The NYT on Books and Book Writing
New York Times executive editor Bill Keller on the paper's love-hate relationship with books.
The Times covers books, reviews books, ranks books and publishes books. We are total enablers.
We indulge our writers because we want the talent happy, and because a little of their prestige accrues to The Times. But we do so at a cost. Books mean writers who are absent or distracted from daily journalism, writers who have to be replaced when they leave their reporting beats and landed somewhere when they return. There is the tricky relationship between what they unearth for their books and what goes into the paper. There is the awkwardness of reviewing books by colleagues — and the greater awkwardness of not reviewing them. There is the resentment of those left behind to take up the slack, especially where fat advances have been paid.
Keller goes on to ask and answer the question of why writers write books in the first place. But his answer leaves something to be desired (perhaps since he's never completed an actual book of his own). Since we have quite a number of authors among both the contributorship (for starters: Peter Robinson, Claire Berlinski, Paul Rahe, John Yoo, Victor Davis Hanson, Judith Levy, Andrew Klavan, Bill McGurn, David Limbaugh, Adam Freedman) and the Membership, I'll pose the question to you: Why write a book?
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Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
Masochism?
I kid. I say, “Because it’s fun.” Don’t ask me exactly where the fun is located, because a lot of it is just drudgery and migraine-inducing stress, but it is, in fact, fun. (At least for me.)
Now publishing a book…that’s something else, which I will leave to those who haven’t hired a hitman to take out their former literary agent. (Although if you hired a hitman to take out my former agent, dude, drinks on me…)
Edited on Jul 19, 2011 at 10:31pmOct '10
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
It's an itch. You get an idea in your head that just has to be expressed, and you spend a couple years of your life finding the perfect way to get it out.
It's sort of like songwriting.
Nov '10
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
I largely agree with Jeremias, but there's something else in my case (I'm currently working on a book). I have finally gotten professionally involved in a field that I've always wanted to be involved in (Catholic Social Teaching), and that has required me to do a great deal of self-education. Since I'm doing so much research anyway, I want to share that with a larger Catholic population. Many Catholics wouldn't have the incentive or time to delve into the massive volumes or papal encyclicals that exist, but they might read a book written for laypeople on the subject. So, it's a way to share the fruits of the labor I have had to engage in anyway, and hopefully supplement my income in a small way (since working for the Church is not exactly lucrative).
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
Speaking as the author of eight published books, I'll tell you why: fame and money. Also: when you write a book you join the club. You're one of the people whose work you admire. Sure, you're not in the same league, but you're playing the same game.
Beyond these crass and self-aggrandizing considerations, there's something else - the itch that must be scratched, the story that comes to you in the strangest place, nags at you when you're doing something else, tugs at your sleeve: tell me.You hate to start, because it's so easy to start, and so disheartening to abandon. I published two novels in the 80s, but could never quite fall into the page, to use Stephen King's term, after that.
Now: I'm halfway through the Year of Four Novels. Finished one, a collection of 100 connected short stories, in January. Now I'm writing a 5-part series on Minneapolis, and they're just pouring out. I think about them when I go to bed and when I shower and when I drive to work. It's heaven. Will finish three by December.
Jul '11
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
Funny, I felt the exact same way about joining Ricochet :-p
As an aspiring writer with three complete, but unpublished manuscripts my answer is as follows: I had a story to tell that I hadn't seen/read anywhere before and thought I might like to share it. The process of writing can be quite cathartic and is a wonderful way to get to know ones own mind.
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
JV: it's not my own mind I enjoy getting to know - it's the strangers who take up temporary residence. ;)
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
I'm afraid I have to say that since there is no longer much of a market for my books--not enough for me to support myself by writing them, anyway--writing more of them would only be a vanity project. I used to write books because I found it an interesting way to earn a living. I took the fact that someone was willing to pay me for doing it as a sign that I was providing a service wanted or needed by other people. Price signals in the market have, as usual, efficiently conveyed to me important information about changing demand: I know now that very few people want that service anymore. Writing a book is far too much work for me to have any desire to do it for any reason but money--especially since it doesn't seem to be a good way of communicating ideas that are important to me to a wide audience, either.
