I have the answer to all your wishes right here.
D. K. Wall:He stood in front of me, hair slicked back like a master politician. He wore an immaculate suit, a pressed white shirt, and a glowing red tie. A giant diamond flashed from a gold band on his finger. His shoes were buffed to a brilliant sheen. Everything about him screamed, Salesman. The kind who could sell salt water to a drowning man and make him feel lucky to have it.
D. K. Wall:And why would it be so perfect for me? I asked.
D. K. Wall:He smiled, perfectly straight teeth gleaming. You're a writer, aren't you? Sitting at your desk day after day pecking away at a keyboard in the hunt for that perfect elusive phrase.
D. K. Wall:Sadly, I replied, I am more likely to be holding a Blackwing pencil as I scratch words out on a pad of paper.
D. K. Wall:Old school. He exclaimed with delight. Let me bring you into the modern era.
D. K. Wall:With a dramatic flourish, he placed a glowing screen on my desk. I stared at it, but couldn't see how it could help me. I had a computer. I even sat in front of it most every day, typing in the words I so painstakingly composed by hand. I had tried all the software, all the tools that promised to help me organize my scribbles. They came and went. The Blackwing remained.
D. K. Wall:Not waiting for me to ask, he launched into his pitch. This magic box has been loaded with every book ever written. All the articles on the Internet, absolutely every word we could vacuum up. It knows how Hemingway wrote, Steinbeck, Shakespeare, even the Bible.
D. K. Wall:Sure, I said. I've read the masters, studied the ways they craft a sentence.
D. K. Wall:But do you remember it all? He tapped the screen with a manicured finger. This baby remembers every word. All you have to do is tell it what you want and it creates it for you. Stories, novels, whole series.
D. K. Wall:I set down my pencil. Wait a minute. You're saying this thing produces the story for me?
D. K. Wall:Exactly. He spread his hands wide, palms up like a preacher offering salvation. We have a client - you may have seen her recent interview in the New York Times - who used this box to publish 200 books last year. 200. Just imagine.
D. K. Wall:I let that number hang in the air for a moment. How have I never heard of an author prolific enough to write 200 books in a single year?
D. K. Wall:Oh, please, he waved away my concern. She didn't publish them all under the same name. She used pen names, dozens of them, didn't want anyone to catch on to what she was doing.
D. K. Wall:Catch on? I leaned back in my chair. You mean she doesn't tell her readers she uses your magic box?
D. K. Wall:No, of course not. His grin grew wider. Some readers might be turned off by that. And we wouldn't want to discourage sales, now would we?
D. K. Wall:But isn't honesty the best policy?
D. K. Wall:He laughed a hearty, echoing mirth that bounced off the walls of my small office. So cliche for a writer.
D. K. Wall:I shrugged. I do that sometimes. Occupational hazard. I trust my editors to slap me upside the head when it happens.
D. K. Wall:He leaned over my desk, close enough that I caught the scent of expensive cologne. With my magic box, you'll no longer need editors or cover designers or any of those people. You just tell the box what you want and it produces it. The whole package, covers, blurbs, everything.
D. K. Wall:But those editors and cover designers make my books better. That's what they do. That's why I like working with them.
D. K. Wall:Think of the savings though, and the speed. He straightened up and adjusted his cufflinks. Remember, 200 books in one year. As our client said in the Times, If I can generate a book in a day and you need six months to write one, who's going to win that race?
D. K. Wall:I pondered that for a moment. Then I picked up my Blackwing pencil and turned it slowly between my fingers. But what race is she running?
D. K. Wall:His smile faltered for the first time. A tiny crack in the porcelain. What other race is there? Sell the most books. Make the most money. Isn't that the whole point?
D. K. Wall:For her, maybe. She thinks the game is publishing, producing units, stacking them up, flooding the shelves.
D. K. Wall:I sharpened the pencil, the shavings curling onto my desk like tiny scrolls. For some people, maybe that is the game, but not for me. And not for most writers I know.
D. K. Wall:But, he protested. I stopped him with a raised hand.
D. K. Wall:Don't get me wrong. We'd all like to earn a little more money. Writers are, after all, quite fond of eating. I set down the sharpener and met his eyes. But what we do, what your little box can never do for us, is write.
D. K. Wall:He opened his mouth, but I wasn't finished.
D. K. Wall:I've written stories since I was a kid. All those years traveling the globe in my corporate career, I'd retire to my hotel room at night and jot down stories on notepads, on the backs of envelopes, once on a cocktail napkin in a bar in Hong Kong because a character walked into my head and refused to leave until I put her down on paper.
D. K. Wall:Most of those stories were never published. No one else ever read them, but that was never the point. If no one ever reads another word I put down on paper, I will still know that I wrote them. Every clumsy sentence, every crossed out paragraph, every rare sweet moment when the words come out right. Those are mine.
D. K. Wall:But she wrote 200 books, he said.
D. K. Wall:No, she didn't.
D. K. Wall:She told your little box to produce them. Whatever you want to call that - generating, manufacturing, conjuring - she didn't write them. There's a difference. And if you have to ask what the difference is, I'm not sure I can explain it to you.
D. K. Wall:He packed up his displays in silence, tucked the glowing screen into a leather case and straightened his tie. At the door, he turned and fixed me with his gaze. You'll regret this. The world is changing.
D. K. Wall:The door clicked shut. I sat there for a long moment, listening to the quiet of my office, the hum of the old desk lamp, the tick of the clock on the wall. Then I pulled a fresh pad of paper toward me, picked up my Blackwing pencil.
D. K. Wall:Maybe, but I'll still be a writer.