That Chuck Wendig, he of Terrible Minds fame, he is so meta. I put forward a call on Twitter, asking people to submit questions to me via the Tumblr Ask Me Anything feature, in the hopes that it would generate blog fodder, and here’s what Chuck asked:

What do you want people to ask you?

This reminds me of a seminal bit from Stephen King’s On Writing. King asked Amy Tan if there was one question that never got asked at her authorial Q&As — a question she never gets the chance to answer. Tan said, “Nobody ever asks about the language.” In a way, King wrote On Writing to answer those questions about the language.

Of course, On Writing isn’t just a book about writing; it’s a memoir. Questions about the language aren’t just about the language at all. They’re questions about the work and the worker. They’re evidence that the questioner sees the work as work, and not just a mystical bolt of luck that makes finished works fall from a writer’s mouth. They’re curious about the writer as a craftsperson, and as a person.

I love that question of King’s. I steal it for interviews all the time: What question is missing? What don’t people ask about? What is it that you want to get asked, but don’t?

Maybe it’s no surprise, then, that I don’t have an answer to the question myself. I don’t have a standout, singular question that I’m dying to be asked. Instead, what I want is to be provoked into writing something unexpected. Or, I’ll admit, I want to be consulted. I want to be asked a question that implies my experience or my opinion has value to someone. (Who doesn’t want that?) It’s selfish and, typed out in front of me like that, a little pathetic, but so what? That’s the way that goes.

I thought I’d write out a list of questions I wanted to be asked — about my history, work, future, tastes — as the ultimate literal response to Chuck’s question, but this is what happened instead.

The truth is, I tend to put forward that request for questions when I’m feeling trapped in my house, pining for human contact. I want to be asked the sort of questions that start conversations. I want to converse. I want some indication that you can see me, sitting here, even though you can’t. Not really.

But also, I want to be asked about the language.