Block. It puts some writers down for DRAFT NO.4. Replacing the words in boxes. THE WNTING UFE

Transcription

1 Block. It puts som writrs down for months. It puts som writrs down for lif. A not always brif or minor form of it muts all writrs from th outst of vry day. "Dar Jol..." This is just a random sampl from lttrs writtn to formr studnts in rspons to thir howling cris as thy suffr th masochistic slf-inflictd paralysis or'a writr's normal routin. "Dar Jol..." This Jol will win hug awards and writ countlss books and a nationally syndicatd column, but at th tim of this lttr h has just bn finding out that to cross th lctric fnc from th actual world to th writing world rquirs at last as much invntion as th writing itsl "Dar Jol: You ar writing, say, about a grizzly bar. No words 32 THE NEW 'rorkei\. APRIL THE WNTING UFE DRAFT NO.4 Rplacing th words in boxs. BY JOHN McPHEE ar forthcoming. For six, svn, tn hours no words hav bn forthcoming. You ar blockd, frustratd, in dspair. You ar nowhr, and that's whr you'v bn gtting. What do you do? You writ, 'Dar Mothr.' And thn you tll your mothr about th block, th frustration, th inptitud, th dspair. You insist that you ar not cut out to do this kind of work. You whin. You whimpr. You outlin your problm, and you mntion that th bar has a fifty-fiv-inch waist and a nck mor than thirty inchs around but could run nos-to-nos with Scrtariat. You say th bar prfrs to li down and rst. Th bar rsts fourtn hours a day. And you go on lik that as long as you can. And thn you go back and dlt th 'Dar Mothr' and all th whimpring and whining, and just kp th bar." You could b Jol, vn if your nam is Jnny. Or Juli,Jillian,Jim,Jan,Jo. You ar working on a first draft and small wondr you'r unhappy. If you lack confidnc in stting on word aftr anothr and sns that you ar stuck in a plac from which you will nvr b st fr, if you fl sur that you will nvr mak it and wr not cut out to do this, if your pros sms stillborn and you compltly lack confidnc, you must b a writr. If you say you s things diffrntly and dscrib your fforts positivly, if you tll popl that you "just lov to writ," you may b dlusional. How could anyon. vr know that somthing is good bfor it xists? And unlss you can idntify what is not succding-unlss you can s thos dark clunky spots that ar giving you such a low opinion of your pros as it dvlops-how ar you going to b abl to ton it up and mak it work? Th ida of writing "Dar Mothr" and latr snipping off th salutation poppd into my had forty-on yars ago whil I was participating in a panl of writrs at th Y in Princton. Jnny was th only mmbr of my family thr. Sh was tn. Th bar got a big laugh, but chrlssly I also srvd up th masochism and th slf-inflictd paralysis, causing Jnny to tll m aftrward that I was not sktching a complt pictur. "You know it isn't all lik that," sh said. "You should tll about th good part." Sh had a point. It isn't all lik thatonly th first draft. First drafts ar slow and dvlop clumsily, bcaus vry sntnc affcts not only thos bfor it but also thos that follow. Th first draft of a long pic on California gology took two gloomy yars; th scond, third, and fourth drafts took about six months altogthr. That four-to-on ratio in writing tim-first draft vrsus th,_ othr drafts combind-has for m ~ bn consistnt in projcts of any lngth, 8 "... vn if th first draft taks only a fw 3. 0: days or wks. Thr ar psychological ~ diffrncs from phas to phas, and th l first is th phas of th pit and th pn- ~. dulum. Aftr that, it sms as if a ~ diffrnt prson is taking ovr. Drad c: CONSTRUCTION BY STEPHEN DOYLE

