Write the Book You Want to Read
David McCullough is one of the best known writers of history today. He has written New York Times bestselling books about the American Revolution, famous bridges, and American presidents like John Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman. His most recent work on the Wright brothers was another bestseller.
Before becoming a historian, he wrote articles for Sports Illustrated, Time-Life, and American Heritage. He didn’t plan on a career writing books about history — that is until he came across a photograph of the Johnstown flood at the Library of Congress.
As a boy in Pennsylvania he used to make a pool of gravy in his mashed potatoes and then take a fork an smash the side and say “the Johnstown flood!” but he never knew why they did that as kids. It was just something they said. They didn’t know the story behind it.
So, when McCullough found the photograph of the real Johnstown flood, he became intensely curious. He wanted to learn more about it.
He went and found a book about the flood but he wasn’t satisfied. He knew from his childhood growing up in Pennsylvania that the author made some geographical errors in the book. He also thought the story could be presented in a better way.
What happened next was a critical turning point in McCullough’s career.
Write the Book You Want to Read
McCullough knew the writer and playwright Thorton Wilder in his days at Yale. So when he saw an interview about the artist in The Parish Review, he was interested in what he had to say.
The interviewer asked him why he wrote books and plays and the answer made a lasting impact on McCullough. He said:
“ I think I write in order to discover on my shelf a new book that I would enjoy reading or to see a new play that would engross me.”
— Thorton Wilder
“If it didn’t exist,” McCullough observed, then “he wrote it so he could read and see it.”
McCullough was inspired with an unrelenting curiosity about the Johnstown flood. The books he found about the flood weren’t satisfying to him. That combination of curiosity and dissatisfaction with what was available led him to a key decision in every writer’s life: write the book you want to read.
Make the _____ You Want to _____
Paint the painting you want to see.
Sculpt the sculpture you want to see.
Write the song you want to hear.
Produce the movie you want to watch.
Cook the meal you want to eat.
Write the book you want to read.
The pattern that led David McCullough to become an author of historical books is found frequently in the lives of artists. It starts with curiosity and love for the topic, then continues with a desire to create a better experience of that topic than what is available.
For McCullough it was a book about the Johnstown flood. The love he had for learning about the flood set him on a path to historian stardom. With each new project he took on, he made sure it was built upon the foundation of curiosity and love. He declined, for example, the invitation to write about the Chicago fire. Instead he let his curiosity lead him to write the next book and then the next and ten the next.
Where is your curiosity taking you today?
