Writing that Book After Work Hours: Why and How

Philip White

In a perfect world, each historian with a worthy book proposal would earn an advance large enough to enable him or her to focus solely on crafting a top notch manuscript. In reality, for those of us who write history in addition to working outside the academy, we work to convince university presses that our ideas are “academic” enough and trade presses that our book will be “marketable.” Once we get a deal it barely allows us to get enough Starbucks coffee to fuel late-night writing sessions after our “real” jobs are done for the day. After the tax collector has taken a cut and we’ve plumped down the cash for research trips, bought enough books to buckle already-burdened shelves, and purchased enough aspirin to kill a small horse, we’re typically left with a pittance. So why do we put ourselves through this?

It can’t just be because we’re suckers, or so I keep telling myself as my bloodshot eyes struggle to comprehend the horror of reading “2:00” again—and I’m not talking p.m.—on my bedside clock as I stumble into my bed, fearing the alarm that will blare in not even five hours.

Well, one reason is a cliché, but true nonetheless—love. Love of the subject matter, the new angle we’ve come up with, the historical characters we’re impatient for our potential readers to meet on the page. For me, it is all of these, plus the thrill of finding a detail that I’ve never seen before, something I’ve just discovered in a dusty archive file after a day of previously fruitless searching.

Another bonus is mastery, relative though that is, of our subject matter. Often, this involves the painful recognition that presuppositions we formed years ago are wildly inaccurate—a revelation that only comes from digesting a broad range of scholarly works to get as close to the “truth” as we can. We then do our own primary and secondary source work, which takes apart yet more generic or personal misconceptions, while supplying new facts to take their place. Supplement that with oral history, archival work and such and you can get dangerously close to (gulp!) writing a book with something new and important to say.

So now I’ve covered the “why,” at least in part, onto the “how.” Yes, the aforementioned caffeine, applied in careful doses that don’t cumulatively turn you into a jabbering, twitchy wreck that can’t sleep, is certainly needed. Beyond that there are the principles of organization and prioritization. The fact that you have might have a main job in which you must give your best effort, maybe a family and possibly, you slacker, some other, non-work interests, means you are dealing with very limited time. The first step in getting organized is working with your family to set up a realistic schedule that won’t push you over the edge or deny them the time they need. Then, you must find a suitable workspace in which distractions are minimal, a desk uncluttered and all the resources you need at your disposal. If this sounds elementary, forgive me, but it’s amazing how many wasted hours result from trying to eke out a first draft in a noisy, crowded, disorganized workspace. Next, you need to set yourself some deadlines, even if they’re “soft,” with your manuscript submission date in mind.

Once you’ve got these basics down, got all your research materials together and are ready to jump in, you need to prioritize. What are you going to tackle first, and why? List making may seem like a chore, but well ordered to-dos for each aspect of your project are useful: “Things to Ask My Advisor,” “Interviews to Conduct,” “Archives to Visit,” and so on. Then you must decide how much time to give to each list, and then each item on your list, in order to meet those established deadlines. It’s satisfying to get out the red pen and cross off items, one by one.

The third stage of getting a well-written book completed on time is execution. All the organization and prioritization in the world is useless if you’re not going to actually hunker down and get the thing written. This is tied to the umbrella over the three components—discipline. It takes discipline to clear your workspace, organize your folders so they’re easy to navigate, apportion your time adequately, and then to execute. Discipline is needed to say “no” when your buddies invite you out for a few cold ones or when you want to watch your favorite team lose again. It also takes discipline to listen to your body’s warning signals and take a night off when you need it.

If you can combine organization, prioritization, discipline, and execution you will be able to have fun with your research and writing processes, to eliminate wasted time and to create a finished product you can be proud of. And that, ultimately, makes the crappy advance, the sleep deprivation, and the raging caffeine addiction more than worth it!

In Praise of Oral History: A Dispatch from Fulton, Missouri

Philip White

In a 1940s-style coffee stand in the middle of a drug store, six grey-haired gentlemen sit around a long, light-wood table sipping coffee and swapping stories. They’re here at 10am six days a week (Sunday is a church day, and the drug store, as with many businesses in the town, is closed then), and the proprietor holds the same table for his most consistent patrons, who have gathered in this manner for over 25 years.