2 1. d u ~ r n ~ t ~r s, U l ~s ;- st l. lt,d a 1- :o r" n rs 1 'Y ly Ig 'P l- r l- w l- Jt ::>f k td 1S m l l h, w al 1 1- a td LE, t;:; z cr 0 u, z <i cr "' >- ro I Q <i CY <." c r c I : " largly disappars. Problms bcom lss thratning, mor intrsting. Exprinc is mor hlpful, as if an amatur is bing rplacd by a profssional. Days go by quickly, and not a fw could b calld plasant, fll admit. Whn Jnny was a snior at Princton High School and much put out by th tim it was taking hr to start an assignd pic of writing, lt alon complt it, sh told m on day as I was driving hr to school that sh flt incomptnt and was worrid about th difficulty sh was having gtting things right th first tim, worrid by hr nd to rvis. I wnt on to my offic and wrot hr a not. "Dar Jnny: Th way to do a pic of writing is thr or four tims ovr, nvr onc. For m, th hardst part coms first, gtting somthing--anything--out in front of m. Somtims in a nrvous frnzy I just fling words as if I wr flinging mud at a wall. Blurt out, hav out, babbl out somthing--anything-as a first draft. With that, you hav acf>ivd a sort of nuclus. Thn, as you work it ovr and altr it, you bgin to shap sntncs that scor highr with th ar and y. Edit it again-top to bottom. Th chancs ar that about now you'll b sing somthing that you ar sort of agr for othrs to s. And all that taks tim. What I hav lft out is th intrstitial tim. You finish that first awful blurting, and thn you put th thing asid. You gt in your car and driv hom. On th way, your mind is still knitting at th words. You think of a bttr way to say somthing, a good phras to corrct a. crtain problm. Without th draftd vrsion-if it did not xist-you obviously would not b thinking of things that would improv it. In short, you may b actually writing only two or thr hours a day, but your mind, in on way or anothr, is working on it twnty-four hours a day-ys, whil you slp-but only if som sort of draft or arlir vrsion alrady xists. Until it xists, writing has not rally bgun." Th diffrnc btwn a common writr and an improvisr on a stag (or any prforming artist is that writing can b rvisd. Actually, th ssnc of th procss is rvision. Th adulating portrait of th prfct writr who nvr blots a lin coms xprss mail from fairyland. Jnny grw up to writ novls, and at this point has publishd thr. Sh kps vrything clos-hauld, says nothing and rvals nothing as sh gos along. I onc askd hr if sh had bn thinking about starting anothr book, and sh said, "I finishd it last wk." Hr sistr Martha, two yars youngr, has writtn four novls. Martha calls m up nin tims a day to tll m that writing is impossibl, that sh's not cut out to do it, that sh'll nvr finish what sh is working on, and so forth and so on, t ctra, t ctra, and I, who am probably disintgrating a third of th way through an impossibl first draft, am supposd to turn into th Rock of Gibraltar. Th talking rock: "Just stay at it; prsvranc will chang things." "You'r so unhappy you sound authntic to m." "You can't mak a fix unlss you know what is brokn." Whn Jnny was tn months out of collg, sh was bginning to dvlop som rtrospctiv mpathy for m on that day at th Y whn sh was tn. Now sh was in Edinburgh, writing on a fllowship, and sh told m in a lttr of hr continuing doubt and discouragmnt. Thos wr th days of papr airn1ail, and by papr airn1ail I rplid. With rspct to hr wish to bcom a writr, sh said sh was asking hrslf day aftr day, 'Who am I kidding?" I said, "I think I first startd saying that to myslf almost xactly forty yars ago. Bfor that, whn I was twlv, I had no such qustion. It just smd dad asy-a rip, a scam-to tickl som machin and caus it to print mony. I still ask myslf, Who am I kidding?' Not long ago, that qustion smd so prtinnt to m that I would bury my had in my offic pillow. I was undrtaking to writ about gology and th qustion was propr. Who was I to tak on that subjct? It was trrifying. On falls into such projcts lik slipping into cavs, and thn wondrs how to gt out. To fl such doubt is a part of th pictur-important and inscapabl. Whn I har som young writr xprss that sort of doubt, it srvs as a chckpoint; if thy don't say somthing lik it thy ar quit possibly, wll, kidding thmslvs." Sh said, "My styl is always that of : what I am rading at th tim--or ovrwhlmingly slf-conscious and straind." I said, "How unfortunat that would Th McKittrick Hotl, hom to SLEEP NO MORE. wlcoms Passport to th Arts attnds to Gallow Grn, th hotl's scludd rooftop bar, on Saturday, May 4th. Light far and libations will b srvd from noon to 6 p.m. Th McKittrick Hotl, an mporium of curiositis, will unlock surpris prformancs and ntrtainmnt xclusivly for gusts of Passport to th Arts all day. FOR TICKETS. VISIT passport.nwyorkronthtown.com or call THE NEW YOI\KEI\. API\IL

