Don’t look over my shoulder…
This post isn’t about the NSA or a peeping Tom (both are creepy and spooky, but something akin to the first is necessary considering terrorist threats to this country and the world). I’m talking about a NY Times article two weeks ago (11/22/15) about a Times columnist looking over Lee Child’s shoulder as he wrote yet another Jack Reacher book. We’ll forget about Child’s possible business motivations for allowing this. We’ll even forget the following question: OMG, another Jack Reacher book? (The article discusses #20!) I want to consider the psychological reasons why any writer would even allow this.
I probably write thousands of words on any given day, Saturdays, Sundays, and U.S. holidays being exceptions. I hammer out these blog posts, maybe do some social media (others might be tired of my verbose comments there—I’m an opinionated SOB—your saving grace is that I’m mostly a lurker), and work on my stories (generally procrastinating with the copy editing in preference to actual writing and content editing). I really don’t want anyone looking over my shoulder. I want the possibility of writing in my skivvies if it strikes my fancy. I want the possibility of snacking on a forbidden tidbit or leftover (cold pizza can be a breakfast food) or having an extra cup of java, maybe laced with Jameson whiskey, without anyone being an eye witness.
In particular, I have to write alone. I consider Child’s companion a peeping Tom—certainly not a pervert, but a peeper all the same. How could Child even function like that? Maybe he has a cruise control like you have in your car when it comes to Reacher? I couldn’t do that, even with Detective Castilblanco; I have to be focused. For example, my books don’t have many juicy sex scenes (Child’s don’t either), but having someone looking over my shoulder as I write them seems a wee bit like S&M. My books do contain violence. That’s almost as hard to write as the sex scenes. I need to focus on what I’m writing. And I don’t need anyone to observe what percentage of those final words on the page are untouched and original and what percentage comes from focused content editing.
I’ve never had a co-author. (Child hasn’t either, but Patterson has established an industrial assembly line using this business model.) It’s not that I don’t admire other writers. There are so many good ones around that the competition for readers is now unparalleled in the history of publishing. Moreover, I know some of them, at least in the virtual reality of internet-land, and there are some really great people among them with whom I probably could work well if I didn’t have this hang-up that Child apparently doesn’t: That co-author would be looking over my shoulder too, just as I’d be looking over her or his.
I don’t understand Child. One of the reasons authors have so many problems with PR and marketing is that writing is, for the most part, a solitary occupation. We’re used to being nerdy and reclusive—we even need it. I don’t how Child pulled this off. Maybe the aphorism “any publicity is good publicity” trumped that need for solitude when creating art or literature. Ever taken one of those courses where everyone gets together and paints the same scene while chatting and drinking wine? I have. Didn’t like it one bit. Won’t do it again. And I couldn’t help thinking of my father alone and painting his still lifes and landscapes. I’m like that, only with writing. To create I need solitude. That was true even in my old R&D day-job—I dreaded meetings or anything done by committee. You might be able to finish a brick wall faster if more than one person is helping to do it, but I can’t imagine writing a book via committee, even if that committee reduces to two people.
And don’t get the idea that my reluctance to do any of this is because I’m a linear thinker. Some of my books are more linear than others, but that’s only because the story worked out that way as I was writing. Many of my books are complex. The reader has to be alert. The Midas Bomb, one of my early novels, is like that, so I put time stamps on every chapter to help the reader out (a lot of action takes place in about a week–a new edition will be released soon). I’ll admit that linear writing lends itself to having a co-author, but I’d still be nervous if someone were looking over my shoulder, even in a Child-like experiment. If I take a detour and write a flashback, I don’t want to even see a raised eyebrow—well, maybe my own, if it seems that a character has taken me off on a tangent. I then want to stop a moment and ponder why. Maybe have a chat with that character?
Finally, I often am vocal while I write. I will say a character’s name a few times just to see how it sounds. I might read a bit of dialogue aloud. I had a great imagination as a kid, so I might make gun noises or grunts or other sound effects and try to come up with the mot juste or invent a word that describes the noise. And, if I have music playing, you won’t want to hear it when I decide to sing along. When I write, I need privacy to do my thing, whatever it is at that moment. That’s the way I work. Either Child works that way too and his peeper heavily edits out all the embarrassing stuff, or Lee’s one strange author.
In elibris libertas….