Mar '11
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
The only book I have written is a technical textbook, which is quite different - it was my way of giving something back from my education to those who follow me, since the education I was lucky enough to have in the UK no longer exists. It sold about 1000 copies, which in my field is a lot, and I sometimes hear from people who read it and learned something useful from it - the best complement I had for it was that it is transparent (unlike my writing here).
I have always wanted to write a novel, something like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky; nothing too ambitious. But as I get older I have to accept that it ain't gonna happen, and I'm fine with that.
Aug '10
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
To get it out of my system.
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
I write, in the first place, to sort out my thinking. I never, ever end up producing the book that I thought that I would produce. Republics Ancient and Modern -- which in the hardback version was 1200 pages long -- began as an attempt to write an article that would make sense of the Spartan constitution in light of the American constitution (which I thought I understood). Similar stories could be told regarding Against Throne and Altar, Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty, and Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift.
I published these books -- all of which were written for a general audience -- with an eye to helping others sort out their thinking, especially graduate students, who may end up teaching large numbers of undergraduates. I provide ample annotation in the conviction that this alone may make the book indispensable and keep it in print. To date, no book that I have published or edited has gone out of print.
I cannot say that I make a lot of money doing this. Soft Despotism earned me an advance and brings in a certain amount. If I profit from the endeavor, it is by way of being invited to give lectures.
Edited on Jul 20, 2011 at 8:54amMar '11
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
At least with fiction, its the urge to create and to share some of those images swimming around inside your head with others.
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
I started writing my novel when I was covering the financial news (one of my previous lives) and became obsessed with two takeovers that were happening at the time -- the News Corp. takeover of Dow Jones and the Royal Bank of Scotland takeover of ABN Amro. They're both phenomenally great stories, loaded with intrigue and incident and hubris galore. I'm a huge mystery fan, and I thought at the time, somebody really ought to write a mystery with a mondo buyout at the center of it. After a while it occurred to me that I should do it myself, so I did.
The bottom dropped out of the stock market not long after I got going on the book, and I found I kept having to change the story to stop its becoming immediately dated. Eventually I pulled the story back a bit from the buyout, in part because of the changing marketplace and in part because other elements of the story sort of stepped forward. (There's a strong biotech element as well.)
I wrote it because I've always loved mysteries and always wanted to write one. Can't sell it to save my life, though.
Sep '10
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
I wrote it because I've always loved mysteries and always wanted to write one. Can't sell it to save my life, though.
Hmmm. I had a plot idea once that I never pursued after reading about high end English Butlers making upward of USD $400k: an entire corporation made up of nothing but butlers -- CEO Butlers, VP Butlers, Admin Assistant Butlers. I wasn't sure what they would do, but I was sure they could get financing in such an idiotic environment. I thought it would be PG Wodehouse meets Ron Chernow's JP Morgan.
As Chesterton once said: its the greatest book I never wrote.
Edited on Jul 20, 2011 at 5:49amMay '10
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
I think it was Michael Kinsley who said that readers like buying books more than reading them, and writers don't like writing books but having written them. So it turns out this whole "book" thing is really based on a mutual misunderstanding.
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
Shh! Don't let the cat out of the bag.
Jun '10
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
Lots of short stories, one unfinished manuscript. Now I mostly sit down on the couch until the feeling passes. When on vacation I usually start a short story which I write early in the morning while having coffee and waiting for the day to start. In normal life I am usually too busy reading to write and too ticked that I can't read at ten times the speed I actually read at; so in my view there is never enough time. I am always at least a full shelf of books behind, and if I add my kindle library into the mix, two selves. Lately, my writing has been limited to computer programs—bigger kick less work. For me it's a love-hate relationship with books. I try to only read one at a time, but invariably have at least a couple going at once. At the moment I'm reading three or four depending on what might be considered a cut-off date for the last time I read into one of those three or four books. And you guessed it, Ricochet does not help.
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
James Lileks:
Finished one, a collection of 100 connected short stories, in January.
Oh! I love short stories, and I love your writing. Please let us know how we can get our paws on a *cough*signed*cough* copy when it's ready!
Sep '10
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
Paul A. Rahe
Shh! Don't let the cat out of the bag. · Jul 20 at 8:56am
Again with the cats. I'm profoundly disappointed Professor. Guard your drapes.
Nov '10
Re: The NYT on Books and Book Writing
Do go on...