3 f t I < r s 1 1 s J f., j u t g I L 0 :s and forst rivrs. Thirty yars latr, I was trying to choos a word or words that would xplain why anyon in a modrn nation would choos to go a long distanc by cano. I was damnd if I was going to call it a sport, but nothing ls occurrd. I lookd up "sport." Thr wr svntn lins of dfinition: "1. That which divrts, and maks mirth; pastim; divrsion. 2. A divrsion of th fild." I stoppd thr. His profssd critria wr to tak it asy, s som wildlif, and travl light with his bark canos-nothing mor-and on could not hlp but lan his way. I had known of popl who took collapsibl cots, down pillows, chainsaws, outboard motors, cass of br, and battry-powrd portabl rfrigrators on cano trips--vn into dp wildrnss. You st your own standards. Travl by cano is not a ncssity, and will nvrmor b th most fficint way to gt from on rgion to anothr, or vn from on lak to anothr-anywhr. A cano trip has bcom simply a rit of onnss with crtain trrain, a divrsion of th fild, an act prformd not bcaus it is ncssary but bcaus thr is valu in th act itslf. If your journy is long nough in wild country, you chang, albit tmporarily, whil you ar thr. Writing about a rivr vally in Arctic Alaska, I was trying to dscrib that mntal chang, and I was sarching for a word that would rprsnt th ida, catalyz th thm. "Assimilat" cam along prtty quickly. But "assimilat," in th contxt, was wors than "sport." So I lookd up "assimilat": "1. To mak similar or alik. 2. To likn; to compar. 3. To... incorporat into th substanc of th appropriating body." W sat around th campfir for at last anothr hour. W talkd of rain and kstrls, oil and antlrs, th hight and th hadwatrs of th rivr. Nithr Hssion nor Fdlr onc mntiond th bar. Whn I got into my slping bag, though, and closd my ys, thr h was, in color, on th sid of th hill. Th vision was indlibl, but far was not what put it thr. Mor, it was a sns of souvnir, a sns of shr luck at having chosn in th first plac to follow Fdlr and Hssion up th rivr and into th hills, a mmnto not so much of on momnt as of th ntir circuit of th long aftrnoon. It was a vision of a whol land, with an animal in it. This was his country, clarly nough. To b thr was to b incorporatd, in howvr small a masur, into its substanc-his country, and if you wantd to visit it you had bttr knock. I was lft, in tim that followd, with on hug rgrt. In thr yars of Alaska travl, rsarch, and writing, it nvr occurrd to m to wondr why th Arctic was calld Arctic. I nvr thought about it until a fw yars aftr th book was publishd. If only I had lookd in th dictionary, I would hav incorporatd th word's origin into th substanc of th writing. This is how "Arctic" is dfind: "Prtaining to, or situatd undr, th northrn constllation calld th Bar." It was William Shawn, th ditor of Th Nw Yorkr for svral dcads, who first mntiond to m "th irrgular rstrictiv which." Mr. Shawn xplaind that undr crtain unusual and spcial circumstancs th word "which" could b mployd at th had of a rstrictiv claus. Ordinarily, th conjunction "that" would introduc a rstrictiv claus. Nonrstrictiv: This is a basball, which is sphrical and whit. Rstrictiv: This is th basball that Bab Ruth hit out of th park aftr pointing at th fnc in Chicago. Th first ball is unspcific, and th sntnc rquirs a comma if th writr wishs to digrss into its shap and color. Th scond ball is vry spcific, and th sntnc rpls commas. Thr can b situations, though, whrin words or phrass li btwn th spcific objct and th claus that provs its spcificity, and would call for th irrgular rstrictiv which. Confronting this mmory, I cannot...