Writing is like every other job. It is about relationships.
I was emailing a writer today with under the auspices of my official editorial duties for TheHighCalling.org. And I just stopped mid email. I was suddenly overwhelmed by how much fun it was to work with this writer. He works hard, pursues excellence, and lives with integrity. He doesn’t make excuses. He doesn’t get defensive. But he’s not spineless either. He is so giving. He is so gracious with his work.
As an editor I love to work with writers who are generous like that.
That’s when it really hit me. Good writers give themselves away.
I’m not talking about the melodramatic bleeding at the typewriter bit. I’m talking about something more cosmic. Good writers put their readers before themselves. They put the market before themselves. They put their editor before themselves. Like Paul says, they do not think of themselves more highly than they ought to think. Rather they think of themselves realistically, according to the measure they’ve been given.
Good editors do this too. And good publishers. And good teachers. And good doctors and lawyers and politicians and business owners. And good fathers and mothers and daughters and sons.
I’ll say it again. Writing is like any job. It is about relationships. Every text implies a relationship between the reader and the writer. When writers treat that relationship like they would any other—when they talk to readers, when they meet readers, when they shake hands, when they show respect, when they act like real people—that just makes everyone like the writer more.
And when people like you, they will like your book.
Just ask your mom. You could write crap and she would love it.
{ 26 comments }
Which is why, I guess, we shouldn’t ask our moms to tell us if we “have what it takes.” (Though, a good mom, in the spirit of good relationship, might find her way to honesty and save a child from certain humiliation!)
Anyway, I mostly agree with you on this. However, it occurred to me this past spring that some writers don’t really like people but people still seem to like them.
That is true about some writers not liking people. But isn’t it so much easier when they do?
Your comment reminds me of the big paradox for writers. Creating a book or article or story or poem is an almost anti-social activity–but marketing the work once its created is intensely social.
I guess, I’m just assuming that writers should be expected to help market their work.
On the other hand, the very best writers I work with do little to no marketing at all. For example, the last time I “talked” with Eugene Peterson he didn’t say a single word.
Great thoughts, Mark! Being a servant, and being open and vulnerable. And highly appreciating the work of others. Keenly seeing the good there. I think these are all important in our work and relationships in it.
Ted, thanks for posting. I pray God helps us be the kind of workers he needs.
I’m thinking about that phrase “keenly seeing the good.” As an editor, that also means “keenly knowing which sentences and paragraphs to strike through.” It’s a tough way to serve others sometimes.
Don’t we all want to be all good? Even knowing my human failings, it hurts to have others point out the parts of my life that need to go. Or the parts of my writing.
I think that another way we love our readers is by being responsible writers. We have to know how much to share of our lives, how much to “burden” readers with, and also what not to share.
This is really true of most other relationships too, just as you communicated.
I think I might print out the phrase, “Good writers give themselves away,” and tape it to my monitor! I love it.
What a wonderful thing to say, Charity! Thanks for the encouragement.
Is it fair to say also that “poor writers give nothing away”? I think back in my writing career and can see where my writing was stiff and boring. I think at lot of that had to do with being to afraid to put myself out there. I didn’t want to give away the fact that I had faults. I was afraid of what my readers would think (that maybe they wouldn’t like the real me). In terms of relationship it was duplicitous and just didn’t work. Not that I’m a great writer now, but I’m learning to let go of my hangups and be real. It seems to have improved my writing (at least in terms of integrity).
One of the biggest ironies in publishing is that the best writers are often quiet introverts who are averse to self-promotion. And the most marketable books are by big name celebrities who are too busy to write books.
Al… so, in essence, who is writing the books?
The preciousness surrounding our craft can be unbelievable at times… you’re right.
I’ll take the Paul and run with it… nice connection there.
At many of the bigger publishers, they actually make a distinction between the “author” and the “writer.” The author is the celebrity or personality; the writer is the ghostwriter/wordsmith that interviews the author and repurposes sermons and transcribes stories and edits them into readable prose. Often the publisher works primarily with the writer, and at some point they run the manuscript by the author who approves or disapproves and says, “yeah, that sounds like me.”
It’s common to see something in a book’s acknowledgments like on p. 600-something in Billy Graham’s autobiography Just As I Am where he thanks Jerry Jenkins for his editorial assistance in assembling the manuscript. Christian publishing is much better now than it was fifteen years ago or so when writers were rarely acknowledged. Now it’s more often to see “So-and-so with Such-and-such.” It was a big deal in Christianity Today some years back when Chuck Colson started crediting his cowriters in his columns. (Though most of his BreakPoint radio commentaries don’t have the byline of the actual writer/researcher, even online.)
I read an article in Publishers Weekly a few months ago about agents for ghostwriters who work with big-name celebrities through New York publishers. Some of them, say a Paris Hilton book or something, can pay a ghostwriter as much as $100,000 to write a book!
I should say that for the most part, in the kind of publishing I work with, having an outside writer/editor is still fairly rare. An exception is when we developed some Bible study guides based on Michael Card’s books with us, and we enlisted some professional Bible study writers to adapt Mike’s material into Bible study sessions. And in a few other cases we’ve published books that started out as audio tapes or transcripts of sermons. But for the most part, our books are written by our authors. The author is the writer.
Al, you are just awesome. Thanks for sharing some of the inner workings.
Being a bit of a ghost myself, I don’t feel it is ethical for me to talk about the work I do for authors. I think the right thing would be for them to acknowledge who wrote the material–even if many of the ideas and all of the resources (except my time) were theirs.
