For the 16 years I worked in newspaper journalism in addition to reporting, editing, writing editorials, and managing staff, I wrote a column at least once a week. I've been revisiting some of the columns and thought I'd share some of them here.– Never lie. In print.
– It's okay not to
know what you're writing about as long as you don't know about it in an
interesting way.
– The longer the
column, the greater the number of important sentences it must contain, and not
only do column writers not have a great number of important sentences in their
heads, readers can't deal with too many of them anyway.
– The hardest
thing to attain in a column is your own individual voice: try to force it and
it cracks; fail to search for it in every sentence and it disappears.
– Truth, that
bastard child of reality and perception, shines brightest unadorned.
– When all else
fails, do satire, and then repent.
– Political
columnists have it easy, they only have to write with their heads. But when
intellect takes over prose, prose loses is poetry.
– Comic columnists
are fun to read, but comedy reaches truth only through the door of dark
cynicism.
– The sources of
inspiration are too fragile to explain; leave them alone.
– Love thy neighbor
for his foibles; they give you something to write about.
– Gather criticism
and compliments in the same crucible of skepticism.
– A column that
disturbs no one has no mark to hit; a column that disturbs everyone has missed
the mark.
– Learn the columnist's
prayer: "God, grant me the courage to complain about that which I cannot
change."
– Learn the
columnist's confession: "God, forgive me for complaining so much."
– Learn to write
aphorisms; they'll get you through another day.
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