The best adjective to describe Will Leitch, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, is spastic. He talks nonstop about anything and everything — mostly sports, the primary subject of Deadspin, the Gawker Media blog he founded in 2005 and for which he remains the principle contributor. For a man who spent the past five months blogging full-time for Deadspin and penning his third book, God Save The Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person, and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (And How We Can Get It Back) (seriously), this energy is necessary. Most days, he worked from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., only taking a break to hit the gym and eat.
Among Gawker Media’s bloggers, Leitch exists in a unique space, sheltered from the harassment of his notorious boss, Nick Denton, because of his blog’s subject matter. (He told me that he can only remember three IM conversations with Denton, one when he asked, “Was the March Madness over?” It was June.) Leitch works from home, penning the majority of Deadspin’s posts during the day and working on his book at night. With God Save hitting shelves nationwide, we met for vodka sodas at a bar near his Brooklyn apartment to discuss the book, the blog, and, of course, the boss.
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You’re writing the book and blogging full-time. What was the day like? Did you have a schedule?
Yeah, I get up typically about seven [a.m.]. If I know I have a really busy day, I’ll get up around six. One of the nice things things about Deadspin is that because it spawned its own culture of sports blogs, my job is essentially to write about my mail. I dig through everything and plan out what I’m going to do for the day. There’s a little change now because I have to have all these new writers because of the new Gawker mandate, but generally speaking, I dig through everything, figure out what I’m going to do and plan out my day and write like crazy, until the late afternoon. Then I would go to the gym.
That worked out well for me as a good separation of the day for the book. I’d go, come back, shower and straighten up. Then I would check and make sure [baseball player Roger] Clemens hadn’t shot somebody, or there was no breaking Deadspin stuff, and then I would write the book.
To me it was important to have that separation. I actually have a separate computer that doesn’t connect to the Web, specifically for writing things that have nothing to do with the site. It runs Microsoft Word and unfortunately Mindsweeper, which I can’t get off the computer. I would love to get it off the computer because you know when you write you’ll do anything to be distracted, even a game you played your freshman year of college.
As a whole, the book took me about five months to write while doing the site every day. During the writing of the book, I took three days off to go to Argentina last New Years, and that was it. I had to do it every day. I have an essay in Publishers Weekly about writer’s block. I’ve never worried about writer’s block because writer’s block is for people who don’t have anybody waiting for what they are going to say or waiting for you to post something. Writer’s block is not something that I see people who work online having a problem with because you have to write all the time whether you feel like it or not. That helped me with the book. That said, [God Save] took me longer than Catch [Leitch’s second book] did. Catch took me about four months.
The actual process was we’d been working with David [Hirshey], my editor [at HarperCollins] and soccer columnist. Kate [Lee], my agent, had been talking to him about doing something, and I put together a little pitch, probably the least professional proposal ever. Mine was literally three pages, and three pages the way you did it in college, where you extend the font to make it look longer. Originally the idea was that the book was going to be 25 3,000-word essays, and that was all it was going to be. I wrote like four or five of those and I was like, “I’ve got to break this up. It’s boring me.” So we broke them up into shorter things. Kate put together the pitch back when I was in St. Louis for the [2006] World Series and the Cardinals were in it. I was literally driving up from Mattoon [IL], my hometown, to Game 5 when the phone rang and Kate said, “We have the deal. It’s secured.” I was like, “Alright, you guys [Cardinals] better fucking win now. I’m having a really good day, don’t blow it.” So that turned out to be a pretty good day. [EDITORS’ NOTE: The Cardinals won Game 5 and the World Series.]
To me it was nerve-wracking — I’ve been pleased that most of the notes have been positive so far. It’s one thing to write online where you have a bunch of people telling you you’re an idiot. I’ll always remember what Bob Dylan said after he wrote Chronicles: Vol. 1. He got incredible reviews from book critics and he said, “The reviews from book critics mean so much more than any album review I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. It validates me.” I understand I’m not a moron. I understand that idea. You have no idea if anyone is going to like it. At Deadspin, you know immediately if someone is going to like it. It’s kind of fun to have something put away for awhile.
You wrote all new stuff for the book but a lot of the material seems inspired by Deadspin. How much would you say is?
There’s certain nods to Deadspin like the Carl Monday thing. They are in there because I personally find them so amusing and I wanted to put them somewhere so they aren’t lost in the annals of cyberspace. To me, my natural mode is to write natural stuff. I have to stop myself from writing 1,000 words on every post. I’d written the Life as a Loser essays back in the day, and that kind of form writing is a little more comfortable for me than doing the “introduction to topic. Quote. Pithy turn.” That’s fun, there’s a good moment for that, but this is more comfortable for me, so it was fun to be able to transfer some of the perspectives I gained from doing Deadspin into the old style. Frankly, I didn’t know if it was going to work. I think the mindset is very similar between Deadspin and the book. They are both based on the idea that the way sports is presented and packaged and put together for the average sports fan is wrong. If any other industry treated its customers the way that sports treats its customers, people would not ever buy its product anymore. Unfortunately, sports fans are suckers and they aren’t like, “I’m not going to not watch baseball.” Deadspin has a lot of readers but I didn’t want to count on them. I think it’s a mistake that a lot of people make when they have a popular blog, they think “Well, if just people on the site buy it, it will be a hit.” Well that doesn’t tend to work. That’s one thing I wrote in the Publishers Weekly essay, that blog books are like a gender or an ethnicity or something, as if they are all sort of the same-minded thing. For me, I was writing long before I did a blog.
