Writing is a lonely business. Shut the door, shush the phone, start typing. (I will always “type”, never “input”.) Scowl at anyone who dares knock, even if it’s Jane; threaten Henry if he barks (he gets it). At my most antisocial I’m my most sociable, for my words will soon be read by many. I feel together with you, though we could hardly be farther apart.

My focus is not what I want to say but what you might want to hear. No one taught me this. They taught, in an essay, to state one’s premise, stick to it, array arguments, then restate one’s premise, now a conclusion, tum-da-dum. Wake me when we’re done! Thoughts like lettuce wilt unless recently picked. Telling you what I know (or think I know) is a snooze; the joy of conversation is discovering together. As Robert Frost put it, who knew a thing or two about tickling fancy-bones, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”

Writing, then, of the voluntary, convivial sort, is a performance, like acting, singing, cooking, not a process, like cobbling. No writing delights if not made to order – for you – sur commande. Prearranged outings stink of calculation, like airplane food. That’s because the purpose of pleasant writing is not to inform, instruct, inveigh, but to enjoy one another’s company and thus feel less alone. If I know what I’m going to say before we start talking, I deflate you into a dashboard doll, whose sole role is to nod (and not nod off).

This sounds mystical, but it’s not. Together, for humans, is an imaginary state, not a physical fact. Am I together with the rush-hour subway riders, squeezed damply against me while I clap my wallet? Of course not. They’ve no idea who I am or I they except as irritants and risks. Here in my closed study, disembodied as a ghost, I know you vividly, for you are the various innumerable often profound sensations we share – dreads, fears, joys, hopes, lusts – not all, for we are not one, but many, for we are human, peas in a pod. If we were not so twinned and entwined, you would not be here, and I would not be eying you, to assess your enjoyment. Art strains to be charismatic, to gather a like-minded congregation and command their attention. If you like what I like we will like one another. As John Donne observed, we are most together when we see ourselves reflected in another’s eyes.

How to know what you might enjoy? Listen. This silence is not silence but a hive-like hum if you listen hard, for the traces of all voices linger in air. Am I listening to you or myself? Both – for what I’m listening for is what we share.

Making art is making love. Makers do not impose, they invite; seduce, not rape. Whatever our mode, our manner must be mannerly, attentive, gentle. Makers who bully like plantation overseers may achieve surrender, but never affection. In poetry I loathe swaggerers, brandishing their brilliance or obscurity. Speak to me as if I were a person, please.

While lonely in the doing, writing is the antidote to loneliness. The hymns in my childhood church loved me as my parents couldn’t; Shakespeare, too, when we met. Thoreau recruited me in college (though I could never keep up). Your embrace braces me. When you “like” my words, I envision you – preposterously, no doubt, but palpably. Together in a lifeboat in a choppy sea, we care for each other.