Stephen King, in his book On Writing, says that he listens to music while writing, often hard rock. This surprised me. I can’t hear any music while I’m writing as it interferes with the rhythm – the music if you will – of my sentences.
Then recently I listened (not while writing) to an interview with Pico Iyer, who talked about reading his new book for an audio book. It was the first time he had done it, he said, and he was happy to do it because the exercise allowed him to give his sentences the rhythm they had had in his head when he wrote them. He pointed out that the rhythm the author has in his brain while writing his sentences is not the same as that which readers have when reading them. He noted that when others recorded his books, they gave the prose a rhythm that wasn’t the one that he had had in mind. And I realized that all my efforts to give my sentences a perfect rhythm – my search for a word containing two syllables instead of one, or for one containing three syllables instead of two – are probably all in vain. I may as well put on some music.
A recent starred review in Publishers’ Weekly of a work of fiction quoted two lines from the book: The first, a racist comment from a peripheral character and the second, another character’s statement about the prevalence of racial hatred. And I wondered: Do writers win points these days simply by citing the currently approved obsessions? Wouldn’t readers be more impressed by the sharing of some telling observation from the author, a brilliant apercu perhaps, or an unusual or interesting use of language?
I gave a talk at the book event on Sunday, which I had titled "The Importance, and Frequent Frustration, of Being Different." Long ago I concluded that there are two ways to stand out as a writer: by being brilliant or by being different. Since the first was unavailable to me, I chose the second. It always surprises me that more people don't.
I was at an event Sunday that featured authors sitting at tables filled with their books. One woman approached my table and said aloud "The joys of travel."
"Yes," I said hopefully. "There are seven."
"I'm sure there are," she said a bit dreamily, and then walked away.
I sat there thinking: Really? Why are you sure? Why couldn't there be 10, or 5?
Later, another woman approached, and opened the book.
"Oh," she said in a voice of profound disappointment,"I thought there'd be pictures."
I played tennis this morning and every time the ball found the net, something that happened with distressing frequency, I thought: In an hour I'll be at my computer, where I'll be able to correct any unforced errors. And it will be as if they never happened.
Someone recently lent me Stephen King's On Writing, which is as interesting as I'd read it would be, but it has me thinking: Did she lend me the book because I'm a writer or because she's read what I've written?