Writing Down a Storm

I have been asked to write this blog.

I was explaining my viewpoints in great detail to Jill, who said, "You know, you should write that down. Put out a blog or something." 

As I reached down to pick up the pen she suddenly dropped and kicked under a desk, something must have come up because she disappeared, rushing down the aisle, through the door, down the stairs from the sound of it, and outside, I guess, because I could hear the door slam. I hope everything's alright.  

So, now I have this blog and a pen. 

I had been explaining to her about the latest. 

As a professional writer and editor as well as a lifelong avid reader, I have strong feelings about writing. Not that I am the epitome of writing excellence or that I don't make mistakes, and I certainly don't mean to imply that I write publishable quality material in the first draft. There isn't anything I've written that I wouldn't love to rewrite. 

But if nothing else I recognize the work that goes into writing well. I realize it's an art, a craft, a skill that no one can ever truly master.

Writers agonize over words, their connotations and their sounds. We search for precise verbs so we can eliminate adverbs. We fight with sentence structure until it is just right, and, some of us, depending on the work, write for the rhythm and meter, subconsciously perhaps, seeking Shakespeare's iambic pentameter to pull the reader through the prose. 

Then we rewrite (This is where I really miss my IBM Selectric. See Typing up a Storm.) We cut things apart and put them together differently, seeking the right flow, the correct emphasis. 

Because... writing isn't just putting words on paper.

That's the least of it. Writing is thinking. It's clarifying ideas, seeking the right combination of words, phrases, imagery and symbols, so the reader can experience the richness, the slightest nuance of the thought—the closest thing possible next to exchanging souls—providing of course we write what we truly mean to write and the reader reads conscientiously.

Well, ideally, that's how it works. When you're a hired a gun, you rarely have that luxury or inclination. Still, you want to make sure whatever you write is correct, effective, and well written. You are writing for a purpose. 

Still, the actual typing isn't the hard part. 

I am often asked to rewrite things after others, often many others have taken a swing at it. Speeches, press releases, letters.  I am asked just to look something over because of my editing skills. But it quickly becomes apparent that best editorial advice I can give is to start over.

Often a piece of writing  has gone through several hands, from field representatives to vice presidents, and I am asked to look it over for punctuation. But what I am given is a puzzle. I can sometimes tell what they meant to say, but it is rarely what they actually wrote.

I was recently asked to review a letter announcing a new program, and I couldn't understand the letter or the program. And it was about to go out the door.

So, I interviewed the people about the initiative. I read the contracts. No one was quite clear what the program entailed or how the end user would benefit. How can the writing be coherent when the thought behind it isn't? So, with my new understanding of the program and of the people being offered the deal, I rewrote the letter.

It was better, semantically correct anyway. But I wrote a second letter and I gave that to them as well, telling them, "This is what you're really offering. This is what they are actually choosing between and the possible benefits of each."

And that was the letter they went with. They didn't really understand their own deal. I had just defined company policy. 

But, I get paid to do that, so I can't complain too much. I am the one they run their stuff by, hoping I won't find anything, but ultimately glad that I did and could fix it, a bit like the necessary evil of dentistry. 

Sometimes I am thanked for "helping out."

So, what was the latest? That incident Jill was unable to hear about? 

A podcast to explain a new initiative is needed and I was asked to....."TYPE SOMETHING UP."

"Just type up something, oh, and can I have that by 3?" 

Because for someone who doesn't understand writing, that's what it is—typing, just putting marks on paper. 

Actors and directors bringing life to the blueprints crafted by writers who are pushed offstage and often go un-thanked and underpaid while everyone tells the director what a genius he is, and the actor what a way he has with words.

Presidents get elected and run countries by the strength of their speechwriters. Peggy Noonan's words comforted the nation when Challenger blew up. It was Ted Sorensen who told the youth to " Ask not what the country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Galvanizing words. Generation-defining speeches. Proposals for the future of civilization. 

But I should just TYPE SOMETHING UP.

Now that I have that out of my system, I'll get right on it.