It seems like it’s really different writing between doing a blog and writing the book. Was it difficult to go back and forth? Did taking a break in the middle of the day help?
Yeah, it did, but that was more of a mindset break than a topic break. I think the mindset’s similar in that people always talk about the royal “we” I use on the site. The reason I chose to do that in the first place was you see so much in sports commentary being like, “Well, here’s what I think,” “Well here’s why I disagree with you,” “Well, let’s yell at each other and have points rack up as we discuss it, with sounds and beeps.” So I wanted to depersonalize it a little bit, to show that it was actually a discussion and that I don’t know anything more about this than anyone else does.
| I used to freak out my old roommates because they’d come home and literally the only light in the entire place was my computer. |
Certainly in the book I felt a little bit more comfortable using more personal examples. People have asked if the Deadspin commentators will find things too earnest in the book because they are notorious for being … I prefer sardonic and ribald, but no one knows what the hell I’m talking about so I’ll say snarky. I think there’s a level of earnestness in the site that I think’s in the book too. I never wanted the site, or definitely not the book, to be like, “Here’s something wrong with the world, let’s crap on it.” You see that a lot because it’s an easy, default way to write online. I never really wanted to have that. I think the book is born of that sensibility.
As for the different type of writing, it’s actually a little bit more fun [to write the book] because I can really delve into something and run with it until I have nothing left to say, as opposed to being like, “Okay, I have 20 of these things to write today, so don’t focus too much on one.” It’s a little bit more fun this way. Plus, people copy edit, which is always nice.
This is your third book. Does it get easier? Harder?
This one was a little bit more stressful because I think there’s more on the line. The first two were these little cute books for small publishers and if they did well, great, but if not, “Hey look, Will’s got a book.” This is HarperCollins. It’s hardcover. There are expectation for the book. To me, it was more important to make this book appeal to people who weren’t inherently sports fans. I think the regular Deadspin readers will enjoy this, but the idea was to make everyone enjoy it. I worked harder on getting the jokes right, as opposed to Catch, where I was just telling the story of my hometown, and if they don’t like it, screw ’em, it’s my book. This was more of a conscious effort to make sure I didn’t get too wrapped up in my own head. I want people to like the book. I’m doing promotion this week and next week. This [interview] is an oasis in the desert compared to what I’ll be going through this week and next week. It’s like, “You’re talking to Tommy J and the Mad Frog from Boise,” and I’ll be trying to type posts in between. The nice thing about it is that the writing is my favorite thing. You always hear writers complaining about filling up the page, but I feel more comfortable writing than I do pretty much doing anything else. I used to freak out my old roommates because they’d come home and I’d have every light in the house off and my headphones on and literally the only light in the entire place was my computer and the only sound would be me tapping and occasionally [singing] “My heart will go on,” or whatever I happened to be listening too. (Not that, of course.) That’s my zone. That’s my favorite place to be in the world. The writing part, that’s the easy part. The hard part is organizing it and putting it together. I wrote everything individually. I had the general idea, the four sections, “Fans,” “Players,” “Media,” and “Owners.” I had that mindset a little bit, but I was just filing stuff as I finished it. I ended up turning the whole book in a day early. David famously said, “Will, you’re the first person to turn your book in on time since [professional golfer] John Daly, and I don’t think he’d read it,” which I thought was a pretty good point.
Okay, the title. Why is it so long?
That is not my fault. The original title was The Ballad of Ron Mexico…
That’s incredible. No one would have bought it, but that’s a great title.
Yeah, it’s a great title. And sales, justifiably, was like, “Who’s Ron Mexico.” And I had a whole sales pitch about why it was a smart commercial thing but I might have been completely wrong. I don’t know why they did that. I think what they found was the more stuff you put in the subhead, the better. I think if they could have fit it on the book, they would have taken my name out and Deadspin out and Britney Spears would have been in there. I think we came up with about 15 different phrases to fit in the space, and unfortunately we picked three that had a lot of long words. I prefer to just call it God Save The Fan.
Your HarperCollins bio says “always a fan first and journalist second.” I don’t know if you’ll take offense to this, but it sounds very Bill Simmons-esque. How do you feel about this new dimension to sports journalism?
