Swoopers and Bashers
Crispin Burke, a self-described swooper, identifies the two types of writers in the world
If you are wondering what Guild member, Crispin Burke, is pointing to in the picture above, it is cold pint of beer. He is literally running every time I check twitter. I am convinced the dude runs all day only stopping for a refreshing India Pale Ale.
Crispin is an Army Aviator that picked up blogging, against Army regulations, while deployed. His chain of command picked up on his blogging when he wound up on the front page of the New York Times…about a week later.
Like Phil Walter, he nurtures natural kinesthetic learning capacities with real books, hand-written notes, and a highlighter. He hates reading on screens although I hear Phil has evolved from that proclivity.
If you want to help him fulfill his New Year’s Resolution, send him drafts of your ambulance blogging, he’s happy to review.
[John DeRosa] What time do you typically wake up? Do you really do more before 9 am than most people do all day?
[Crispin Burke] I wake up at 5:00 am on weekdays, and about 6:30 am on weekends. I start with a nutty caramel-flavored Keurig cup, spiked with cream and whipped cream on top — sort of the poor man’s bulletproof coffee. I’ll probably down two small cups in the first hour of my day.
During that first hour, I’ll scour the web for articles and blog posts everywhere from the New York Times to Twitter. I post the best stuff to my Facebook blog, Wings Over Iraq, which also cross-posts to my Twitter account. That first hour, incidentally, is also a great time to catch up on work emails.
When 6:00 am rolls around, I get off the computer and get ready to run 6 ½ miles along a nearby trail — although I’m not completely unplugged, as Runmeter keeps me abreast of everyone’s Twitter antics. That hour or so of exercise is usually when I come up with my best writing ideas — the only problem is that, by the time I’ve finished, I’ve forgotten the great story idea I had four miles ago. I may need to start running with a notepad.
I’ll return home around 7:45 am, pack my lunch and my gym bag, and get dressed for work. By the time I sit at my desk, I’ll have been up for four hours and burned eight hundred active calories already.
Why is this important for writers, particularly military writers? Because the biggest challenge when it comes to writing is simply finding the time to do it in the first place. We lead hectic and grossly unpredictable lifestyles. I use Google Calendar to keep track of my “to-do” list and to plan my days down to the minute — I try to have everything planned out two weeks in advance. Even then, my calendar turns out to be more of a wish list than a hard timeline.
You simply will not find the time to read and write if you don’t a.) set aside the time to do so and b.) guard that time ruthlessly. I have to be deliberate and set aside time to read, write, exercise, do chores, study my aircraft operator’s manual, finish my Command and General Staff College classes, the occasional weekend trip, and, of course, work. Why? Because no one is going to do any of that for me. I set aside my phone and shut down the web browsers — they’re horrible distractions, really — and I either read or write for an hour most nights.
[JD]Describe your writing routine.
[CB] I carry a Black Moleskine notebook with me and I fill it with story ideas, even though I probably only get around to writing about a tenth of the ones I come up with. Once I pick a topic, I’ll usually sketch out an outline in pencil on a white 5x8 card. I’ll then type some of those ideas into Microsoft Word.
Duffel Blog author @BlondesOverBaghdad told me of a quote attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, in which he claims there are two types of writers in the world: swoopers and bashers.
“Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done, they’re done.”
I’m definitely a Swooper. I put words and ideas on the paper. Then I’ll print the draft on 5x8 cards and take them with me. I’ll usually wait a day or two to come back to something I’ve written. When I read something I wrote days ago, it looks as if it were written by a total stranger.
That’s when I start hedge-trimming. It’s painful to cut entire paragraphs out of whatever you’ve written, but you have to do it. I’ll work for hours writing on that second day, and my article will be just as long, if not shorter than it was on the first day. That’s how I know it’s improving.
George Lucas reportedly used to yell at the actors in Star Wars, “faster, more intense” — so much so the crew had T-shirts printed up that said “faster” on one side and “more intense” on the other. I find Twitter, with its 140-character limit, actually helps people get to the pith of whatever it is they’re trying to write. In the Internet age, with so much information out there, you have to hit ‘em hard and hit ‘em fast or you just won’t hit ‘em at all.
