While a fascinating and inspiring insight into the thoughts and habits of the writers, I must confess to one disappointment. What the hell is Robert Caro doing away from his desk, and not continuing his writing the fourth volume of his "Years of Lyndon Johnson"! While I wait patiently, I don't want to see Mr Caro away from his desk in future until I have Volume Four in my hands.
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ANDERSEN: The last luxurious job in America!
CARO: When young writers ask me if I think something will sell, what I want to say to them is you really shouldn't care about that because if you want to write any serious book you're going to be spending three or four years of your life. What are you spending those three or four years of your life on? If you feel you have something to say, then whether you're right or you're wrong, at least you feel like you're doing something that's contributing something. For seven years I heard people in publishing saying no one's going to buy a book on Robert Moses.
How often does everyone check their Amazon rankings?
BLOCK: NEVER!
STROUT: Never.
Do people do that?
ANDERSEN: UH, yeah! [Laughter]
How often do you check?
ANDERSEN: Well, it depends. When the book is new, I check it with some neurotic -frequency.
ORLEAN: The real question is, who reads their Amazon reviews?
STROUT: How could you do that? I would never…cto me that's like a pit of snakes. Every so often somebody will say to me, well, you should at least hear this…and I'm like, oh, okay. But I mean I just know myself, and I can't…And friends will call me and go, oh, did you know…c? And I'm just like, don't do it, don't open the door, it's awful.
ORLEAN: Now and again, someone says, did you see the review of your book…cand you know, they're all horrible and nasty, snarky. So you just have them write one that says, this is the single most important book in the English language, and it will push the next one down.
As you're writing, do you think about the audience? If you didn't, presumably you wouldn't be in this room—you'd just be writing for yourselves or for your soul.
ORLEAN: For me the idea of writing not for publication is a little like drinking alone. To me, drinking is sort of a social experience. [Writing] is like coming home from a great trip and sitting around a dinner table and saying, I've got to tell you about this.
STROUT: I think of it very much as a relationship. It has different stages when I'm first putting it down, but it's a relationship, and it's a very intimate relationship, which is what's sort of mysterious and wonderful about it. It's solitary—obviously we all know that we work alone—and yet there's this voice. You're trying to reach another person with this voice.
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