Writers and Writing

I write on this blog because I like to write. Somebody who "likes to write" would write more often you say. Well, maybe. Or maybe I have problems that are addressed in this article.

Just maybe.

Dark Is Easy. Bright Is Hard.

One of my very favorite writers, his blog is a daily 'must read', is James Lileks. What follows is a summation of a conversation, a teachable moment, he had with his daughter.

It's a teachable moment for all of us who are not his daughter, as well.

Anyway, I was exulting in the Non-Standard No-Routine Saturday, when my daughter came into my study and asked me to read what she’s been writing.

And here I have a dilemma. Let me tell you about the fiction young girls are writing: it’s horrible. Not in the literary sense, necessarily, although that’s often the case. It’s the subject matter. Thanks to the influence of Harry Potter, stories usually begin with the death of the parents, the discovery of Powers, and so on. The darkness is a constant. She shows me the work of her peers, and it’s all horribly dark - and these are kids with happy merry easy lives. On one hand I get it: you write the opposite, summon the fears, confront them. But on the other hand: for heaven’s sake, what’s the matter here? You’re all eleven or twelve or 13 - that tremulous witching year - and you associate the Dark with the Profound. I get it. But as I told my daughter: Dark is easy. Bright is hard.

She told me how she wanted to end her story, and it had a flat rote nihilistic twist. Not because she’s dark or goth or anything, but because that’s the dominant literary model. So I kept posing questions: what if this happened? Or that? Or this? Trying to push her to see the twist at the end of the story as a release, a flock of aspirations taking flight, a break in the clouds. Oh my vs. uh huh. And she got it.

Dark is easy. Bright is hard.

Find Lileks here.

The World Is His iPod

 From one of my favorite bloggers, James Lileks:

Wife took (the dog) for a walk later. He was slow. Very slow. "He's not going to be with us much longer," she said. Resigned. Then hopeful: "But I've been saying that for three years."


"Where did he take you tonight?"


"Well, I let him go where he wanted, and we went up the hill to the water tower, and then back down, and when we got home he didn't want to go up the steps so he went down the street, and I thought he would go up the back steps, but he looked at me, like 'I'm not done,' and we walked east and around the neighborhood again. But it was dark and he can't see anything."


"But he can smell."


Nearly deaf and nearly blind, and the world is still a story, every scent a character, every strong odor a twist in the plot. The dog walks outside and the world is his iPod, and it's always set on shuffle. So it is for us all, really. If you have a dog you know how they come to the door and stand there waiting for you to let them out. Standing at the glass door. The wall that keeps the odors out. They can see, but they can't smell. Daily life for us is just like that. If you're lucky someone opens the door and all the glories rush over you.

I Love It When Words Come To Me

Joe Posnanski is one of the best sports writers in the business today. He was, at one time, at the Kansas City Star, but is now working for Sports Illustrated. His articles come up on my feed reader regularly and I always anticipate what he has to say.

One of the most recent posts by Posnanski is on the passing of Nick Charles, a sportscaster for CNN. I heard the news over the weekend, but I had no idea who he was since I usually don't have cable or satellite TV and, if I did, I probably wouldn't get my sports from CNN.

So I read Posnanski's article primarily because he is usually good, but secondly, I read it to be introduced to Nick Charles and why his life made the news. I am so glad I did, because I found the words for something that I have been having trouble explaining.

My recent layoff caused me to think about my life and work and why I do things and what things are worth doing. I have always known that I liked to write, but I would not have had an easy time explaining why. "Why do you want to write?" somebody might say. Or, "What would would you like to write about?" is another version. Nick Charles provided the answer during his interview with Joe Posnanski.

Posnanski went to see Charles because Charles was dying and both men knew it. As their time together was ending and Posnanski was headed for the car, they had this exchange:

Nick: "Do you know what you're going to write about me?"

Joe: "No, not yet."

Nick: "Will the words just come to you?"

Joe: "I don't know. I hope so."

Nick: "I'll bet they will. I love it when words come to me."

And there it was - "I love it when words come to me." That's why I write. I want to say something, to feel something. I want the reader to feel something, to imagine something, to connect with what I've written. Not for my sake; not because I wrote it, but because, in sharing the written word, maybe we'll experience an affirmation of a previously unspoken certainty.

Like I did when I read Charles' statement.

I recommend that you read Posnanski's article, even if sports isn't your thing. But be ready feel something - the words came.

Writers Write

More from W.P. Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe,"

"Writing is different," Salinger insists. "Other people get into occupations by accident or design; but writers are born. We have to write. I have to write. I could work at selling motels, or slopping hogs, for fifty years, but if someone asked my occupation, I'd say writer, even if I'd never sold a word. Writers write. Other people talk."

A Thousand Words Paint A Picture

Writing. This is how it's done:

I had to go to Iowa City again that night. As I tucked Karin into bed in her room with curtains covered in kittens and ballerinas, I said, "Is there anything I can bring you?" figuring on an ice-cream bar, a Dr. Pepper, or a slice of cheese pizza, which, incredibly, she likes to eat cold for breakfast.

"Bring me the flowers, Daddy," she said. "I want some to touch when I wake up in the morning."

That night, after my meeting, I drove back to the spot we had visited by day. It was like a cathedral, the filtered light of stars and streelights peeking through the thatch of blossoms and leaves.

From the jumble in the back seat, I took a large Styrofoam cup that had once held a cherry Coke, and, walking along the dark street rather sheepishly, scooped handfuls of petals from the the overflowing gutters, wondering how I would explain myself if someone chanced to ask.

