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The Columnist
May. 11th, 2003 02:04 pmIn a discussion over lunch yesterday with Davo, I noticed how my writing in LJ is starting to hit several old practiced patterns. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, it's just a realization of training from the past.
I'm writing like a newspaper columnist. Short paragraphs, conscious of the audience, coming in around 15-20 column inches. On weekdays, I have a deadline - trying to provide a post before work. This is a change from the start of LJ where I was posting lots of polls and trying to keep things short. I do tend to lament that I have a difficult time with the short post, where someone can succinctly wrap up their entire thought in one or two sentences. For example:
"I like pudding," or the infamous, "Math is hard."
My thoughts take time, effort and apparently, background. When I was in high school, I was in band, choir, drama, and then journalism. Academics weren't a big love of mine. Journalism was the backup if my big, giant, TV acting career went south. I was prepared. I didn't want to be a waiter or teacher to back up those times when I thought I would be waiting on the next casting call, I would write.
My journalistic aspirations were in the esoteric areas, entertainment, sports, and column writing. The police beat was the biggest bane to my journalistic career. I was assigned the police beat once when I was in college, and hated it. Campus cops are a stupid breed, and it's impossible to put out a story that properly does justice to a missing knapsack and the valiant efforts they are going into to find it.
Entertainment writing would have been great. I need to look at more of what Larry is writing. What an interesting job. I still love the entertainment industry, even if Entertainment Tonight has become unwatchable. Consider me old school, but Tabloid Journalism disgusts me and is one of the primary reasons I can't stand current media.
Sports writing, mmm, locker rooms...well, who knows how that might have worked out.
So why didn't I go into writing? I couldn't afford to. Most places require internships to gain experience, most don't pay a dime. I worked my way through college, paying for about 90% of it. It's hard to get a paying job without having done a couple of internships. College paper and yearbook writing doesn't count for much.
I applied for a corporate communications position with my company a couple of years ago, when we were still growing. The director of the department is a former sports writer for the Houston Post, when that paper was still around. He was the Astros beat writer. I remember reading all of his accounts of the great 1986 'Stros, and it gave me a place to start with for the interview. I even brought my story of Astros pitcher Charlie Kerfeld that I wrote for the Daily Cougar a year or so later when the pitching phenom was shuffled back to the minor leagues. I was told the job I was applying for had two requirements I didn't meet, HTML knowledge (which I could learn) and I didn't have recent writing experience.
I wanted that job so badly. Knowing now what was to come, I would have been laid off in November, but I would have had the job on my resume.
There was one other influence, Lynn Ashby. Mr. Ashby also wrote for the Houston Post. He had a column that ran weekdays, front page of the opinion section. He was allowed to write whatever he wanted, topics of the day, interesting events at home, and he did it with a humor and style that I try to implement in my own writing. He also grew up across the street from my dad. They weren't really good friends, Mr. Ashby was a few years older than Dad. Still, there was a connection that got me started reading his work, and then wanting to do the same as he.
Column writing isn't something you just crash into. You have to pay your dues, internships, police beats, bake sales, UFO sightings. I had to interview the guy who wrote the lyrics to the musical "Annie". He was an ass, and I never did like the musical so I pulled the no-no when you're interviewing a guest of the university for a promotional puff piece. I asked him, "When you wrote the song "Tomorrow" did you imagine that so many people would hate it so much?" The interview was pretty much over then. I turned in a half-assed story, and got called on the carpet by my editor after she was called by the theater school about my attitude in the interview.
Paying the dues didn't interest me much.
I wanted to write what I wanted to, research my own interests. LJ lets me do this, and yes, I have an audience (thank you). I have a hard time loosening up sometimes because I do know you're out there, sometimes reading, sometimes not. When your expected to know this when you write...you tend to feel like your speaking in some big monologue to them, trying to give out some nugget of wisdom, or a glimpse into my psyche. Something that will keep people reading. I don't sell newspapers, I don't sell LJ, but I do write, and I write for me.
