In The Moment

How strongly do I feel about free speech? What about social politics? How much do I care about doing the job I agreed to do? And, of course, how much do I need the money?

Another day in the life of a gig writer.

I’m sort-of editing and rewriting a book by a lawyer from Texas, making his memoirs attractive to folks who browse the self-improvement aisle. Turning lawyer speak into normal speak is easy enough. I cut and paste and patch. It’s going pretty well. I find myself liking Tony. He comes from poverty and the Marine Corps, works his way into law school, outworks everyone there, and keeps going. He’s made lots of money suing negligent corporations on behalf of victims. I can get behind most of this. Hell, I can admire it. Tony’s proud of his success, talks about his private jets and famous clients. Why not? It’s kind of innocent. Look at the kid from nowhere who’s made it big!

Consequent on his success, Tony gets involved in state politics, and my personal hackles start to twitch. His partisanship is obvious. Understandable, given geography and upbringing, and in a way just as innocent as his status-worship, but still.

Of course, given my own geography and upbringing, my politics are as obvious and perhaps as innocent as his.

I sigh and continue to smooth out the prose. And wonder a couple of things. Do I still like Tony? Answer: Sort of, but a bit less. Am I okay with helping him? What if this book has a Butterfly Effect on the Texas senate race? Answer: Gulp, but who am I kidding it’s not going to.

Then I get to some larger what ifs. What if Tony’s views on race or religion or sexuality were as ‘Texas’ as his politics? (They’re not. He doesn’t mention sexuality, and on the surface he seems tolerant about race and metaphysics.) What then?

My job is to fulfil my publishing contract, but what about my contract as a human being? Are there any lines I won’t cross? Would I help Elon Musk write his announcement to stop USAID? Would I tweak an Israeli press release denying the situation in Gaza? Taking matters to extremes (you knew we’d get here), would I edit Mein Kampf? I believe in free speech. Hitler has the right to his arguments. Would I work to make them read better?

I hate to cop out, but after several minutes on this question, I come up with the answer: I’d know in the moment.

That’s how it works, eh? We go along and go along and then something happens to tip the scales. We act, either by stepping up or walking away. We make a U-turn. Stop visiting. Block the number. Turn off the movie. Close the book. It’s an instinctive reaction. You can’t predict it but you know it when it happens. You know it in the moment.

Tony and I have emailed back and forth and had a couple of laughs on the phone. He’s not a terrible guy, he’s just a Republican who has lived the American dream. My gut says that if he was a white supremacist or a Christian nationalist, I’d have told him: ‘I just can’t work for you … not for this kind of money, anyway.’

I hope that was a joke.