Writing as line dancing

In the real world, writing is more like line dancing, a social function with many partners.

Roy Peter Clark, Writing Tools

I don't know why this particular writing tool, of the 50 Roy Peter Clark writes about in his book, surprised me so. After all, like Clark I come from a newspaper background. Newspapers require teamwork. As a reporter I depended on copy editors to catch my mistakes. When I was a copy editor I depended on other copy editors to catch the mistakes I missed and those I made myself, especially in headlines. As an editorial writer I depended on reporters to supply accurate information and an editor to bounce ideas off of. All journalists depend on reliable sources. Yet I had never thought of writing outside the newsroom as "a social function," anything at all like line dancing.

The image we typically have of authors is of people sitting alone at tables or desks transferring their thoughts onto paper or computer screens. What's social about that? Many writers are introverts who don't socialize much anyway, even when they aren't writing. One thing I like about blogging is that it is something I can do by myself, all alone, just me, nobody else. Yet even I must depend on others. This post, for example, owes much to Roy Peter Clark.

Most books published today, fiction as well as nonfiction, have acknowledgement pages where authors mention those who aided them in their project. These are their line-dance partners. Clark's acknowledgements go on for three pages and include a lifetime's worth of supporters, including elementary and high school teachers, people he has worked with at the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times), fellow writers and journalists who influenced him, his agent, those who worked with him at his publishing house, and many others. He concludes by saying, "Finally, I do believe that writing is a social activity, so thanks go to those closest to me." He then lists various friends and family members, even his dog.

Look at the photograph above. Each individual is dancing alone, yet together with everyone else. So it is with writing and, come to think of it, life itself.