WRITING
Think you’re writing too slow? I was slower. Trust me. Here’s how I sped up.
It’s a secret you already know. Practice, practice, practice.
In journalism school we were taught news writing by Georgia Fooks, who would retire at the end of the year, when we were half-way through our two-year program to graduation.
Georgia had taught at our college for nearly a quarter-century.
Her trademarks included a quick, staccato lecture delivery and her enormous, round, 1970s-style glasses that rested, somehow, on her smallish pert nose.
Into each waiting class Georgia carried a voluminous stack of papers in her arms that she set down with the words, “Okay, you birds,” and began her lecture from there, stabbing the air with her office keys, clattering like an antique typewriter on deadline until the hour was up. She was the fastest talker most of us had ever heard.
Georgia’s lectures were heavily salted with advice. Keep your notes. Never throw anything out. Write the facts. Deadlines are sacred. Never, never leave meetings early. Never be satisfied to one answer to a question.
Writing was much harder work than I ever thought it could be.
I wrote like a bricklayer placed bricks.
I placed, then tested, words, phrases, sentences, one on the other, replacing some as I went. If I wasn’t pleased with my work- which was often- I’d dismantle everything and slowly reconstruct everything from the ground up again.
My first writing assignment was to describe a teacher in 100 words. No exaggeration- it took me five hours.
I used exactly 100 words. I counted each word, several times. I asked another student how long the assignment took her. Twenty minutes, she said. I wondered how on earth I was going to continue to do this.
It became necessary for me to work late.
Each of us had passes, valid for one semester.
The passes allowed us to work in the Endeavor- our informal name for the room after the name of our colleege newspaper- until 11:00 p.m.
After that, a late pass was required, officially known as, “Access to Facilities and Use of Equipment Authorization,” which was room-specific, always signed by someone in Computer Services, usually by a Mary Shmidt, and good for for four days before requiring renewal.
Those late passes allowed me to work in the Endeavor until 3:00 a.m. I accumulated many of these. I still found that wasn’t enough time. On three or four occasions I worked in the Endeavor past 3:00 a.m. and into the morning when classes began.
I eventually graduated and went into the writing business.
Years later, applying for a job that promised more money when I was working at another newspaper, I was told I would be required to write 12 stories a week.
I laughed.
I had been writing up to 45 stories a week at my previous position. The publisher there wanted me to write short, snappy to-the-point stories.
It took practice. A lot of practice and a lot of stories.
You can do it.
Write a wide variety of stories. Develop your chops.
It’s the same as developing any skill. A home run hitter didn’t look like a hero in his first months in Little League. Ever blow on a saxophone or clarinet for the first time? Either no sound comes out or it squacks. If you blow on a trumpet and make your first sound, it might sound like a fart. It takes a while before the instrument sings.
It’s the same with writing. It just takes practice. Medium is a great place for that. There are a lot of encouraging writers here.
Want the details of how I developed my own writing chops? I’ll include some tips in later stories. For now, keep writing. That’s what it takes. Develop those chops.