-;:,; - -:- ~ ~ '...c--.,...,..~ --- \....,. '- ~ tf>!lf.h '.\\{JA '--,,,, say that it kicks old Buddha's gong. Yt it has snt m through th ntirty of two of my books on a computr sarch for th irrgular rstrictiv which. In wll ovr a hundrd thousand words, I found thr: In 1822, th Blgian stratigraphr J. ]. d'omalius d'halloy, working for th Frnch govrnmnt, put a nam on th chalk of Europ which would com to rprsnt an ungainly shar of gologic tim. Oakmont uss a Poa amrua of its own cration which bars fw sds and thrfor rsults in what golfrs dscrib as a "lss pbbly" surfac. Dominy had risn to bcom U.S. Commissionr of Rclamation, th agncy in th Dpartmnt of th Intrior which impounds watr for as much as two hundrd mils bhind such constructions as Gln Canyon Dam, Grand Coul Dam, Flaming Gorg Dam, Hoovr Dam. As it happns, thos xcrpts ar not from th Shawn ra but ar all from pics publishd in th twnty-first cntury. Th Nw Yorkr, in othr words, has by no mans forgottn th irrgular rstrictiv which, or th rgular arth from which it springs. In th sam books, incidntally, I also quotd Thorau and Lviticus, and may hav wincd in Shawn's honor. Four hundrd yards abov th intrstat bridg w cam to Carthagina Island, standing in a flatwatr pool. Thorau dosn't call it by nam, but h dscribs it as "a larg and rl- "Popl not from hr don't undrstand. It's not a wapon-it's a way of lif." ----< '-.\II

4 dnsly woodd island... th fairst which w had mt with, with a handsom grov of lms at its had." Nothing irrgular thr, H.D.T. It was th fairst island that you mt with. Lviticus: And th Lord spak unto Moss and to Aaron, saying unro thm, Spak unto th childrn of Isral, saying, Ths ar th basts which y shall at among all th basts that ar on th arth. Actually, Mr. Shawn was just anothr spar-carrir in th hall of usag and grammar. Th dais was occupid for mor than half a cntury by Elanor Gould, "Miss Gould," who was Mrs. Packard, and whos wid rputation spd down vn into th awarnss of apprntic writrs vrywhr. I was scarcly ightn, and alrady collcting rjction slips, whn I hard or rad about a twnty-two-yar-old Vassar graduat namd Elanor Gould, who, in 1925, bought a copy of th brand-nw Nw Yorkr, rad it, and thn rrad it with a blu pncil in hr hand. Whn sh finishd, th magazin was a mottld blu on vry pag-a circld mbarrassmnt of dangling modifirs, conflicting pronouns, absnt commas, and ovr-all grammatical hash. Sh maild th markd-up copy to Harold Ross, th founding ditor, and Ross was said to hav bllowd. What h bllowd was "F md this bitch and hir hr!" In rality, Elanor Gould was nin yars old whn Ross invntd Th Nw Yorkr. Sh grw up in Ohio, wnt to Obrlin Collg, and graduatd in Svn yars latr, sh sought a job at Th Nw Yorkr, and in hr application sh mntiond on or two xampls of th sort of hlp sh flt sh could provid. For xampl, somthing is not diffrnt than somthing ls; it is diffrnt from somthing ls. It was Shawn, th managing ditor, who hird hr. Thr is no compact or simpl titl for what sh did across th following fifty-four yars. Sh was not an ditor-not, at any rat, on th highr lvls of holding writrs' hands. Sh was not a fact chckr, although sh would surly mntion any fact sh lookd upon as suspct. What sh did was rad th magazin in gally proofs and mark up th proofs. Each gally had a Nw Yorkr column running down th middl and nough margin on ithr sid to park a car. Sh filld th BEACH WEDDING Bing just a ston's throw from th prtty church thy oftn tumbl out onto th bach, unworldly craturs, th brid hrslf an apparition of satins or silks among stripy towls and inflatabl sharks, th groom in a morning suit, walking th sand in bar ft, waring his shos on his hands. Sh'll hitch hr drss as far as hr gartr, h'll carry hr som way into th watr. Stting out for Atlantis thy paus hr on th point of dpartur; hr long