The Joy of Being Stupid.

 

    Writing a book is a good way to reveal how stupid you are. You have an idea, and you start writing. Soon, you realize you don’t know what you’re writing about.
    Take my latest novel, Pinebox Collins. I thought it would be a good idea to tell a story about a man who moved from place to place in the Old West, using his travels and encounters to tell other stories about actual events and people from history. I decided a footloose undertaker might move around like that. And, for some reason, that he should be missing a leg. I don’t know why.
    I soon realized there had to be a reason for his missing leg, which took some study of Civil War battles that might fit the bill. Then I had to learn about Civil War hospitals, surgery, amputations, prosthetics, and the like.
    Then I had to learn about the history of undertaking, embalming, and building coffins—none of which I knew anything about.
    Pinebox’s travels required buffing up my knowledge of cattle trails and cowtowns, mining strikes and boomtowns, stagecoaches and railroads, and historic incidents and events in those places.
    Then there were people. Charley Utter, Calamity Jane, Jim Levy, Joe McCoy, John Wesley Hardin, Phil Coe, Jack McCall, Porter Rockwell, and others, mostly “Wild Bill” Hickok—many of whom, but not all, I knew something, but not enough, about.
    I enjoy writing. Even the parts that make you realize how stupid you are. With every book, I learn something—many somethings. And I hope the people who read those books might learn something too.

 

Lies They Tell Writers, Part 48: The only way to learn to write is to write.

If you want to be a writer, you have to write. It’s pretty hard to argue with that. But how do you learn to write? Or to write better?

I’ve heard tell the only way to do it is to write. And write some more.

It certainly can’t hurt. But there’s that old saying that says if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. In other words, if you just keep writing, you could keep making the same mistakes over and over again. That won’t help.

You could take a course. Go to a writers conference. Enroll in a writing program. All of which will most likely do you some good.

But there’s an easier way: read.

You can learn to be a better writer by reading good writing. At least it seems to have helped me, as I have never learned anything about creative writing (which my journalism degree did not cover) anywhere but in books. I love to read. I do a lot of it. And when I find a writer or a book that I especially like, I will read it again, and sometimes again and again. Once you’ve read a book enough that you don’t get caught up in the story, you start noticing how the author does things—how he chooses words, how she builds phrases, how he makes sentences, how she moves the story along, or pauses to let you catch your breath.

All those things, and many more, get embedded in your mind and when you sit down to write, they affect how—and how well—you do it.

And when it comes right down to it, reading is a lot more enjoyable way to spend time than sitting around in a classroom talking about writing.

History meets humility.

History is a messy subject. It’s never as simple as it ought to be. We tend to view history in black and white terms—good guys and bad guys, winners and losers, virtue and evil, right and wrong.

That’s particularly true when it comes to the history of something or someone near and dear to our hearts—our country, our people, our families. And it doesn’t stop there. This simplistic view of history devolves to the point that all semblance of actual knowledge gives way to belief, even wishful thinking.

And intellectual laziness. I read somewhere that instead of attempting to know what happened (which is no simple task), we cling to what we think happened, even what we wish had happened (which is much easier).

I once heard a radio interview with British actor Hugh Laurie. (House, Stuart Little, Jeeves and Wooster, Black Adder.) I remember only one thing he said, and it’s something I will never forget: “We must be humble in the face of facts.”

That bit of wisdom certainly applies to history. The facts of history—such as they are—are often uncomfortable. They sometimes contradict what we think (or wish or hope) happened. We squirm. We sweat. We tie ourselves in emotional knots. Our hearts and minds rebel.  But, eventually, we must come to terms with a revised reality.

Facts, in fact, can change our entire way of thinking—as they should, like it or not, if we follow Hugh Laurie’s advice.

What happened back when happened. We ought to know the facts of the matter as much as we can, with the knowledge that more facts may come to light and alter our understanding.

But that’s what humility is all about when it comes to history—basing the knowledge we have on facts rather than beliefs, and knowing that what we don’t know always outweighs what we do.

Lies They Tell Writers, Part 11: Get an Education.

I am all for learning. You can never learn enough, and you should never stop learning.

Education, however, is something else again. At least some of the time.

In our society, every attempt has been made to make education synonymous with job training. And, to a large extent, it has been successful. Forget about learning how the world works and why, or about people and why they do what they do. Instead, become a number cruncher of one kind or another and earn big bucks.

But that’s another story. Before I wander too far afield, let’s remember that this story is about writing, and education plays a role here, as well. (Unfortunately, the part about jobs and big bucks is not transferable.)

If you want to be a writer, they tell you, get an education. Enroll in a creative writing program at a highfalutin university and keep going until you get all the degrees they offer. Get accepted at a prestigious academy for a few weeks or months of intensive training.

I know people who have done this. And keep doing it. Trouble is, they never seem to get around to writing much of anything, or finishing anything they do write.

It’s as if they examine and evaluate and assess and scrutinize to the extreme, resulting in analysis paralysis.

There are, of course, exceptions. Still, most of the published writers I know seem to get by with degrees in pedestrian pursuits such as journalism, or history, or law, or accounting, or business, or education, or agriculture, or—well, you get the idea.

Some of them have no degrees at all. But they are learned. And they keep learning.

And they keep writing.