First of all, I think that that’s probably a bit of a copywriter’s license, but I think that the idea is generally true. There have been concrete times when that’s not been the case — like when I had to write about Rick Ankiel for example — but I think that’s more a matter of perspective. I would prefer they had used the term “sportswriter” rather than “journalist.” Certainly, I went to journalism school and I’ve worked as a journalist forever. I still write for The New York Times and I write for New York. But on the whole, it’s more a matter of mindset, fan rather than sports writer. I’d rather be known as a fan rather than a sportwriter, although I’d rather be a journalist than a fan, which tells you a little bit about how far the profession of sportswriting has sunk.
| There are some things in the past that Gawker Media has done that I might disagree with, but that’s a personal thing, not a professional one. |
Generally speaking, if you work in the world of sports, whether you’re a member of the media or an athlete or a coach, you tend to think sports are more important than they are. Everyone is “buddy, buddy, pal, pal,” and they think fans are these weird people who drink beer and paint their face and are shirtless in Green Bay when it’s 10 below. They are the groundlings and the swarthy masses. I don’t think that’s how fans actually are and I identify with the average fan. I think they are more intelligent than the media gives them credit for. When you work in the world of sports, you lose touch with the fact that the average sports fan deals with sports to get away from their everyday lives. When they are stuck at their desk, and they want some entertainment during the day. They watch on Sunday because they don’t have to pay bills or worry if the kids are set for college or whether someone’s going to drop a bomb on our heads. To me, that’s the important thing. Yes, we really, really care about our teams, but at the end of the day, we recognize that this is all just entertainment. The athletes are paid entertainers. We can try to mythologize them, but I don’t think smart fans think that anymore. And that’s fine. It doesn’t make us enjoy the game any less. It doesn’t make us cynics. It helps us put things in perspective, and I don’t think the average sportswriter understands that. That said, when it comes to sports, my initial reaction is always more the fan.
What are you doing to promote the book?
I go on almost a month long tour. It’s crazy. I’m starting at the Super Bowl, where I’ll be for the week. Then I go to Los Angles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Champagne (my college), St. Louis (my hometown) — I don’t think they have the arts and crafts fair at the mall that day so I think I’m the replacement — and then back out here to Philadelphia, D.C., Boston, and then New York.
How did Gawker feel about you writing the book? Was that difficult to get it approved?
I ran it by Lockheart [Steele], who I joke in the acknowledgements is the lone, heterosexual, non-Euro male at Gawker Media at the time. He said, “No, we encourage this. We want to promote the site.” They’ve been nothing but supportive. Originally, [HarperCollins] was toying with the idea of putting Deadspin in the title, which is something I never wanted to do, and I think there might have been some issue with that.
They’ve been very supportive of everything, which is great. You know it’s funny because I know Denton’s taken a lot of hits right now. I can’t speak for people who have worked more closely with him than I have, but I have never had a single negative issue with Nick. There are some things in the past that Gawker Media has done that I might disagree with, but that’s a personal thing, not a professional one. I’ve never had a single issue with him. I’ve never had overdirection of the site, although I think I have an advantage because they don’t know what the hell I write about. Every interaction I’ve ever had with Nick has been completely positive. People always ask me, “How have you ever dealt with such a stressful environment.” I’ll be honest with you, I think people come into Gawker Media and they’re like, “We work for Gawker Media. They are slave drivers over there.” I’m like, “Please, these people have obviously never worked for a trade publication and had to pretend they had to care about Merrill Lynch.” You get to write funny stuff all day. That’s kind of cool.
Say this book takes off and you get a contract to write another one. How much longer do you write Deadspin?
Deadspin is the most fun job I’ve ever had by 50-fold. I’ve been offered things by places since I’ve started doing Deadspin, but the majority of them are, “Come to our mainstream publication and do our sports blog.” It doesn’t work that way. I have a captive audience that grows every month, that understands my system and understands how I want Deadspin to be. I have no complaints about my job. I have no plans to leave. This book would not exist without Deadspin. When I was writing for the New York Times Web site during the baseball playoffs, I wrote a column from my sister’s old desk at like 3 in the morning, listening to my father snoring in the other room. I woke up, and it was on the front page of the Web site. That doesn’t happen without Deadspin. There’s a loyalty there. Even though there have been changes made that aren’t necessarily up my alley in a lot of ways, I respect that and I have no complaints about my job now. It would take a pretty massive thing to leave. Even with all the changes, Denton continues to leave me alone.
Is there another book in the future?
Oh yeah. I’m working on one right now, actually. I’m way behind, obviously, because of all the things that are going on. It’s from the publisher of Catch, called Come As You Are, about a kid that wants to kill himself on the anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s suicide. That will get done someday, when I have five months to sit down and write it. I plan on writing … this is what I do.
Three tips for writing a book while blogging full-time
1. Recognize that your shit does in fact stink
“I never understand writers that say, ‘I just can’t write today, I’m not inspired,” Leitch says. “As if a carpenter ever says, ‘I can’t build this shelf today.’ It’s a job, it’s work. It requires time and effort and dedication.”
2. Separate the blog from the book
“I wrote most of Deadspin in the morning, and then took a break in the middle of the day to go to the gym,” Leitch says.
3. Unplug
Leitch wrote much of God Save from a computer that wasn’t attached to the Internet, only transferring files when he was ready.
Noah Davis is mediabistro.com’s associate editor.
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