train floats on th surfac and drifts and darkns. Each mpty vning a figur arrivs in a shooting jackt and combat trousrs, combing th shor with a mtal dtctor, grubbing for coins or kys, swping for mins. Th shovl hookd to th back of his blt drags bhind him lik a dvil' s tail, plowing a furrow, marking a lon trail. Bfor first light a spring tid dos its work, panning for gold, rstting th sand, whil undr a thin sht husband and wif li badly woundd aftr th first fight. margins with rmarks about usag, diction, indirction, word choic, punctuation, ambiguitis, and so forth. Hr compltd product was snt on to th writr's ditor, who rad th marginalia and latr brought up slctd itms with th writr, or just handd th writr th Gould proof, as it was known, and lt th writr soak it up. Robrt Bingham, who was my principal ditor for sixtn yars (until brain cancr ndd his rlativly young lif and with it his xcptional capability, always passd th Gould proof along to m, almost always saying, "\\Thn sh says 'Grammar,' sit up!" On a highly comptitiv list, hr formost pv in factual writing was indirction-sliding facts in sidways, xpcting a radr to gathr rathr than rciv information. You don't start off lik an atmosphric fictionist: "Th hous on Lovrs' Lan was whr th lovrs lovd loving." A Gould proof would hav askd, "\\That hous?" "What lovrs?" "Whr is Lovrs' Lan?" In -Simon Armitag short, if you ar introducing somthing, introduc it. Don't gt artistic with th dfinit articl. If you say "a hous," you ar introducing it. If you say "th hous," th radr knows about it bcaus you mntiond it arlir. Mr. Shawn was influncd by Miss Gould far mor than vic vrsa. H was a bar on indirction. Hr suggstd fixs did not always ris into comparison with invisibl mnding. Som writrs dvlopd ractions in th tantrum rang. Nothing, though, was bing forcd upon th pros. If th writr wishd to ignor a salint commnt from Miss Gould instad of slapping th forhad and fling gratful, that was up to th writr. It was th writr's signd pic. If th writr prfrrd warts, warts prvaild. A Gould proof rarly ndavord to influnc in any mannr th structur or thsis of a pic, and was not mant to. Its purpos, according to Miss Gould, was to hlp a writr achiv an intnt in th clarst possibl way. Sh sat you up, lt m tll you. And not only did you not 36 THE NEW YOI\KER. APRIL 29, 2013

5 g, 1 JU ",, JU as m n. s g. 1 as r m ta :. ~d r 0. d, in p, ot hav to accpt hr suggstd fixs but alscr-of cours-you wr fr to fix th fixs according to th sound of things in your own had. Th gnral trm for all this-from "hous styl" to a Gould-lik proof-is copy diting. Miss Gould accptd th titl "grammarian" for svral dcads, but grammar was only th bas of things sh ractd to as sh monitord th magazin. Hous styl was actually dalt with by othrs bfor sh saw anything. Hous styl is not a rfrnc to th canard that an ntir magazin can b mad to sound as if it wr writtn by on writr. Hous styl is a mchanical application of things lik splling and italics. In Th Nw Yorkr, "travlling" is splld with two "l"s. Book titls ar framd in quotation marks. Th nams of magazins ar italicizd, and if th nams ar in th possssiv-tv Guid's, National Gographis-th "s" is italicizd, too. Th nams of ships ar not italicizd. It is hous styl to put th two dots ovr a scond conscutiv idntical vowl, bcaus th hous dos not cooprat in dmphasizing diarss. In articls in th Nw York Tims th nam of vrybody mntiond is prcdd by Mr., Ms., or Mrs. (if not by a lofty titl lik Prsidnt, Gnral, Snator, or Cardinal, and, traditionally, if a Tims rportr got into a skin boat with an Eskimo in th Chukchi Sa no prsonal pronoun was vr going to gt into that boat. "A visitor" got into that boat. Th Chicago Manual of Styl is a quixotic attmpt at on-styl-fits-all for vry hous in Amrica-nwspaprs, magazins, book publishrs, blogishrs. Copy ditors attnd th flow of th pros and watch for laks. Whatvr ls sh was calld, Elanor Gould was a copy ditor. Sh was on