So Jen Singer has this post on her blog exploring all the reasons--including unimaginable fame and untold fortune--that might possibly be the motivation for some people to blog. The whole time I was reading the post, I thought about this blog.
I also thought about the question Jen asks. Why, after all, do I blog?
It's not because I'm expecting some book publisher or movie producer to discover my incredible untapped talent and offer me an eight-figure contract. It's not because I'm expecting some CEO to be cruising the net and stumble upon my blog, realize the potential I have for saving his company through stupendously effective corporate communications, and offer me an eight-figure contract. I'm pretty certain neither fantasy will come true. I figure my odds of winning the lottery are better.
So why do I do it? The reason is simple: I love to write.
Writing is both my vocation--that is, my job--and my avocation, my hobby. I enjoy writing. Okay, I love writing. It's really the only thing I've wanted to do as a profession. I don't tingle with excitement when I sit down at my desk these days, but I still get a kick out of knowing that I make my living by writing.
So if I make my living by writing, why blog?
Blogging, at least the way I blog, is just like keeping a journal. As thousands of teachers have attempted to explain to students in hundreds of writing classes, a journal is not a diary. While a diary is an often emotional recording of the daily events of a life, a journal is a daily exercise in writing. Some journal entries might be essays while others might be character sketches or bits of dialog or descriptions of a place. Most journal entries are exercise.
Exercise is good. As any honest writer in the corporate world will tell you, we don't necessarily write every day. There are days that you spend in meetings, or on phone calls, or doing everything imaginable except writing.
It's like my post "Beating the Blank Page," in which I recount the story of John Steinbeck warming up before writing. Steinbeck probably understood the need to exercise his writing on a daily basis, just to keep that muscle in shape. That's what I'm doing here. I'm just doing it in a way that allows anyone to read the result.
Like publishers, producers, and CEOs with eight-figure contracts.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The Perfect Opening Line
Legendary guitarist Keith Richards has told the story of how he came up with the famous guitar riff that opens the classic Rolling Stones song "(Can't Get No) Satisfaction."
Richard claims the opening--those five notes--came to him in his sleep. He woke up, grabbed his guitar, hit the record button on a tape recorder, and played the notes. Then he went right back to sleep. The next morning he rewound the tape to hear that riff followed by a full tape of Keith Richards snoring.
Sometimes that happens for a writer, too. Not the snoring; sometimes the perfect opening line for a short story, a novel, or even an internal memo comes to you as if in a dream. You just think of what you need (or want) to write, and the opening sentence is right there for you.
But for now, let's talk about reality.
In the real world, most of us struggle with the opening sentence. In fact, a lot of people I've known get so frustrated with trying to come up with a perfect opening line that they're too paralyzed to write whatever it is that they need to write. The blank page is sitting there mocking them because they refuse to soil it with just any opening sentence. They just know they have to right the perfect opening.
Well, that's a load of crap. You should never let the quest for the perfect opening prevent you from writing anything at all.
If you find yourself falling into that trap, if you feel that you can't put any words down at all because they're not going to be perfect, try this: Start with the middle. Just start with the absolute center of the document and write whatever needs to be described in that part of the document. If you get on a roll, write all the way to the end.
Then go back to the beginning. Then think about what you've written and put down some words that prepare the reader. And tell yourself that it doesn't have to be perfect. Take some satisfaction from an opening line that simply invites the reader into your document effectively.
And just be ready for the day that the perfect opening line comes to you in a dream.
Richard claims the opening--those five notes--came to him in his sleep. He woke up, grabbed his guitar, hit the record button on a tape recorder, and played the notes. Then he went right back to sleep. The next morning he rewound the tape to hear that riff followed by a full tape of Keith Richards snoring.
Sometimes that happens for a writer, too. Not the snoring; sometimes the perfect opening line for a short story, a novel, or even an internal memo comes to you as if in a dream. You just think of what you need (or want) to write, and the opening sentence is right there for you.
But for now, let's talk about reality.
In the real world, most of us struggle with the opening sentence. In fact, a lot of people I've known get so frustrated with trying to come up with a perfect opening line that they're too paralyzed to write whatever it is that they need to write. The blank page is sitting there mocking them because they refuse to soil it with just any opening sentence. They just know they have to right the perfect opening.
Well, that's a load of crap. You should never let the quest for the perfect opening prevent you from writing anything at all.
If you find yourself falling into that trap, if you feel that you can't put any words down at all because they're not going to be perfect, try this: Start with the middle. Just start with the absolute center of the document and write whatever needs to be described in that part of the document. If you get on a roll, write all the way to the end.
Then go back to the beginning. Then think about what you've written and put down some words that prepare the reader. And tell yourself that it doesn't have to be perfect. Take some satisfaction from an opening line that simply invites the reader into your document effectively.
And just be ready for the day that the perfect opening line comes to you in a dream.
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