Sorry I’ve been silent (again) for so long. In addition to teaching two writing seminars at Penn, I’ve been busy with book revisions. Those are now done, so I should be back (again) to more regular blogging.
Given the glacial pace of my contributions to TNR in recent months, perhaps it makes sense that I’d return with a post about . . . the pace of writing. Back in late September (an eternity ago in Internet time, I know), Ezra Klein—along with Matthew Yglesias, the boy wonder of high-speed blogging—wrote a post about the new partnership between The Daily Beast and the Perseus Books Group that will publish books on a highly accelerated schedule. Here’s the plan:
On a typical publishing schedule, a writer may take a year or more to deliver a manuscript, after which the publisher takes another nine months to a year to put finished books in stores. At Beast Books, writers would be expected to spend one to three months writing a book, and the publisher would take another month to produce an e-book edition.
This inspired Klein to remark on how much easier it’s gotten to write quickly:
Writing doesn't take very long. Quoting doesn't take very long. But assembling information used to take an awful long time. It required a lot of phone calls and microfiche and faxes and walking over to Brookings and paging through newspaper archives and begging a source at Gallup. Now it doesn't take much time at all. That allows me to be the equivalent of a very fast columnist, and there's no reason it won't allow others to become very fast book authors.
“Writing doesn’t take very long.” I suppose not. I mean, I’ve written some long emails in the amount of time it takes me to type. Perhaps the next time I’m starting a book I should open my word processing program, imagine it’s an email, start typing, and keep typing until I’ve gone on for two hundred or so pages, taking momentary breaks to surf the Web so I can gather some needed information along the way. I bet at that rate I could finish it in a couple of months.
But would it be a book? Or at least what, until quite recently, we understood by the word? You know, a lengthy, sustained argument about, interpretation of, or engagement with a topic, one meant to be of lasting value—would my 200 or so pages of typing be that? Would it be worth reading six months—let alone ten or more years—after it was published? Or would it instead be something very different—merely a 55,000-word blog post, as ephemeral as the latest news cycle?
I like blogging. I enjoy its informality and instantaneousness—the way it provides me an opportunity to spout off publicly about this or that outrage of the moment. Opining is fun, and so is ideological combat.
But a book is, or should be, something different: A chance to slow down. An opportunity to raise one’s sights a little higher. To stop focusing so incessantly on the moment and strive, instead, to step back a bit, to take in a wider view, perhaps even to rise above the fray. To reflect instead of react. To ruminate instead of respond.
And what of style? Klein’s statement implies that the only thing that might keep a writer from producing a book in a couple of months is the time it takes to conduct research. As if writing were a process of compiling and arranging lists of facts and figures. Maybe when blogging about public policy, that’s what it mainly is. (Though surely even Klein has paused for five minutes now and then to make sure he nailed a put-down of George W. Bush?) A book can, and should, strive to be more than a list of information. At its best, a book of non-fiction can even aim to be a form of literature.
What Beast Books is proposing, and what Klein is promoting, is (in Truman Capote’s words) the reduction of writing to typing. The typing might be clever, and witty, and informed, and politically useful. But in most cases, it will also be hurried and harried, merely echoing or negating the conventional wisdom of the moment, not placing it in a wider context or viewing it from a broader perspective. And that will be a incalculable loss to our culture.
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COMMENTS (4)
Sorry you've been gone a while? No apology needed, I never noticed.
I would argue that the internet doesn't so much speed up the writing as it does the publishing. This and not the ability to type fast is what reduces the quality of writing. For high school and most of college I wrote my papers long hand, then typed them manually, crudely penning over any typing mistakes. I had some difficulty organizing my thoughts long hand, using a complicated system of inserts and cross-outs legible only to me as I developed my points. Later in college I finally learned to use a word processor and found it much easier to organize my thoughts. My writing I think became clearer. But organizing th ... view full comment
Sorry you've been gone a while? No apology needed, I never noticed.
I would argue that the internet doesn't so much speed up the writing as it does the publishing. This and not the ability to type fast is what reduces the quality of writing. For high school and most of college I wrote my papers long hand, then typed them manually, crudely penning over any typing mistakes. I had some difficulty organizing my thoughts long hand, using a complicated system of inserts and cross-outs legible only to me as I developed my points. Later in college I finally learned to use a word processor and found it much easier to organize my thoughts. My writing I think became clearer. But organizing thoughts still takes time and had I been forced to instantly hand over whatever I typed would have resulted in half-baked papers.
