Beating the Blank Page

An old Tom Petty song claims that the waiting is the hardest part. Anyone who has to write anything knows the starting is truly the hardest part.

For whatever reason, facing a blank sheet of paper or the white on-screen expanse that represents a new document, which Microsoft Word cheerily calls “Document1,” is very similar to facing the north face of Everest. It’s that level of challenge for most people.

Over the years I’ve read all sorts of tips and exercises that are supposed to help the writer who’s stuck, but there’s really only one way to achieve any level of mastery over the blank page: Practice.

I teach a business writing course in which I tell my students that writing is not a spectator sport. It’s a participant sport. That line always gets me some very blank looks. But the truth is there. The only way you can do well at writing is to practice, is to actually write.

How do you practice? Simply by writing something every day. Whether you write a letter, a description of your office, a description of your commute to work, a funny anecdote you thought about in the shower, a funny accident you had in the shower, the key is to write something every day. Once you’ve written it, you can choose to keep it or throw it away.

I know you’re going to feel self-conscious about writing these little things, especially if you’re only going to throw them away, but here’s a little secret: Professional writers throw away more stuff in an average year than you may write in your lifetime. A colleague of mine often observed that the real difference between the professional and the amateur is the size of the wastebasket.

Part of the reason we throw so much away is that many of us write multiple drafts before we produce the version that’s acceptable to us. I once knew a writer who actually had a T-shirt imprinted with her personal motto: Nobody Sees My First Drafts. Part of the reason is that we understand the value of writing just to write, simply to keep in practice.

Karl Malden, the late actor who worked in film and television for decades, once told a story about working on a project with John Steinbeck, author of such books as Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden. They were assigned to a small office and, Malden recalled, Steinbeck would breeze into the office every morning and write little stories, small essays, wonderful little pieces that had nothing to do with the project they had been assigned.

Finally, one day Malden’s frustration got the best of him, and he asked Steinbeck why he was spending his time on the little pieces he was writing. “Karl, I’ve got to warm up,” was steinbeck’s reply.

I’ve always loved that line, “I’ve got to warm up,” because it crystallizes the reality of the writing process. You simply can’t produce anything when you’re cold, so you have to warm up. Yesterday’s work as nothing to do with the quality of what you produce today if you don’t warm up. Whether you do it like Steinbeck did, by writing small pieces with no relevance at all, or you do it by writing an extra draft or two of your project, the warm up—and the daily practice—is essential.

That Stupid Slide

I think I'm a fairly intelligent individual, but there are many things in the world that I simply don't understand.

Nuclear fusion is one example. I don't understand why, 65 years after we got a firm handle on nuclear fission, fusion technology is still so far out of our grasp.

On a slightly different level, I don't understand why major league baseball players slide into first base. Every week or so throughout the season, I'll a replay of some guy charging down the first-base line and then launching himself headfirst toward the bag. It never works, but they do it. It's really stupid, but they do it.

I don't understand why they do it. Don't they know that the rules allow them to run past first base? If they're not tagged and the throw doesn't beat them, they can step on first base and keep running past the base. Once you're safe at first, nobody can run you down with the ball and tag you out.

But here's the real point: Don't they know that they slow down when they slide? They do. Anybody does. When a human is running 90 feet, that human continues to accelerate while on foot.

If you don't believe me, watch a track meet some time (as I write this, the Penn Relays are coming up). Pay attention to the sprints, especially the 100 meters. What you will never see is a sprinter sliding headfirst across the finish line. Why? Because they know that they're going faster while they're running than they would go if they were sliding. And if sliding was faster, there would be sliding pits at the finish line of every track in the world.

That part is much easier to understand than, say, nuclear fusion technology. Somebody has got to have a handle on that one.

Welcome

Welcome to House Calls, my new blog.

This is my venue for writing about my firmly held beliefs on the topic of good writing. I've been writing professionally--that is, getting paid for the things I write--for nearly 30 years. I've picked up some thoughts along the way on how writing should be done, if the goal is to do it well.

But this is also my venue for writing about politics, sports, food, and anything else I care about. I'm a husband, father, cancer survivor, pet owner, and lover of modern communications. So you just don't know what you'll find here.

Thanks for reading, and please come back.