I also find that I do much of the yeoman’s work of writing the old-fashioned way: with pencil and paper. I do most of the note-taking and outlining in pencil, then I’ll print out multiple drafts and write out my edits. I feel as if I have to physically interact with whatever it is I’m writing. The same thing goes for books. I hate reading on screens; I have to have a physical copy. I’m a compulsive highlighter, too.
Writers are readers, by necessity. It’s where we get our best ideas. I find that half the time, I get great ideas from brilliant writers, and half the time, I’m motivated to write by egregiously stupid writers. Since there’s no shortage of stupidity on the Internet, I have no shortage of inspiration.
[JD] What are you reading lately?
[CB] I usually have a first-up and second-up book, though I’ve pushed them both aside for the moment for such thrilling tomes as TM 1–1520–237–10 (the operator’s manual for a Black Hawk Helicopter) and the FAR/AIM.
But I have some vacation coming up, so I’m reading Richard Whittle’s fascinating book on the development of the Predator drone, as well as Phillipe-Paul de Segur’s Defeat, an insider’s account of Napoleon’s hubris during his invasion of Russia in 1812.
I have stacks of books I’ve bought that I’ve never gotten around to reading, and may never get to in my lifetime. That’s okay because it gives me something to aspire to.
[JD] How do you find what to read?
[CB] I’ll get some ideas from Amazon, or from recommendations from Facebook friends. I’ve increasingly found the authors who appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart often have great reading recommendations. They’re on my ever-mounting to-read list that I never get around to finishing.
When I first started really committing myself to understanding military strategy, I picked up Robert Greene’s “Power, Seduction, and War” trilogy. Not only are the books a decent introductory primer, but Greene’s bibliography in the back is filled with additional books on strategy. I think some of my favorite books have come from Greene’s recommendations.
[JD] Is there a genre of reading you prefer?
[CB] Well, as you’ve probably noticed, military history. But I like some non-fiction as well, including James Hilton’s Lost Horizon, which gave us the long-lost kingdom of Shangri-La. My favorite book of all time is T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I own several copies of it, actually, even paying up to $100 for the unabridged 1922 edition. Historians have issues with it, of course, but I’ll always have a soft spot for it. Lawrence has great observations on military organizational culture and strategy. It’s a wonderfully written book. About 150 pages of the book amount to little more than “I’m hot, I’m on a camel, and the desert is vast” — but Lawrence’s lyrical writing style just makes it work.
[JD] What’s your drink of choice?
[CB] Other than my take on bulletproof coffee? I’m a fan of India Pale Ales. You can scroll through all 480 of the beers I’ve logged on Untappd, but I really like double IPAs brewed with citra hops. They’re amazing in the summer time, though hard to come by. The last really good one I had was from Pfreim Brewery in Hood River, Oregon, though one by Stone’s citra-hopped Stotchtacity is probably my favorite.
[JD] Where’s the most adventurous place(s) you have been?
[CB] My co-workers in my last assignment kept teasing me because I had the best overseas trips — among them, Greece, Nairobi, and Portland, Oregon. I was able to take some leave in conjunction with my trip to Greece, and was able to see some of the places I’d read about in Thucydides — from Athens, home of democracy, to Pylos, where the Athenians could have ended the Peloponnesian War on favorable terms, but they kept getting greedy.
[JD] What bold steps would you like to see the MWG take?
[CB] I made a New Year’s Resolution years back to review drafts when people send them to me. I’ve been immensely appreciative for those who were able to mentor me as I struggled to find venues for writing — among them, Dave Dilegge of Small Wars Journal and Tom Ricks. I hope our guild can do for others what those two did for me. For that, I’m immensely grateful, and hopeful for what an organization like this can accomplish.
Follow Crispin, John, and the Military Writers Guild on twitter. Cheers!
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