ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (05-08-25)
This month marks the 10th anniversary of my first column for the Somers Record. Traditionally you might give the gift of tin for a 10th anniversary, but good luck finding anything nice made of tin. It's used in brake pads, cement and fire retardants, all GREAT gift ideas, but instead I'll accept a personal check, with two forms of identification.
When I started this column I was thinking that after three months I would run out of coherent things to say. WOW, was I wrong! That only took two weeks. The rest of this time I've been recounting the things that go on in my head, loosely draped around a weak premise thinly disguised as a theme. I have not missed a week.
But I love being a writer, because I can alter reality with just a few keystrokes. I will admit that my life is pretty routine; some would say boring. The trick is to make those everyday things seem fun. And for that, I use invention, exaggeration, irony, imagined dialogue and the distortion of facts. I use those devices so often that if it was possible to revoke an "artistic license," mine would have been yanked long ago, and I would be sitting in county lockup with a guy staring at me who has a tattoo of Genghis Khan on his tongue.
I love the prospect of "turning a phrase." And believe me, once I am done with it the phrase has really turned, like that green object in the fruit drawer of my refrigerator that looks like it might be suffering from a very slow form of motion sickness. And when you come up with the perfect way of saying something, so that others can grasp your exact meaning, a connection is made with a complete stranger. If that ever happens I'll let you know.
I can teach you how to write, right now, in just a few minutes. I don't want to brag, but I've forgotten more about writing than I'll ever know in a lifetime. First, there are some rules of the game- good writing should not be attempted without first mastering some basic standards of grammar. One: Do not dangle a participle in front of anyone who hasn't eaten in a while. Two: Sometimes the perfect tense, isn't. Three: If you end a sentence with a preposition, it should be a prison sentence, such as: "What are you in for?" Four: Do not be repetitive, redundant, reiterative or duplicative. Four (tied): Good punctuation is important; yet no one really knows when to use a semi-colon. Five: Anyone who uses hyperbole should be shot.
It's a good idea to write about what you know. After you read my column, you might think, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Well, I KNOW that, and that's how I can write about it.
Editing is a big part of the process. Once you cut out the wordy passages, run-on sentences, excess verbiage and anything that does not service the basic substance of the topic, well, there's not a whole lot left, is there? I usually try out a couple different ways of saying the same thing, and I might even say them both out loud, unless there's a clinical psychiatrist specializing in schizophrenia present in the room.
A quote attributed to George Eliot goes, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” Isn't that great? Sometimes I'm what I might have been at 2:00 in the morning, so she was right about that. If you think of a great phrase, for god's sake write it down. I came up with "To be, or not to be." Yup, that was ME, and it was in response to a multiple choice quiz. It was more like, 2B, or not 2B, that was the question. But I did say it out loud. A powerful quote like that is a great opening line for a novel or essay. I'll help you make one up right now. First, choose a weighty subject, like "time," or "love," or "wisdom." Then, choose a qualifier, which can be any noun, even something insignificant like "plumbing fixtures," or "doorknob," or "AAA batteries." Last, choose a group of people whom others would be impressed that you've even heard of. Then you put them all together, and you have something like, "Power is the full-body deodorant of the underqualified." Let people make of that what they will, and I'm sure they'll do better than I did.
You're going to have to share yourself with others. Your darkest, innermost secrets are going to be exposed, like walking around your house in your underwear with the curtains wide open, only this time, it's not on purpose. Some writers keep a journal, or a diary. It gets you into the habit of writing every day. "Dear Diary: Today I did a couple embarrassing things that I won't go into here... I just hope you don't hear them from somebody else."
It's usually true that good writers read a lot. I stay up late at night with a good book, so late that I have to read every page two or three times. I pay attention to the different styles, different subjects and different artifices that make each writer easy to read, or compelling, or informative. I think to myself, how can I plagiarize that just short of anyone noticing?
That should be enough to get you started in the rewarding hobby of writing. So, if you're reading this column for the first time, it's probably by mistake, and I'll be sorry to see you go. For those who have visited before, it's nice to have you back. Drop me a note to say hello if you enjoy our time together.
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