I think in the long run you (meaning Mr. Linker, not juniper_tree) are wrong- broader context and perspective are just types of information, and will eventually be subject to our immensely improved ability search and organize information. Right now the WWW consists almost entirely of work done between 2000 and 2010 by a Westerner, usually meaning an American. Googling for "worst tariff.ever" will almost certainly bring up results about either Bush's steel or Obama's tire tariff. When writings from a broader range of perspectives becomes available (cf Google books) people will necessarily gain a better perspective while they do research, instead of being limited to looking through an histo ... view full comment
I think in the long run you (meaning Mr. Linker, not juniper_tree) are wrong- broader context and perspective are just types of information, and will eventually be subject to our immensely improved ability search and organize information. Right now the WWW consists almost entirely of work done between 2000 and 2010 by a Westerner, usually meaning an American. Googling for "worst tariff.ever" will almost certainly bring up results about either Bush's steel or Obama's tire tariff. When writings from a broader range of perspectives becomes available (cf Google books) people will necessarily gain a better perspective while they do research, instead of being limited to looking through an historical and cultural pinhole.
I think you're misinterpreting Ezra (and apparently so does he). His point isn't that the only elements of writing are typing and gathering facts and figures, or that reflection is unimportant. His point is that the overall writing process should be faster when a piece of that process that used to be very time-consuming becomes relatively quick. That doesn't really say much about the rest of the process except perhaps that you're able to devote more time and attention to it.
I've never tried to publish a book, but to pick an example with which I do have experience, writing scientific papers has become much fast ... view full comment
I think you're misinterpreting Ezra (and apparently so does he). His point isn't that the only elements of writing are typing and gathering facts and figures, or that reflection is unimportant. His point is that the overall writing process should be faster when a piece of that process that used to be very time-consuming becomes relatively quick. That doesn't really say much about the rest of the process except perhaps that you're able to devote more time and attention to it.
I've never tried to publish a book, but to pick an example with which I do have experience, writing scientific papers has become much faster with the advent of the internet and various online databases (PubMed, CrossRef, etc.). More information is available faster and in a more organized manner. That doesn't mean that scientific papers have become 10-page blog posts or that scientific writing is just a process of compiling and arranging facts and figures. It still requires reflection, thought, and analysis, as it always has, but writing papers is faster because you can spend your time on those things instead of on stuff like wandering through shelves of journals in the library to locate and photcopy the articles you want (assuming you even know in advance which articles you want).
Well, how's this for a meandering thought? I agree, and I disagree. Isn't writing fundamentally about the fever that rises in an author, compelling her to work? The consternation/inspiration of creative thought that does, frequently, leave her sleepless, hyperalert, and writing at warp speed? Later comes the grind, the cleanup - editing itself. That better, second thought that wipes out at least half of what was done in the altered state. But isn't the kernal of brilliance in thought itself all about the restless moment, the burst, the epiphany? Or is that just the Dunkin' Donuts coffee makin' me talk nonsense?
I love reading Don Marquis. Yes, the Archy poems. "Expression is the need ... view full comment
Well, how's this for a meandering thought? I agree, and I disagree. Isn't writing fundamentally about the fever that rises in an author, compelling her to work? The consternation/inspiration of creative thought that does, frequently, leave her sleepless, hyperalert, and writing at warp speed? Later comes the grind, the cleanup - editing itself. That better, second thought that wipes out at least half of what was done in the altered state. But isn't the kernal of brilliance in thought itself all about the restless moment, the burst, the epiphany? Or is that just the Dunkin' Donuts coffee makin' me talk nonsense?
I love reading Don Marquis. Yes, the Archy poems. "Expression is the need of my soul, Boss." There's something of that in what Beast Books is doing, I think. Marquis was a poet who also worked in a highly disposable medium. It was torment to him not to have a huge expanse of time in which to wander the fields of inspiration. But look what he did! On deadline! In a newspaper! I mean...gold is where you find it. So is writing. May the people at Beast Books find plenty of gold nuggets to nurture our age and contribute what they can to the greater whole.
OK - off for more coffee.
--Kim