I carried them home on the seat beside me like an urn of ashes, and placed them on the night table beside Karin's bed. I watched her sleeping; she slept on her back, her right-hand palm up beside her head. She looks like Annie run through a copying machine that reduces things in size. I bent and kissed her freckled nose. I will probably never love her more than I did at that moment.

- from "Shoeless Joe" by W.P. Kinsella

Five Dimensions of a Great Story (like LOTR)

Anyone who blogs on a regular basis, or on a semi-regular basis, probably enjoys writing and may fancy himself to be a writer to some degree.

Peter Kreeft, the author of The Philosophy of Tolkein: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings, presents five dimensions that every great story has. Justin Taylor has helpfully posted the details with links to the author's website where one can hear him lecture on some themes from the book.

Lecture anyone?

The Caine Mutiny

I finished reading this book a week or so ago. It's one of the best books I've ever read, and I was surprised by it in that regard.

As I posted before, I was familiar with the movie having seen it a half a dozen times or so. I liked it pretty well, the end was always satisfying, but it always felt a little strained. It always seemed that some pieces were missing in the story and that the movie was just trying a bit too hard.

Having read the book, it's obvious that the movie was trying to cover way too much ground and suffered a bit as a result. That's not to say that the movie's no good because it is good and remains a popular film to this day.

The book, on the other hand, is so rich, so well written. I was very struck by what a good writer Herman Wouk (pronounced woke) is. He is a Navy veteran himself and it is clearly evident in his storytelling. I'm sure I wasn't expecting it to be poorly written, but it is so outstanding in my opinion that I can't help comment on it.

You could order one here.

One last thing - as I read the book, the dialogue for Queeg sounded like Bogart and Maryk sounded like Van Johnson and Keefer sounded like Fred MacMurray and Barney Greenwald sound like Jose Ferrar and I think I liked it that way.

It could have been worse.

I Kid You Not

A passage from the book 'The Caine Mutiny' by Herman Wouk

Another day and another passed of rough seas and lowering skies; of rolling and pitching, cold winds, and cold damp eating into bones softened by tropic warmth; of a treadmill of watches in a wheelhouse dank and gloomy by day and danker and gloomier by night; of sullen silent sailors and pale dog-tired officers, of meals in the wardroom eaten in silence, with the captain at the head of the table ceaselessly rolling the balls in his fingers and saying nothing except an infrequent grumpy sentence about the progress of the work requests. Willie lost track of time. He stumbled from the bridge to his coding, from coding to correcting publications, from corrections back up to the bridge, from the bridge to the table for an unappetizing bolted meal, from the table to the clipping shack for sleep which never went uninterrupted for more than a couple of hours. The world became narrowed to a wobbling iron shell on a waste of foamy gray, and the business of the world was staring out at empty water or making red-ink insertions in the devil's own endless library of mildewed unintelligible volumes.

That is great writing. You may be familiar with the film that came from this book but those players are vague and misty spectres compared to the flesh and blood that Wouk puts on the pages.

134. Dumping the Inbox

A number of things have been stacking up in the Inbox, so let's dump it out and do a sort.

Did you see this about Brit Hume? One of the few anchors I actually enjoy listening to on the TV, except we don't get his channel - too bad. Anyway, it appears he knows the Lord and it could be that is why he seems like a decent fellow on the tube.

On Veteran's Day, pastor John Piper observed, "The tensions between being a follower of Jesus as a soldier are essentially the same as the tensions of being a follower of Jesus in all the other authority structures of society that God ordains for the stability of the world (like business, education, government, and family). "

He concludes with gratitude to God for the risk so many are willing to take for the sake of peace. Amen.

Piper's son Abraham blogs at 22 Words and he offered some blogging advice a few days ago. Here's a sample:

- Keep paragraphs 5 lines or shorter. (If this post were a list of one, this would be it.)

- Put either your main point or a story in the first paragraph of posts.

- Interact with readers in your comment section.

And, of course, his list is 22 items long.

Finally, I read an interesting article the other day at the Pyromaniacs web site. It had to do with judgement of God described in the passage from Malachi 3 regarding the fuller. Now, if you are like me, the only thing you know about the fuller is he had a bunch of brushes once upon a time. However, I learned a thing or two about the fuller. Thought you might like this.

The passage:

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord."

One observation from Team Pyro:

So when God says that the Messiah is coming with "fuller's soap", He's not saying, "Jesus will make you wash your hands." he's saying, "you are disgusting and useless unless you are cleaned up by the Messiah."

The whole article is here.

128. Returns Still Coming In

Sometimes I think of things to write about when I'm at work. When that happens I open a Word document on the computer and make a note and add to it if more ideas occur. At the end of the day I attach that document to an email and send it home. Then when I'm ready to write something here, I've got notes and ideas ready to go.

Provided I remember one thing, of course.

Some weeks ago the computers at work were updated to the latest Microsoft Office versions. And the new Word documents are not compatible with the old programs UNLESS you remember to save it AS the older version. If you don't, the plain English you wrote will be displayed as gobbledygook.

So all the brilliance that I was set to display for you tonight looks like this in my document: PK!0É(.

OK, so there you go. Let me know what you think. Your opinion matters.

And, naturally, what I was going to write about tonight was the election. I don't want to dull anything I wished to say, so I'll just re-send my document and post tomorrow.

I think it'll be worth reading.

But if it's not, there's always PK!0É(.