Got a question awhile back from a guy who normally has the answers—speechwriting sage Robert Lerhman, co-author of The Political Speechwriter’s Companion, speechwriting teacher at American University, Johns Hopkins and the PSA’s Speechwriting School—and author of many novels and other bylined works a fifty-year career that began at the Iowa Writers Workshop, under the tutelage of a then-obscure Kurt Vonnegut.
“Question for you,” Bob Lehrman wrote, mentioning that he’d queried a magazine that caters to people writing novels, stories and poetry but often looking for a way to earn a living while they struggle through that first novel. “Teaching isn’t the only way,” Bob wrote. “What about speechwriting as a meaningful way to combine with writing under your own name?”
He continued:
To me Speechwriting has worked well. That is, I treasure my seven books but I also value writing speeches as a way of backing people and causes I support.
But when I tried coming up with writers who have combined speechwriting and serious writing, I almost drew a blank. … [Here he named a few of our colleagues.]
There’s a long list of writers who wrote speeches until their books sold—Salman Rusdhie, William Kennedy, Dick Yates. But not after.
Am I unusual? I would still write the piece but I’d rather not write as if I’m the only one. What’s the truth? Would you know?
I replied that speechwriters who moonlight under their own name, pursuing their own simultaneously sustainable careers in speechwriting and other careers are exceptions. Here’s why, I think:
I agree that moonlighting writers are more of a thing of the past. My dad worked with Elmore Leonard at an advertising agency in Detroit, and “Dutch,” as they all called him, would work on his early novels early in the morning and then put the pages in the drawer and get busy writing copy for Chevrolet—and maybe be caught working on it during the day, too.
An aged corporate speechwriter told me that back in the 1980s, he would write speeches until 11 a.m., then “kick the office door closed” and do whatever freelance stuff he felt like doing for the rest of the day.
There are no office doors anymore (and maybe not even any drawers).
More to the point, in-house speechwriting jobs are not just speechwriting jobs anymore. They are all-consuming executive communication jobs that take far too much out of most of their practitioners to allow for creative writing around the edges (with all of life’s other demands also nagging). Often, they take too much out to allow for creative speechwriting!
Obviously a freelance speechwriter has more freedom—and conceivably could make a bundle on a few fat speechwriting assignments every year, speechwriting being the most lucrative writing speciality there is—and write books the rest of the time.
I just don’t see it happening.
Maybe part of why is that the field is more professionalized than it was—partly thanks to goons like us—so that when an unknown Yates or Vonnegut or Rushdie turns up looking for a speech assignment, the communications manager wants to know what other speeches they have written, wants to see those clips, maybe even wants to know whether (gasp) they’re a card-carrying member of the Professional Speechwriters Association.
So they throw up their hands and try to find something else to do. I talk to folks like this occasionally, and we always hang up with them sounding discouraged. But what am I going to tell them, that they have every right to take a chunk of [a veteran speechwriter’s] livelihood, just because they want to earn a few bucks on the side while they work on their novel? No, son, get your ass to Speechwriting School, at least!
As we both teach, speechwriters succeed because they are good writers, yes; but they must also be great researchers, great thinkers and committed partners to the speakers they serve and the causes their rhetoric supports. How much of that would William Kennedy have had the patience for?
You’re a unicorn, Bob! And while I could imagine someone as committed to both bylined writing and ghosted stuff as you are (let alone teaching and grading papers!), would-be speechwriter/novelists should be warned that this isn’t a casual craft anymore, or a professional lark.
That’s my impression, anyway. Speechwriter friends—all communicator friends—what are your thoughts? And may I include them in a follow-up piece on this subject, at ProRhetoric.com?
Nice piece, great question. I am a speechwriter having worked for several Dutch Cabinet members who also writes novels. I am not the only one in the Netherlands. Some of my colleague speechwriters have recently issued serious debut novels as well. I do think that speechwriting is sometimes seen as an applied and thus lower form of writing art, and regarded less than fiction of novel writing. Also, there is this idea of ‘working for the other side’ where novelists like to think of themselves as totally and utterly independent. For me, it’s two sides of the same coin.
I’ve worked as a speechwriter since 2004. First in politics, then in corporate and, for the past eight years, freelance. Since starting as a speechwriter I’ve published six books (one non-fiction, two novels, three collections of poetry) that have done well in Australia (that’s where I live). My third novel will be published in 2022.
Speechwriting is fun. I meet interesting people, learn interesting things and am paid for the privilege. It’s also improved my creative writing immeasurably.
As for my creative writing, it’s the secret of my success as a speechwriter. Especially the poetry.
I never planned to be a speechwriter and don’t think of myself as a speechwriter. I see myself as a poet. But I could never support my family as a poet.
Speechwriting lets me support my family and write creatively.
It’s the perfect job.