The Simplicity of Writing

It was the legendary college basketball coach Bobby Knight who said it as a putdown for a sportswriter he thought was particularly stupid.

"All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things."

Permit me to take offense for just a moment. I've been making my living by writing things for the last 30 years or so, which means I've never gone on to the greater things Knight had in mind. Being a writer, however, has introduced me to some fascinating aspects of the business world.

But once I'm over my pity party, I have to admit that Knight was right, in a way. Writing, at its essence, is a pretty basic endeavor. Most, if not all, of us really master the essential act of writing pretty early in elementary school.

That's where we learn about words. That's where we learn what nouns are, and verbs. That's where we learn the value of adjectives and adverbs. That's where we learn the practicality of prepositions.

If we're really lucky, that's also where we learn that writing really is a simple act. All we're doing is stringing together the best combination of nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, with maybe some prepositions for spice, in order to communicate an idea to someone else. That simplicity is the beauty of writing. That simplicity is also the difficulty, because the quest for the "best combination" of words can be excruciating.

Nobody can tell us, in any situation, what the "best combination" of words will be. We have to find them on our own. That search is where the work is; for me, that search is where the joy of writing truly lives.

On that rare occasion when I know--I know--that I've found the best combination of words to convey my idea, I can say with conviction that Bobby Knight was flat-out wrong. That's when I know that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, greater than writing something very well.