of svral in a dvloping tradition that bcam a lgacy. For a singl closing issu, today's copy ditors rad Nw Yorkr proofs so many tims and in so many ways that thy variously subtitl thir own fforts. Th fiv incumbnts call thmslvs copy ditors, pag 0.K.' rs, qury proofradrs, and scond radrs. Thy all do all of it, and that's four job dscriptions ach for fiv popl-twnty functionaris at fiv dsks. Thy also do what Elanor Gould did, and to this day whn thy finish working on a gally proof thy say that it has bn "Gouldd." If thy liv in hr shadow, thy lngthn it. Thy can b rarfid. Rading a sntnc lik "Sh didn't know what happnd to th othr fiv popl travlling with hr," thy will s that what th writr could man is that th travllr was on of lvn popl on th trip. This is high-alloy nitpicking, ys. But why not? Thr is lganc in th lss ambiguous way. Sh didn't know what happnd to th fiv othr popl travlling with hr. To lingr in th sam thin air, what is th diffrnc btwn "furthr" and "farthr"? In th dictionary, look up "furthr." It says "farthr." Look up "farthr." It says "furthr." So you'r saf and can roll ovr and slp. But th distinction has a diffrnc and O.K.'rs know what's O.K. "Farthr" rfrs to masurabl distanc. "Furthr" is a mattr of dgr. Will you stop plting m with drision? That's nough out of you. You'll go no furthr. Gtting into an authntic standoff with this multitalntd, multifactd, proofrading, qury-proofing, copy-diting, grammar-wilding corps is difficult to do, and in fifty yars I hav don so twic. On standoff, which shall not b laboratd hr, had to do with my flippant us of scholarly parnthtical intxt citations (Mourt, 1622 in a pic in which th works citd did not appar on what scholars call th Works Citd List. Thr was no Works Citd List. Th othr standoff-rlatd to th issu of Fbruary 23, 1987-had to do with th possssiv of th word Corps, It was th pic about southrn Louisiana, th Atchafalaya Rivr, th vast swamp, and th lvs, spillways, and navigation locks of th U.S. Army Corps of Enginrs. It approachd twnty thousand words in lngth, and, as you can imagin, th word Corps was all ovr th txt lik an ruption of masls. Oftn, th word occurrd in th possssiv. Whn I was in th ighth grad, Miss Bartholomw told us that a noun nding in "s" could b rndrd possssiv by an apostroph alon or by an apostroph followd by an additional "s," ti gos to th writr. Now, in th Louisiana pic, I had writtn Corps' for ach and vry possssiv Corps, and th copy ditors said that th possssiv of Corps should b printd as Corps's. I thought I was in a morgu. I said so. Th copy ditors phalanxd-m vrsus th PRESEtHED BY ffi I THE LINCOLN MOTOR COMPANY Cond Nast 2013 THE NEW YOI\KEI\. APRIL

6 THE NEW YORKER APNL 29, GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 17 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Rports on th Boston bombing; Jams Surowicki on th gray conomy. William Finngan Yoni Brnnr john McPh Luk Moglson Rogr Balln Ian Parkr joshua Frris 24 ANNALS OF IMMIGRATION Th Dportation Machin A citizn vs. th systm. 30 SHOUTS & MUR.MUI\S My Rcurring Nightmars 32 THE WI\ITING LIFE Draft No.4 Sarching for th right words. 40 LETTER. FR.OM ALEPPO Th Rivr Martyrs Burying th dad in a city at war. 50 PORTFOLIO Forign Emotions 54 PROFILES Happinss Noah Baumbach changs dirction. 64 FICTION "Th Fragmnts" Gorg Packr Alx Ross Hilton Als Anthony Lan THE CI\ITICS 70 A CRITIC AT LAR.GE Dprssion litratur, old and nw. 76 BOOKS Brifly Notd 78 MUSICAL EVENTS Womn composrs. 80 THE THEATRE "Th Nanc," "Matilda. " 82 THE CUI\1\ENT CINEMA "Oblivion," '1n th Hous. " tl Simon Armitag Lia Purpura POEMS 36 "Bach Wdding" 60 "Bginning" COVER. "Shadow Ovr Boston," by Eric Drookr DRAWINGS Robrt Lighton, Jack Ziglr, David Siprss, Matthw Diff, Alx Grgory, William Hafli, Danny Shanahan, Christophr Wryant, Edward Std, Kaamran Haftz, Paul Noth, Mik Twohy, Roz Chast SPOTS jacob Escobdo THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 29, 2013