wasn't until roughly 3.5 hours later (I'm not exaggerating) that he finally answered me, providing the quietly insightful "character analysis" that I would have expected from him.
Moral of the story: Some people do read things that I write. But the fact that they must literally have the manuscript handed to them in order to do so... is a little frustrating. That's why people publish books.
But what happens, readership, when your book fails to be published?
Find out next time, in the post that was really supposed to be written right here (but I got sidetracked with my story about Tyler--can you blame me?): 

"Writing About Publishing".

Thanks for reading!

Brooklyn