Entry 4:

I read some of the "Fray" responses to my "Diary" today, and one of the first simply said: "Get a life." How true! What, after all, did I do today? I noodled around in the morning. I made personal calls. I had a long lunch. I walked to work--the long way. I answered e-mail. Between 4 and 4:30, I found myself in a long discussion with my friend Adam about the inadequacies of the Redskins' linebacking corps. Sometimes when I meet people I play this little game where I imagine how long I could do their job if I were required to impersonate them. I could, for example, be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company for at the most two days, and only because I read in today's Times the mantra of the management guru Peter Drucker--"customers over profits"--which I think could get me through a board meeting. I could maybe last a day as a surgeon, and only if I spent the entire time recommending against surgery. ("Son, my gut tells me that leg of yours is going to heal on its own.") A trial lawyer? Ten minutes, and if my request for a continuance (or is it a recess?) were denied, less than that. Someone could impersonate me, though, for, oh God, weeks. People impersonate writers all the time. That's why we have to have editors.

Today I sent in the absolute final changes on my book, which was a little bit of a scary experience. It will be out in March, which means that we're already gearing up for the publicity (please, please check out my Web site, www.gladwell.com). I had a fleeting thought as I made my last round of corrections that perhaps I should leave one or two conspicuous little errors in, as a kind of offensive tactic against reviewers. Whenever book reviewers get petty--you know: "The book is marred by a number of small but annoying errors. Bauxite, for example, is not the leading export of Bhutan"--I always instinctively side with the author. What kind of person would read a 300-page book that represents years of someone's life and then spend his time complaining about one sentence on bauxite? So the theory, as a particularly Machiavellian friend of mine once explained to me, is if you put an error in, you can induce the pettiness and, subsequently, audience sympathy. I have to admit I chickened out, though, because that strategy doesn't protect you from the far more devastating A to Z criticism: "Gladwell makes numerous errors ranging from his fundamental misinterpretation of Kleinian psychoanalytic theory to his absurd suggestion that bauxite is the leading export of Bhutan." In any case, poring over your manuscript on the day it is due trying to figure out what to get wrong is a slightly perverse use of your time. As the man said, maybe I need to get a life.