“A Book Is a Sneeze"
When E.B. White (who readers of this blog will know is one of my favorites) was asked why he wrote the classic, Charlotte's Web , he answered, “ I haven ’ t told why I wrote the book, but I haven't told you why I sneeze, either. A book is a sneeze. ” I don’t plan to follow this metaphor any further—it’s already fairly gross. But you get the idea—you can no more let a book sit unwritten if the story is in you than you can suppress a sneeze. Writing a book is not just something to do—it’s something that must be done. I’ve spent most of my time in this blog thus far talking about books that others have created. But recently I was asked which books I have worked on over my career (I’m an editor, you know) that I’m most proud of, and the question caught me off guard. I rarely talk about the books I’m proud of. It’s an editor thing, I think—we labor in the background, we make other people’s words shine, and we don’t take a lot of credit for it. The occasional ment