But I decided that the ethics fall on the author in this case. If they feel it is unnecessary to credit me, that’s their call.
Thanks for bringing some of these practices out a little bit more.
Robert, so good to see you here, man! I love your work. Keep it up.
A Musing Mom (clever pun in your name!)
And good point in your comment. Good writers give themselves away; poor writers don’t. Even if the way they give themselves away isn’t quite as social as I implied in the post. And even if good and poor are about more than money or readership or even manuscript quality.
Sometimes the best way to love readers is to be honest with them. Like you said.
That’s such a tricky thing, though.
When I taught high school (10 years!), I heard counselors telling kids “Just be yourself.” And everyone nodded. But I thought it was just the most useless advice.
Don’t you think the kids want to be themselves? Of course, they do. But they don’t know who they are.
At my best, I have moments of lucidity.
At my worst, I spend my life coping and staying afloat without much thought about who I am or who God wants me to be.
Good writers know who they are.
God help us all be good writers.
L.L., thanks for the link on your blog!
Toush-ay. (In the good way, yes? You have been so generous with YOUR links… it’s contagious.)
In college I took fencing, and we treated the word “touché” as a sort of compliment to an opponent who scored a surprise hit. I don’t know if that’s what it means or not.
By the way, you make this symbol é by typing ampersand+eacute+semicolon.
I just noticed that I can’t preview a comment here! That must change. I’ll have to look into it.
Now I’m headed to the hospital to see my sister’s new baby. Born 20 minutes ago!
Oh, congratulations!!!
Uh, what’s an acute semicolon?
It’s funny that ghostwriting should come up. As I was reading your post, I thought that as a ghostwriter, I don’t have the luxury of being difficult to work with. I work very closely with “authors” for 3-5 months at a time, and if I didn’t try to be professional and pleasant, I’d at best lose out on referrals (my primary source of advertising), and at worst, find the “out clause” being exercised.
Ghostwriting has helped me remember that writing is a business–even if it is often for a higher calling. I have a customer, and my customer has customers (publishers and readers). It’s my job to make the product the best it can be, but I also must give myself away. I’m writing for someone else. The project, literally, is not about me.
I don’t think it’s too much of a leap to say it’s the same for writing under our name for a magazine. Excellent writers understand that editors are their customers, and that those editors have customers. The article is not just about the writer.
Congratulations, Mark, on your new neice! I hope everyone is doing well.
Epee, sabre or standard foil? En guarde!
Mark,
Thanks for this very lucid post and the continuing interaction on the comments section. You’ve raised a lot of great, salient issues here and I hate that it’s rendered me speechless. I hate being speechless. You just don’t . . . say . . . anything . . . when you’re speechless.
Anyway, I read this post and comments from three angles:
– that of emerging writer: it’s true that we probably can’t write much of true value if we don’t know ourselves, and I think part of knowing ourselves is knowing our actual place with true humility before God and others
– that of editor for a book publishing house: wow, I could really get on board with you about the joy of working with authors who “give themselves away”; I just worked with one this week, actually, and it was amazing how much my day buzzed at a much higher energy level just from the graciousness — and gentle tenacity — of that writer and how he responded to our edits!
– and that of a mere human being: I think much of the task of living is learning how to be in right relationship with God and others (and I have to tell myself, “First and second greatest commandments ring a bell . . . ?”). I wonder how long it takes us to actually grow up? Ah, that’s right. It will take the rest of our lives.
Thank you, Jesus, for your graciousness with us as you bring this work unto completion.
Standard foil, but I always wanted to learn epee.
Good writers reflect generosity precisely because they know they don’t create anything. Rather, they discover it. Or listen to it. Or receive it.
They are messengers.
Indeed, servants.
They better be. Walker Percy said the only thing separating him from the void was a Scripto pencil.
Patrick, I like the idea of thinking about editors as customers. That’s pretty smart. I hadn’t thought of that before. Ghostwriting is such a tricky thing. In some ways it is the ultimate service (for a fee, of course).
You mention businesses that are also a higher calling. I prefer the term high calling myself. (Too much company, er, foundation cool-aid, perhaps.) But I do think that we are too quick to think of some professions and services as holier than others.
With very few exceptions, all work can glorify God. And should!
Your editing. Your ghosting. Your writing. Even if you receive money, the glory goes to God.
Christianne, you are far from speechless. : )
I love the thought of being an emerging writer. That outlook would certainly change the way I think of success.
If I’m constantly emerging, then I will never arrive as a writer. I will never be too good to stop taking advice or stop reaching further.
I like what Robert Browning says about this in the poem “Andrea Del Sarto”: Your reach should exceed your grasp or else what’s a heaven for?
Of course, the character who says that is using it as an excuse to fail over and over again. We need to be careful that we also don’t use the idea of emerging as an excuse for failure.
Charlie,
Yes! Writer’s don’t create anything. We only mimic God’s creation. Art imitates life, right? Stephen King talks about each book being like finding a huge ship buried in the sand. All he has to do is carefully clear the sand away to find the novel.
On the other hand, I do hope that we can surprise God with our creations. God seems surprised a few times in the Bible by the things people do. Abraham asking for his name, for instance.
I want to be like a kid with the five hundred piece lego set. God knows all the possibilities, but it is still nice to see us come up with them on our own and offer them to him. I suppose it is the moment of giving it over that is the surprise, not the creation.
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