Today’s topic of conversation is the day Winston Churchill came to tiny Fulton, MO, 65 years ago to the day. Fulton mayoral candidate Bob Craghead recalls his father charging out-of-towners a whopping 25 cents a pop to park at his farm just outside the city limits. O.T. Harris, whose family is a part owner of the Callaway County Bank across Court Street, is laughing as he recollects the bank’s CFO Tom Van Sant (a frequent visitor at Truman’s White House, and the man who encouraged Westminster College president Franc McCluer in his unlikely bid to bring Churchill to town) reputation as what Jerry Seinfeld called a “close talker.”

My pen is working overtime to scribble down these priceless recollections, in case the batteries in the voice recorder on the table betray me. In the weeks before my Fulton visit, I’ve had similar conversations, albeit by phone, with half a dozen Fultonians. One gentleman was so eager to share his memories that the aforementioned recorder ran to more than 90 minutes. Then he called back the next day with another half hour’s worth of vivid descriptions of the Missouri town as it was in the mid-1940s. I relished each word.

Certainly, oral histories can be distorted by forgetfulness, romanticism and exaggeration, but they remain an indispensable way for a historian (or any writer, for that matter) to add color and personality to his or her work. It is simple (and, sadly, the modus operandi for writers of history that’s as dry as a pile of October leaves) to read a couple of written sources and apply their second-hand generalizations to a time and place. But to talk to people who were in the moment is to see what they saw, hear what they heard, touch what they touched. Such accounts also serve the purpose of putting events that fall into so-called “Great Man” history (in this case, Truman and Churchill parading through town and the latter then delivering his “Iron Curtain” speech) in the context of “regular” folks’ lives. It’s also all too easy to reflect on the impact of such an occurrence through other world leaders’ perspectives or with the benefit of hindsight, but to obtain the real reactions of people who were there adds a new dimension.

Perhaps one reason certain writers avoid oral history is because it requires a different sort of effort. It can take weeks to track down people who were present at a particular event. Some writers surely think “who can effectively describe a bygone era.” You can have 10 conversations before you get one piece of usable information. In addition to prepping for the interview, jotting notes and/or recording, and transcribing, you need to cross-reference certain facts to verify authenticity, and to compare testimonies to establish sources.

And yet, even if it takes 10 hours of panning for every gold nugget minute, such treasures are hidden in the memories of people everywhere. Beyond the benefits of oral history for your project, there is the immeasurable value of creating connections and, if you’re fortunate, new friendships with your interviewees.

Then there is the time capsule bonus of recording first-person impressions for posterity. Recently, Frank W. Buckles, the last surviving American World War I veteran, passed away, marking the end for new oral histories of the Great War. The same will be true in just a few years for World War II, the Great Depression, and all sorts of other 20th-century subjects.

I feel fortunate to be speaking with these fine, 80-something individuals from Fulton while time remains.

Think Borders Is Going Down the Tubes Because of e-Books? Not So Fast

Philip White

Today’s guest post comes from Philip White, a writer based in Kansas City. A Lion in the Heartland, his forthcoming book about Winston Churchill’s unlikely journey to Fulton, Missouri to deliver the “Iron Curtain” speech will be released by PublicAffairs in 2012.

So it’s now official–Borders, the real-life Fox Books (come on, admit that you’ve seen Tom Hanks hamming it up as a nationwide bookstore mogul in AOL vehicle You’ve Got Mail) has filed for bankruptcy.

Many a web-based postmortem is fingering electronic books, or e-books as the kids call ‘em, as the perpetrator. After all, supposed industry bellwether Amazon recently announced that e-books in its proprietary Kindle format are outselling paperbacks, though, as is the company’s wont, they conveniently neglect to mention how many of these e-books are free, and avoiding giving precise sales figures.

So are e-books to blame for the fall of this once-mighty purveyor of the printed word? Not to the extent that many are claiming.

Certainly, the sales of e-books are continuing to rise. Cheaper and better devices, the shameless self-promotion of the Kindle by Amazon on its homepage and atop many of its book listings and cross-platform, multi-device support in the booming smartphone and tablet markets are just some of the reasons. Not to mention that a new e-book costs significantly less than its paper-based counterpart, and is, in many cases, available at the same time or before the hardcopy release.

But, for all the hype surrounding the rise of the e-book, many other factors contributed to the downfall of Borders, and most of its brick-and-mortar rivals. For the record, I will not be analyzing the viability of the online Borders offering, which may yet survive the follies of its physical location.

