Good grief! Is it really 3:20 already?
What have I written today? Blog posts, Newswithviews column, part of a movie review for the Chalcedon magazine, and two more chapters of my book.
Piece of cake–if you’re used to working for a newspaper.
As an editor and reporter, I had to keep the old typewriter going for hours on end; and to make it just a bit harder, I had to keep hopping from one assignment to another. You’re always working on several different stories at once, plus rewrites of other people’s stuff, plus editing, headlines, photo captions, local sports results… And if you think it’s easy to keep track of it all–well, try it sometime. And you can completely forget about waiting for the muse to visit you. You’ve got deadlines.
Back and forth, back and forth. Marlboro Township politics. Regional Sewerage Authority in financial trouble. Kid finds dead tiger shark on beach. Holmdel High School football team gets crushed again. Before you can finish one, you have to start another.
So, yeah, I’m pretty tired now. Time for a smoko, as they say in the Outback.
If you’re thinking about really, truly, honest-to-Pete becoming a writer–put in a few years at a local newspaper. After that, you’re ready for anything.
Sounds like good advise to me. I am currently reading James J. Kilpatrick’s “A Writer’s Art” – it is tremendous. Wish I had read it before I sent my manuscript off to my editor (who is a retired newspaper editor).