WRITE SOMETHING WORTH READING, DO SOMETHING WORTH WRITING ABOUT

‘Write something’ is the alarm clock for every writer, Daylight Savings Time or not.

What that ‘something’ might be? That’s the challenge.

Everyone who has taken an English class, had an English segment, or passed a love note, has done it.

But not you?

Here’s my favorite writing lash:

If you know where this comes from, good. It’s not me, just know that.

A man tells an audience of writers the secret of writing success:

I can send you down the block to listen to a man tell you a story.

It will be the best story you’ve ever heard, a magical story that bends time and rearranges your life.

It will fill you with emotions you didn’t’ know you have.

He tells you the story and you walk away in a blinding stupor of gratitude for ever hearing it.

As writers, our job is giving that feeling to a million people.

Write Something Worth Reading

A woman I follow on twitter is a Harvard under grad, Yale PhD, Oxford English professor, intellectual contributor to important publications, a sought after member for panels discussing the rise and fall of the interpersonal in classic literature.

And everything else.

She said the filthiest book ever written was the Iliad, but you had to learn Latin for the good stuff.

She’s in her thirties or forties or goes to a good salon, and presents herself in a boudoir-looking pose. Very sexy English professor which strikes me funny as hell.

The English professors I had were either smelly looking old men in sweaters with bad backs and tangled hair escaping their ears and noses, or young men in styled hair and tailored blazers designed for effect at career enhancing functions.

In other words, what the smelly old guys looked like when they started.

Never had office hours with an articulate well groomed woman who watched where you were looking, knew what you were thinking, and had just the novel to bring it all together.

She wrote things worth reading at Harvard, Yale, and Oxford.

If that’s not you, try doing things worth writing about.

Something Worth Writing About?

As a young man I looked for a sport, any sport.

I wasn’t very good at football, basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, swimming, diving, running, jumping, golf, or tennis.

Still, I thought of myself as a good athlete.

I chose wrestling because my high school had a winning tradition and a nationally recognized coach who took teams to world championships.

And his first name was David, so he had that going for him, which was about all I had going for me when I started as a high school sophomore.

The common knowledge in the wrestling room was you’d never win a state championship if you started as late as I did, but you’d still be better for going through the process.

So I won a district title and a state Greco-Roman championship to just prove them wrong?

No, I got lucky with my two move attack: Head and arm hip throw over the top to the right, under-hook hip throw over the top to the left.

Was a good athlete, or tactician?

2

I took my state championship on the road and came a point short of turning it into a national championship, which somehow resulted in third place.

What the hell? Now I couldn’t just stop.

I wrestled a year in college. My two moves didn’t transition very well to the collegiate style.

Instead of returning, I joined the Army to see if my two moves fit.

I lost my challenge match 6-2 at the All-Army Wrestling Team camp at Fort Dix, New Jersey and was sent on my way.

Because of wrestling camp I lost my place in the route from boot camp, to medic school, to permanent duty. Everyone I came up with went to Germany in 1974.

My orders sent me to a Philadelphia civil service clinic inside the Defense Personnel Support Center in South Philly.

I was the clinic guy taking weight and height, blood pressure, vision testing, hearing testing, cardiograms, and driving the ambulance to emergencies inside DPSC.

I was also the laundry guy who made the run each week to exchange dirty for clean at Fort Dix.

The Laundry Run

Captain Doe was an infantry leader, a man’s man used to the hard life and loving it.

Now, as past of his career climb, he was in charge of a hospital company.

And hated every minute.

Instead of hard core soldiers to match his red-ass ways, he was saddled with medics and specialists, what he considered soft soldiers.

His only enjoyment came with monthly physical fitness tests where I pushed his softies to their breaking points.

That’s when I showed up with the laundry and ruined the curve.

I checked in, got clean sheets and supplies, and once a month went through the captain’s grinder.

If I wasn’t in the best shape of my life, I was close. Captain Doe’s burn-out felt more like a warm-up to me.

And he noticed.

Maybe he did the same thing with all new guys, but he told me to stay after dismissing the rest.

We took a run, hopped over logs, skipped through wire, jumped across ditches, and got a decent sweat up.

He was more gassed than I was, which I could tell bothered him. I wasn’t going to show fatigue.

The next month after he finished the hospital troops, he dialed up the intensity on our extra work, and he gassed out first. Again.

He took his frustrations out on his soft troops, but he was getting soft too.

I was headed the other direction and he tagged along until he got too tired.

Then I drove an hour back to Philly in a sweat pool.

For a year and a half.

Captain Doe eventually came around.

Write Something, Then Write Some More

Write something worth reading by putting yourself in the work.

Do something worth writing about by putting yourself in the work.

What’s ‘The Work?’

Set a schedule to write and stick to it.

In the time of putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, chisel to stone, make yourself feel your topic as if your were getting psyched up to go on stage, to fight, to love, to whatever you’re working on.

Get psyched up more for writing time than any other part of the day.

Tell yourself you’re not being selfish because the work matters.

Remind yourself it may not matter to others, yet, but it will.

Tell me if you saw this coming:

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

Go ahead and have a good cry while you write.

You can tell me about it. No one is listening.