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Scouring the World for Something to Say
By Carl Heintze
There comes a time in the life of every columnist when he or she can't think of a thing to write about. (I can hear some readers shouting "Hooray!") The writer stares at the blank page, hoping against hope that from somewhere, somehow inspiration will settle on the fingers, and words suddenly will appear on the computer screen.
But sometimes that just doesn't happen.
The late Hal Boyle, who started his career as a war correspondent for the Associated Press in North Africa (Happy Hal, the Arab's pal) and who graduated to being a nationally syndicated columnist, called himself the world's champion fly watcher.
He used to claim he sat in his office in New York and stared at the flies on the ceiling searching for something, anything about which to write. To fill in the blank spots, he sometimes opened his mail and listed its sources. Or sometimes he saved platitudes or clips from others and listed them as "the curbstone comments of a pavement Plato."
Sometimes they were funny, but more often than not, these dodges at the lack of creativity just led to dull columns.
Unfortunately I know how Mr. Boyle felt.
There are days when just nothing seems to come through my fingers onto the computer screen. It just stays blank.
Unfortunately I don't get much mail from readers (or maybe fortunately.) Most of what comes in is complimentary--but not always. So you can't count on the mail.
I confess I have tried staring at the ceiling. There are no flies there, as nearly as I can tell, (my eyes aren't what they once were) and nothing much else, either--a crack or two in the plaster, but that's about all.
So I think back through the things about which I have written. Sometimes that turns up a clue, but mostly it tells me what I've already written about.
I've been at this job now for more than four years. During that time I've managed to run through most of my pet peeves. I confess it. A newspaper column is, whether most columnists admit it or not, a kind of bully pulpit, a soapbox from which to shout at the rest of the world.
I try not to shout too much because it isn't fair to those who don't write columns, but I have to admit it is probably one of the best things about the job.
Of course, fortunately for me and many other columnists, the world doesn't listen that much. Or if they listen, they don't think it worthwhile to let you know whether they agree or disagree.
I admit, however, that there is some satisfaction in getting whatever it is that's bothering me out of my head into the open. Often, having done so, I find the result, if not silly, at least inconsequential, but then newspaper columns, like sermons, aren't supposed to be literary masterpieces nor linger long in the mind.
They are good for the short term, as is most of what's in a newspaper. Most of a newspaper is intended to be worth reading for not more than a day. Or as an old printer told me: "It [the paper on which we both worked] is a fishwrapper."
I don't guess people wrap fish in the words we write much these days. They may line garbage cans now and then. Mostly it has been my experience that they put their newspapers out for the garbage man to pick up for recycling.
Nice to know you're being recycled, of course. Too bad that it isn't personally possible. Though I suppose Christians, at the least, believe they're, if not recycled, at least resurrected.
I'm not so sure about columnists.
But I have wandered off my intended path, yet another hazard for the newspaper columnist. What I meant to explain is that in desperation, columnists write about what they know--or think they know best--family, friends, the weather, the local scene. Or they write about what they like or don't like about most everything: the weather, politics, other people, the traffic, the cost of living--the list is quite long when you start to enumerate it.
A good deal also comes from memory, and as one gets older, memory becomes an increasing source of inspiration. Unfortunately, with age, memory plays tricks on the writer. He or she remembers the distant past more readily than yesterday. The result: discussions about things that happened not in the lifetime of most readers and about which they don't care.
Nevertheless, we the newspaper columnists of the world plow on, because we don't know any better, convinced somehow we are writing history, or if not history, something minutely clever, or if not minutely clever, at least something that fills the allotted space on the page. Which ,I guess, is what I've done yet again.
My question, though, is: will I be able to do it next week?
You'll just have to wait and see.
Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to The Sun. A collection of his essays, Waiting for the Garbageman, may be found at http://www.doitright.com/Carl/essays. His email address is feodorh@juno.com.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
