Can I get some assistants?

John Bowe author of Nobodies mentions having a few writing assistants.

This morning on the Bob Edwards show Naomi Klein, most well-known for her book No Logo, mentions having seven writing assistants and four lawyers helping her with her latest book, The Shock Doctrine.

What the heck does a writing assistant do? Do they come up with ideas and themes in the book only to have their hard work yield them the obscurity of a one-sentence mention in the acknowledgements? It would be nice to have someone scouring archives and libraries for works and stories relevant to my own, but I just can’t imagine having to manage a team of seven assistants and four lawyers. I guess I’m naïve in thinking that a writer is a person not a small business.

I should confess – I have one assistant. But she’s not much more than a furry paperweight. When she decides to bless me with her assistance, she sprawls across my lap or my notes for a few minutes before deciding that I need bit or clawed. The best idea she has had during the writing process was to jump off my lap before hocking up a hair ball.

She may be a lousy writing assistant, but I doubt that Bowe nor Klein love their writing assistants half as much as I love mine. She’s got her furry little paws around my heart and enough attitude to fill four lawyers.