Learning to Write ... and Duck

My parents, teachers, editors and colleagues have all made contributions to my development as a writer. I’m grateful for the guidance I’ve received, and I hold no one but myself responsible for any bad writing habits that may have rubbed off in addition to skills and wisdom. In deed, there will be a long list of people to thank when I accept the awards for this dazzling essay, written in a moment of inspiration after twelve hours at school and an hourlong commute on slick roads – from Mrs. Wilson, who praised my second-grade poem about an avocado plant, to Professor Barlow, who found nice things to say last semester about a ten-page, dead-end meditation on the (almost entirely imagined) connections between the American Primitive guitar music of John Fahey and the dive bars of Oneonta.

One jerk who won’t make the list is Jim H. He was my first boss, the supervising editor at a small Upstate New York paper that hired me as a reporter fresh out of college. With Jim screaming for copy and literally breathing down my neck on deadline, I learned some critical lessons about writing in the world of daily newspaper journalism, many of which apply to writing in other contexts:

1. When you’re trying to convey information to your readers, substance is always more important than style, and simplicity will often serve the message better than complexity.

2. You have to know the rules of grammar and usage in order to break those rules in effective (i.e., forgivable) ways.

3. Nothing you write can be absolutely perfect or complete, whether your deadline is ten minutes or ten hours away. But that’s okay, because there’s always a chance to follow up in the next edition.

These tidbits have stayed with me over the years, but not because Jim was a positive role model or sagacious mentor. He hurled advice at reporters across a busy newsroom, sometimes accompanied by insults and the occasional paperweight.

Another thing that I learned from Jim was that a person should never attempt to simultaneously kick three serious addictions (booze, caffeine and cigarettes) while going through a nasty divorce, and a supervisor should never verbally abuse an employee at close range when that supervisor has recently fallen off one or more of his proverbial wagons, even with the precaution of a curiously strong breath mint.

He taught me a little about writing and a lot about how not to manage a newsroom. I brought the experience with me a few years later, when I took over the job that he had lost because of his foul temper and conduct.

So thanks for the advice, Jim, but you can kiss my ass. I’ve still got a paperweight with your name on it.