One day about 50 years ago, Paul McCartney read an article in the Daily Mail about an aspiring writer. The topic fascinated him, he told The New Yorker decades later, “because I was a young paperback writer, sort of. My age group was.” McCartney drove to John Lennon’s house in Weybridge and proposed a song written as a letter. “Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book/It took me years to write, will you take a look?” Lennon said, “Good, that’s it,” and so we got Paperback Writer (1966).
The song captures an eternal fantasy. I’ve just begun writing another book myself (though if McCartney wants to make a song about me, he should call it Ebook Writer). However, the fantasy has grown ever more detached from reality. Writing a book used to be like spending years carving out a stone, then chucking it into a lake and watching it sink without a splash. Now writing a book is like chucking that stone into an ocean. You don’t even hear a plop.