First to consider is one of the primary drivers of any consumer purchase: price. The reason that I get a coupon from Borders via e-mail each week–anywhere from 25 to 40 percent off a single item–is that the store often sells its wares at full list price. This can be above $30 for a new history hardback, and pushing $20 for a softback. Yikes! Meanwhile, Amazon, much to publishers’ chagrin, deeply discounts most of its titles from the get go. No need to waste money on e-mail marketing and website customizations that promote special offers when your upfront prices are already the lowest (with some exceptions, like during the run up to Christmas). I have also, in my forgetful way, gone to my local Borders to make use of a coupon and, as Sod’s Law would have it, left the offending item on the kitchen counter. Many retail employees at other chains would help a poor, forgetful bibliophile out in such a situation by simply scanning a coupon from behind their particle-board checkout counter. A fine fellow at Half Price Books recently handed me back a 20 percent off coupon “In case you want to use it again later in the weekend.” Not so at Borders, at least in my experience. No, they’d rather belittle you and huff and puff for a few minutes before eventually yielding. Yay, customer service.

Then there’s the convenience factor, or, in the case of Borders and its ilk, the lack thereof. Option one: Drive 20 minutes across town to a big box store strip mall, and, once there, weave in and out of the parent-with-screaming-kids coming out of Old Navy and the scary looking, 2-by-4 wielding fellow who looks like he wants to hurt this puny bibliophile for slowing his exit from Home Depot. Then spend 15 to 20 minutes, if I’m lucky, looking for a book that may or may not be in stock. Calling ahead doesn’t help, and even if it did, it’s just one more step. If, praise the Lord, the book is on a promotional stand there is a brief moment of joy–3 for the price of 2!– followed by the horrendous realization that every other book on that neatly-stacked table, is, bar none, utter tripe. So, even if I reluctantly, begrudgingly make the decision to buy the book anyway, I have to wait in line for who knows how long. The reward? Dealing with the not-so-friendly, can’t-wait-to-get-home-after-another-crappy-shift “sales associate” who hosed me on the coupon the previous week. Repeat the parking lot debacle. Waste yet more time (and gas) on the drive home.

Option two: From my tablet or desktop, log onto any online bookseller’s site. Time elapsed: 1 second. Yep, the higher speed home broadband’s worth every cent. Search for the book. Buy with one click. E-mail confirmation received. E-mail with reading recommendations customized to my purchase history to follow. True, there is the wait for shipping, but that’s not the point–it takes far less time and is far less a hassle to buy online. And if I, the Luddite, ever bury my suspicions and embrace the e-book revolution, my text will be delivered in a minute or two. I could, of course, select borders.com as my online bookseller of choice. But that will (or should I say, would, for we speak of the deceased) do nothing to support a bloated, unsustainable network of characterless warehouses that happen to house books. (Note to corporate execs everywhere–adding in-store “cafés” that sell mediocre coffee at inflated prices does not a comfy shopper experience make.

“But what of the tactile, in-store browsing experience?” I here you ask. True, I do enjoy it. At local, independent stores (selling used or new books) or chains such as Half Price Books, where the proprietors and staff members know their Stephanie Meyer from their Ernest Hemingway. At Borders, there was always the same experience I get at every big box store. Employees who like the company health plan but despise every other aspect of their job, and have no idea who John Lukacs is, let alone where to find his latest book. Does that apply to each and every staffer? No, of course not, but when it’s the case with even 30 percent, that’s a problem, and the percentage is far greater than that. Indie bookstores also find ways to set themselves apart–the exemplary Rainy Day Books here in Kansas City has many author events each month, and bundles tickets with a hardback to add value. Borders? Not so much.

Finally, Borders, Barnes and Noble and their kind annoy the daylight out of publishers and authors because of their pay-for-play positioning model. Publishers have to cough up outrageous sums to get their latest titles on the most prominent, front-of-store displays and they’re rarely going to fork over that money for anyone other than their cash cow authors–Meyer, Rowling, Grisham et al. Something similar may be true in Amazon's New and Notable section, but not to the same mercenary degree, I’ll wager.

So, do I sympathize with the thousands of Borders employees who will likely be seeking new employment? Yes, of course. Do I have the same sympathy for their soon to be former employer? Not a smidge. Like Blockbuster vs. Netflix, Borders has been outfoxed by a nimble, visionary competitor, baffled by new technology and, fatally, unwilling to change because of the misplaced belief that its overestimated brand loyalty would save it. Does the fall of this behemoth mean printed books are dead, or that e-books are the only viable medium? That is, for now, overstatement on both counts.