I was a
Russian writer who was in a contract with a
publishing house for writing a
novel. The novel was going to be about eight friends who were trying to find
the meaning of life, each finding a different answer. I was meeting regularly with a
consultant from the
publisher to discuss my notes. As of late, he had started to get
impatient, since I never brought any text written in full to the meetings, only notes, keywords, and plot diagrams.
"You can't expect much more assistance from us, unless we can see some actual results soon," he said. "But these are actual results!" I complained, pointing at the high pile of handwritten papers on the desk. "Once a storyline has been thought out and diagrammed beforehand, the mere production of text is purely routine!"
The consultant replied that I was grossly underestimating the efforth needed to produce full text. "All those millions of typewriter keys have to be pushed somehow. They're not going to push themselves."