Life is good.


I am fortunate.


I am thankful.


Extremely so.

Now to do more to make it so for others.

Five Drafts, Or How I Learned to Write

I couldn’t wait for 6^th grade. I was in 4^th grade with the stern Mrs. Copper. My brother, lucky guy, had Miss Johnson for 6^th grade. She let her students write short stories.

I was ready. I had proof:  pages of loopy handwritten loopy stories.

Finally, I reached Miss Johnson’s class. No more stories. Decades before Virginia’s Standards of Learning, Miss Johnson dropped story writing. Had they – the administration – gotten to her? I’ll never know.

I am still disappointed.

Lexington, Va., had great teachers. I found still more in Fullerton, Calif. Yet, in 8^th grade I never learned how to diagram a sentence.  Mr. Hindman would put the chalk down mid-diagram and open a book of short stories. He’d read a suspenseful one out loud and stop just at the climax. Our assignment:  finish the story. I doubt my endings to “The Most Dangerous Game” and “The Lady or the Tiger” approached the originals, but I was having fun with writing and with school.

Troy High School offered a trifecta of teachers to instruct and inspire. Mr. Johnson, with his required daily essay, developed my writing muscle. An essay a day, he reasoned, would keep the Subject A at bay. It was the feared exam the University of California required all freshmen to take to demonstrate their command of the English language.

I passed.

Miss Long taught discipline in writing and the absolute importance of reviewing, rewriting, and revising some more. She instilled the notion that five drafts are a minimum.

Aren’t they?

Mr. Beaver – one of the best – instilled joy in the process and product. He taught history but what I remember is his assignment to write an essay about anything. Mine included observations of women shopping in LA’s garment district. I don’t recall the grade, but I treasure his comment:  “Funny.”

Yet, even with great teachers and my Brenda Starr-turn on the high school newspaper, I put aside writing as a career goal when I got to college. Ms. Magazine was years away, the job-wanted ads were divided by gender, and, to quote John Irving, I thought I had to be “of use.”

So, I got two degrees – a B.S. in child development and an M.L.S. – and after three uninspiring library job interviews I disabused myself of being of use. If I had to earn a living, and I did; dammit, I wanted to do something I enjoyed, which was working with words.

I entered the full-time work force as an editorial assistant at a place where they figured my undergrad degree would help me understand the jargon. It did. I edited academic articles, learned proofreader’s marks, got my first blue pencil, and realized I loved it all.

My growing skills, experience, and camera, led to a job at Allegheny Airlines, which offered an added benefit:  flying free! Doctor Seuss was right: “Oh, the places you’ll go.” To keep my flying privileges, I wrote newsletters, magazine articles, news releases, and annual report copy.

One day I asked the CEO about the future for a writer at the company.

“I’m giving a speech next week,” he said.

I had just got a booklet called How to Handle Speechwriting Assignments. I took it, along with reference books and a stack of yellow legal pads, and hid in the sales department conference room where I struggled to come up with a speech.

I'm sure it took far more than Miss Long's five drafts to write remarks for the Albany, N.Y. Chamber of Commerce. But I did it -- in longhand on lined yellow paper. Personal computers, much less word processors, were years away.

White Out was a speechwriter’s best friend.

And, that booklet was my lifesaver. (A special shout out to its author, Douglas Starr, now a renowned science writer and published author.)  

Among other communications assignments, I would write for Allegheny Airlines (later USAir) CEO -- Ed Colodny -- for the next 13 years. I would learn his biases and preferences, his likes and dislikes, his turns of phrase. I spent hours listening to him on my car tape player.

As a ghostwriter, I would develop a thick skin. There’s no choice for someone who writes for others. You are climbing into their egos, which brings rewards and risks. Your carefully developed draft might be unceremoniously flung to the floor with the declaration, “This is boring.”

That really happened. The speech was delivered word-for-word two days later.

I’ve written for a baker’s dozens of clients, male and female, young and old, well educated and school-of-hard-knocks products. Each would teach me more about the craft. From FAA Administrator Jane Garvey I learned the paramount importance of understanding the audience and targeting the message. She was masterful at owning the room.

My next client, Marion Blakey, another FAA administrator, had worked in the White House for the Great Communicator himself, President Ronald Reagan. I learned mechanics about type size and spacing, but more importantly, I learned about storytelling to convey a message. I spent more time looking for stories than writing; it’s well worth the effort.

My last client before I retired taught me about perfection, that is, aiming for it. Thirty-eight, or so, drafts could be exasperating (I exaggerate to make a point) but it was necessary. The product got better. The client began to own it. 

I learned about collaboration. I had long been the speechwriter flying solo. With Deborah Hersman, head of the National Transportation Safety Board, it was often a team effort, not always easy on a writer’s ego. We have them, too. Big time. (Full disclosure: Skin doesn’t thicken, it just scabs over.)

From Hersman, with her great speaking skill and passion for safety, I learned perhaps the biggest lesson:  The spoken word can change behavior and even save lives.

Speeches can be “of use.”

I’m fortunate to have had so many great teachers. But, can I be one? I start teaching speechwriting in January. I’ll have my notes, my syllabus and assignments, my worn speechwriting booklet, and more.

Better yet, I’ll have all these great teachers with me as I strive to be “of use” to my students.

Restive

I awake. Bereft.

Strange possessions and people fill the house.

We are losing our home.

My safe place.

It’s just a bad dream.

I arise to a bigger loss.

Of innocence.

Again.

So much effort unrewarded.

So many things unchanged.

How much longer can I presume goodness?

How many more times can I show my soul?

Questions to sleep upon,

And rise again.