I recently received the first proofs for my next book, Wise Animals. I’ve been writing it for the last three years, exploring its themes for the last decade and —frankly—I’m nervous about what the world will make of this one. It’s a work of non-fiction, but it’s also personal in a way my previous books haven’t been. It flickers between the local and the universal in much the same way as my life and thoughts: between parenthood and the origins of our species; between midnight tears and the ethics of AI. It would mean a lot to me if this resonated with some readers. But I accept that it may not.
At least, I’m trying to accept this with the best pre-emptive grace I can muster. As is the case with all kinds of writing, there’s a clear divide between what you control (the words on the page) and what you need to let go of or be driven crazy by (everything else). The work is the thing. The rest is detail.
It can be helpful to repeat sentiments like this even if you don’t believe them. Doublethink is a survival skill for authors: taking a deep and passionate interest in the reception of your work while, simultaneously, taking a passionate and deep disinterest in everything except your own ambitions and judgement. At its best, the process of writing—and rewriting, rereading, rewriting, rereading—dissolves this paradox into the purity of trying. You give it everything you’ve got, then step away.
What’s my book about? The honest answer is that it’s about things that fascinate me; and, specifically, things that fascinate me about our relationships with and through technology. It’s also, on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, an exercise in trying to sound like myself. As Oliver Burkeman put it in a fine recent newsletter:
…making solid progress on creative work, and enjoying the process rather than hating it, is in large part a matter of being willing to be who you actually are.
Like all the best advice, chasms of complexity lie beneath this claim. What do I sound like when trying to be a book-length version of me? Not like I do in this newsletter, or in conversation, or when haranguing my children about packed lunches. I sound, hopefully, like someone confident enough to express doubt, surprise and delight; who aims to entertain and enlighten, but respects the fact that his readers may have other ideas.
In some ways, it’s easier to list what I don’t want to sound like. I don’t want to sound desperate, strained, over-eager to impress; anxious rather than intrigued, dull rather than deft, mastered by my own materials. I don’t want to sound like someone else, or a bad impression of them
Ultimately, the voice on the page should know itself, which means knowing its limitations. Everything I have written is also a testament to the things I have read (or the things that I really ought to have read). No matter what an author says, writing is a team sport. Every word and sentence is also a collaboration: the renegotiation of a common store of meanings.
The loveliest thing about my book, of course, is that I got to write it at all. It’s ambitious, eccentric and unashamedly the kind of thing that I like to read. So it feels miraculous that someone else paid me to write it. I have been a professional writer for thirteen years, yet I remain gratefully amazed that putting thoughts into words can become a living.
How do I think about writing? To idealize, I want to feel a tingle of assent when reading back my own words: the sense that I have tamed or teased out an idea worth sharing. And while modesty is a virtue, I do think I have managed this, at least in places. Am I right? Blessedly, maddeningly, inexorably, the answer isn’t up to me.
I suspect the keys to sounding like yourself are:
- Practice. When we start, 99% of us are copying someone else.
- Ignoring your audience. If you care too much about what your audience wants then you’ll just end up sounding the way you think they want you to sound.