Something to Write About

Something to Write About

I once said during introductions at a writing workshop, “I want to learn to write with as few words as possible.” As a weekly newspaper columnist for the Crawford County Independent & Kickapoo Scout, I keep striving to learn the art of telling a story from beginning to end in 800 words.

Dane likes to tease that it takes me 800 words to set the scene before I start the story.

Today, reflecting on writing weekly for over ten years, there are a few things I know to be true.

The first is that column writing is unlike writing a novel or a great memoir. There isn’t time. A weekly columnist has seven days to turn in her next piece of work.

Sometimes, when I’ve been writing well and getting a few columns ahead of schedule, I’ve found myself in a pickle. I was once seven stories ahead and thrilled, but it didn’t end well. Animals that were stiff in real life, waiting out winter in the Snake Shed, were still alive and kicking when the column about them appeared in print. Worse was when my sister was dying, and my new column was about our epic bingo game weeks earlier.

This isn’t a problem when writing a memoir, but it’s awkward in a small community when I’m at the local Co-op, explaining, “Yes, thank you, Luna the goat did die in winter—we buried her this last spring when we smelled her rotting in the shed.” Or “Yes, it was my best day ever with my sister since she had become ill. She died yesterday.”

There are also less dramatic but still confusing events—such as my never-ending bad car karma, newest camera mishap, or latest malapropism—that can seem contradictory with a badly timed column.

For example, trying to explain in the Co-op parking lot, while getting into my newest previously owned car, that it was actually two months ago that I hit a guard rail and totaled the Ford Explorer, then the purple PT Cruiser blew up, and now I drive this white one.

Another source of awkwardness is the fact that what one person loves about my writing, another despises. There are people who can’t believe I write about personal issues, such as illnesses, accidents, alcoholism, claustrophobia, abortion, or that Black Lives Matter. They like to make sure I know that they would never share such intimate thoughts.

Of course not—they aren’t columnists.

Michael Perry, the best-selling author of Population 485, used to write a weekly column for the Wisconsin State Journal. The last time Dane and I saw Michael was on Washington Island, where he happened to be doing a show and we happened to be vacationing. We bought our tickets and sat up front.

I laughed louder than was polite when he spoke about the day he was on deadline to turn in his column and he had “nothing”—until the phone rang. It was his sister-in-law calling to tell him that his brother had cut off his finger and was on the way to the hospital.

Michael smiled. “Now I had something to write about.”

There are two camps of people when it comes to having my animals narrate a story. Charley, the editor of the paper, loves those stories best. Pat, my old neighbor and friend, didn’t—not in the least. “Animals don’t talk,” she’d say. But I’d argue that they do. They must, because they are still telling stories.

When I sit down to write, I remind myself that for the most part a columnist has free rein. They are sharing their own views, ideas, and stories. We don’t all feel, think, or experience things the same way. I choose to share tidbits of my real life because for every person who may be offended, another is probably saying, “My family also had hot ham and hard rolls on Sunday,” or “I thought I was the only one who left her car running all night.”

For the record, Charley has turned down numerous versions of a story I called “Something Fishy,” about a long-overdue gynecological visit that went south. It was a good call.

Lastly, what I know to be true about column writing, perhaps any type of writing, is that as long as I pay attention to living my own life, I will have something to write about. My best ideas come from solitary hikes, interacting with my community, caring for my animals, teaching fitness classes, getting out of Dodge, and eavesdropping when dining out. The time may come when I won’t be able to do those things. Accidents, illness, and emotional setbacks can happen to even the most accomplished columnist, and life can become narrower.

Then again, that’ll give me something to write about.