Why don't writers look charismatic?

One of the basic tenets of arts journalism is that whereas even the puniest rock star looks at least a bit like a rock star all novelists look like, at the very best, librarians.

Try as they may, and publishers spend fortunes on having them photographed in different styles, they never seem to look charismatic. They never look as if they've actually been anywhere or done anything. It doesn't matter how hard the imagemakers work you still look at the picture and think, here's a man who's spent days looking out of windows trying to think of a rhyme for the word "orange". He hasn't been doing much other than type.

I was in the National Portrait Gallery just now and found myself looking at the Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare (above). They can't prove it is Shakespeare. I'm a believer. The greatest writer of the ages and he looks like the owner of a small haulage business somewhere in the Midlands. It must be him.