But my column is over for today. Come back tomorrow.
I'm writing like a newspaper columnist. Short paragraphs, conscious of the audience, coming in around 15-20 column inches. On weekdays, I have a deadline - trying to provide a post before work. This is a change from the start of LJ where I was posting lots of polls and trying to keep things short. I do tend to lament that I have a difficult time with the short post, where someone can succinctly wrap up their entire thought in one or two sentences. For example:
"I like pudding," or the infamous, "Math is hard."
My thoughts take time, effort and apparently, background. When I was in high school, I was in band, choir, drama, and then journalism. Academics weren't a big love of mine. Journalism was the backup if my big, giant, TV acting career went south. I was prepared. I didn't want to be a waiter or teacher to back up those times when I thought I would be waiting on the next casting call, I would write.
My journalistic aspirations were in the esoteric areas, entertainment, sports, and column writing. The police beat was the biggest bane to my journalistic career. I was assigned the police beat once when I was in college, and hated it. Campus cops are a stupid breed, and it's impossible to put out a story that properly does justice to a missing knapsack and the valiant efforts they are going into to find it.
Entertainment writing would have been great. I need to look at more of what Larry is writing. What an interesting job. I still love the entertainment industry, even if Entertainment Tonight has become unwatchable. Consider me old school, but Tabloid Journalism disgusts me and is one of the primary reasons I can't stand current media.
Sports writing, mmm, locker rooms...well, who knows how that might have worked out.
So why didn't I go into writing? I couldn't afford to. Most places require internships to gain experience, most don't pay a dime. I worked my way through college, paying for about 90% of it. It's hard to get a paying job without having done a couple of internships. College paper and yearbook writing doesn't count for much.
I applied for a corporate communications position with my company a couple of years ago, when we were still growing. The director of the department is a former sports writer for the Houston Post, when that paper was still around. He was the Astros beat writer. I remember reading all of his accounts of the great 1986 'Stros, and it gave me a place to start with for the interview. I even brought my story of Astros pitcher Charlie Kerfeld that I wrote for the Daily Cougar a year or so later when the pitching phenom was shuffled back to the minor leagues. I was told the job I was applying for had two requirements I didn't meet, HTML knowledge (which I could learn) and I didn't have recent writing experience.
I wanted that job so badly. Knowing now what was to come, I would have been laid off in November, but I would have had the job on my resume.
There was one other influence, Lynn Ashby. Mr. Ashby also wrote for the Houston Post. He had a column that ran weekdays, front page of the opinion section. He was allowed to write whatever he wanted, topics of the day, interesting events at home, and he did it with a humor and style that I try to implement in my own writing. He also grew up across the street from my dad. They weren't really good friends, Mr. Ashby was a few years older than Dad. Still, there was a connection that got me started reading his work, and then wanting to do the same as he.
Column writing isn't something you just crash into. You have to pay your dues, internships, police beats, bake sales, UFO sightings. I had to interview the guy who wrote the lyrics to the musical "Annie". He was an ass, and I never did like the musical so I pulled the no-no when you're interviewing a guest of the university for a promotional puff piece. I asked him, "When you wrote the song "Tomorrow" did you imagine that so many people would hate it so much?" The interview was pretty much over then. I turned in a half-assed story, and got called on the carpet by my editor after she was called by the theater school about my attitude in the interview.
Paying the dues didn't interest me much.
I wanted to write what I wanted to, research my own interests. LJ lets me do this, and yes, I have an audience (thank you). I have a hard time loosening up sometimes because I do know you're out there, sometimes reading, sometimes not. When your expected to know this when you write...you tend to feel like your speaking in some big monologue to them, trying to give out some nugget of wisdom, or a glimpse into my psyche. Something that will keep people reading. I don't sell newspapers, I don't sell LJ, but I do write, and I write for me.
But my column is over for today. Come back tomorrow.
