Seacoast History Blog #69
September 29, 2009
For the last week I have been polishing the opening paragraph of a chapter in the middle of a history book that I’ve been working on all year. For the research I’ve been reading volume after volume, interviewing people left and right, combing the Internet, haunting the libraries. It’s hard work. So imagine my surprise on learning that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has finished her first history book in scarcely two months. For someone who appears not terribly literate and who often speaks like she’s reading from a dictionary in a blender, Palin is apparently a dynamo at the written word. Her book, Going Rogue: An American LIfe, will reportedly be in the stores before Thanksgiving. (Click above to continue)
Just for grins, let’s review the timeline. Palin quit – I mean resigned – from her elected job as governor on July 26. Two months later, her book is done. According to Cathy Friar of RightPundits.com, Palin’s memoir is now in the fact-checking and editing phase and will be on the stands November 17th.
I just went through the edit/ fact-checking phase on a little book I wrote months ago for kids. That process took a couple of weeks on a 64-page text. That book will be out sometime in 2010. Palin’s book of some 400-pages will be edited, proofed, designed, printed, and shipped in half the time, all 1.5 million copies.
That mechanical part I believe. That is nothing special in this modern day of miracles. But that still leaves Palin and her "co-writer" Lynn Vincent having churned out 10 complete book pages per day, assuming Palin took weekends to adjust to her new lifestyle, do all those media interviews, and care for her family. An average nonfiction writer is lucky to get out 500 words a day, or 1,500 a day for a fiction writer. Certainly Stephen King works at a much faster pace when he’s on a roll, and many on the political left may see an eerie comparison there.
During a writing break this week I caught some of the latest Ken Burns special on the National Parks on PBS. (I’m still beholden to him for a nice note on the dustjacket of my last book, so I hung on for over an hour.) The first episode featured Scottish-born naturalist John Muir (1838-1914), a lyrical writer who has been called the "Thoreau of Yosemite". Muir studied glaciers in the Sierra high country and once noted their similarity to the writing process.
"Writing is like the life of a glacier," Muir noted, "one eternal grind."
That is true for me, I know, and worse. Writers are not only writing all the time, every day, bit by bit, but they are forever looking for that next project, that next glacier, that will keep them grinding away. In the last three days, I found myself kicking around ideas for three future projects via email with three separate parties. One of those discussions was about a book that, if it goes ahead, will not appear until 2016. The one I’m working on today is due in 2011. The one before that took three years to complete.
But not so for Sarah Palin. She is either one of the fastest word processors on the planet or she was working on this project long before she quit – I mean retired from -- politics. Or, and this seems the obvious conclusion, ghostwriter Vincent has been hard at work for months doing the literary equivalent of what Tina Fey did for Palin on Saturday Night Live – making her look good. Vincent of San Diego reportedly left a decade-long job at the Christian-based World Magazine for what has to be a writer’s dream income.
Palin, unlike John Muir and myself, cannot complain that the writing life is one eternal grind. She’s already done. She probably found writing to be quick, fun, and profitable – like being governor, or running for vice president. And for that, we whining glacial speed curmudgeons should stand and salute her. Clearly we try too hard.
There are lessons here for those who don’t have time to waste on facts and style and depth. Rogue is vogue. Writing isn’t so tough, gosh-darn-it, when you’ve got someone doing it for you. Say it ain’t so Joe. It’s a no-brainer. I can see that Pulitzer from my front porch.
Copyright © 2009 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.
