Practice Management

Writing Well: Heart.

By Dan Hull

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

--William Wordsworth, 1770-1850

Writing--any kind of writing--is hard work. The most inspired "work moments" I've had are in this category: watching someone struggle with getting to the right word or phrase under pressure and when they are tired. The first time I saw it was watching a college daily editor--my roommate both in college and in DC for a while--struggle at 4:00 AM over a few words in the final sentences of a student reporter's story covering a public figure's on-campus speech.

He was also a stringer for a well-known newspaper, and knew his bosses far away would see his article. The public figure had screwed the pooch; he said some goofy and impolitic things that, given his government job, he should not have said, or said differently. The event was likely to draw attention from mainstream media around the country the next day.

And that happened. My friend, of course, couldn't have known in advance of any storms his piece might cause; I really doubt that would have mattered in his effort.

He still deeply cared, at four in the morning, about the writing--which was "good enough, but not quite there yet"--and it moved me.

Wordworth's Muse: In the Lake District, you hear "ghostly language of the ancient earth".

Full post as published by What About Clients? on August 21, 2009 (boomark / email).