Either do something worth writing, or write things worth reading
Writing: Chase interests with a curious mind.
Why do I write?
The question was posed in earnest recently by a friend who by almost any measure is much smarter than me. So I’ve tried to reply with a thoughtful, coherent yet clever answer. Translation: I don’t want to sound like a dolt.
It’s been a challenge.
First, let’s dispense with any philosophical or meditative affirmations: “It’s what I am,” or “It’s what I do.”
Nonsense.
I’m not that deep. I do not channel Aristotle or Descartes for inspiration. I am the much less famous Golden Bachelor who, aside from a lengthy morning coffee/reading ritual, spends parts of each day in mental flatline. Streaming music fills the void; otherwise, the creative mind lies dormant.
No divine shoulder taps. No inner voice calling.
But I like writing. I’m fairly good at it. I am innately curious, with many interests, so I chase interesting things I am curious about. (How’s that for circular logic?)
In the end, the pithiest answer I could come up with:
Either do something worth writing, or write things worth reading. — Benjamin Franklin
OK. Ben Franklin said it. But it works.
How It Happens
I have no dedicated hours to write. After the sunrise reading marathon, days are filled with time-consuming domestic and business matters, the gym, errands, cooking, and correspondence with friends and fellow writers, many of whom reside in distant time zones.
Sooner or later, though, extemporaneous ideas and topics to write emerge from the frontal lobes. There’s no plan. The source could be something I’ve read, seen, heard or suddenly remembered. I believe the new-age term for this is organic.
Then the stream-of-consciousness mode kicks in: “What about this?” Or “Why does this matter? What can I learn here? Which angle might be different or interesting?”
Call them thought experiments. It’s just my way of processing.
If my laptop is within reach, the ideas go digital.
Thought Experiments
Writing is the concrete development of thought experiments, when ideas travel from the brain to the fingertips and become real and coherent.
Writing is the concrete development of these “thought experiments,” when ideas travel from the brain to the fingertips and become real and coherent.
Ironically, I cannot create longhand. My brain doesn’t work that way. Besides, my typing skills far exceed my penmanship, and only a keyboard is fast and smart enough to transcribe. I can’t explain why.
Anyway, here are the driving forces behind writing:
➠ Curiosity ⇆ Interests
➠ Fascination with the written word
➠ Mental acuity
Curiosity ⇆ Interests
One of my first memories is a shooting star seen from our backyard in Glasgow Village (MO), a few miles north of St. Louis. I was mesmerized … and fascinated. What was that? Where did it come from? The image lingered in this 8-year-old’s mind for a while … until I found out the wondrous silver streak was nothing but a grain of cosmic sand careening through the stratosphere.
Still …
Then there was the Mississippi River. America’s most historic waterway was within a mile’s hike from Glasgow Village. I made the trek a dozen times just to watch the massive body of water flow.
I learned it was skipping stone distance from where Lewis and Clark embarked on their famous journey.
It was a lot for a curious 8-year-old to take in.
A few years later I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (see below), Mark Twain’s homage to these same waters he’d observed a century before from the riverbanks of Hannibal, MO, just an hour or so north.
Fast forward a half-century.
That adolescent curiosity has not waned. Interests have broadened accordingly, and retirement affords me the time to pursue them. Astronomy … evolution … modern culture … satire …. technology … all about “what makes us tick.” I have written about everything from Monty Python to the Chinese Social Credit System to Artificial Intelligence.
Fascination with the written word
Burleigh Rogers was my sixth-grade teacher (1967). Mr. Rogers was old school. Who else could be named Burleigh? Every day the same attire: white short-sleeved shirt, skinny black tie, trousers hitched just below the chestline. No doubt he was born around the turn of the century. He had a rigid face and a gooey Arkansas drawl. Words were not so much spoken as drizzled from a syrup jar.
Mr. Rogers' curriculum was simple: English, Math and History. He taught grammar at the granular level — the eight parts of speech and diagramming sentences, which I later learned was called Syntax.
Most students found it boring. Not me. For whatever reason, I took to it. I got good at it, then great. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the fundament of a future writer.
Huckleberry Finn
I wasn’t an avid reader as a kid. Weekly Reader, Highlights and Mad Magazine (remember Alfred E. Newman?) That was it.
Then a high school teacher assigned The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain’s tour-de-force about the holy river, the evils of slavery, the adolescent spirit, and freedom. It was a life-changer.
I was captured by the beauty of Twain’s mind, his virtuoso storytelling and the magic behind his words. Huck Finn was written in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism, homespun humor and folk idiom. It has been called by many the greatest American novel.
Perhaps it was my Mississippi River connection, or an affinity for a precocious boy. I saw what Huck saw, and felt like Huck felt on that raft with Jim, the runaway slave. I still remember Chapter 36, “The Raftsman’s Passage,” as close to American gospel as anyone has ever put to paper.
I would have given my left thumb to write like that.
The News Biz and Major League Baseball
I started my professional life as a journalist. I majored in Journalism at San Diego State and began working for the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper at age 18. I was at the U-T for eight years, much of it while slow-walking through college. I edited sports columns and wrote features for the weekend inserts … pretty much unadorned, AP Stylebook stuff. It was worthwhile. I learned the virtue of the simple, declarative sentence.
But I wanted more. Then … serendipity.
I was hired by the San Diego Padres in 1982 as a public relations assistant and editor of the club’s game program and yearbook. The more I wrote — and I wrote everything — the more a personal style emerged.
Then, in 1986, I received an offer from Contemporary Books, Inc. (a subsidiary of McGraw Hill) to co-author** a book with Padres superstar and future Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. Tony! comprised 25,000 words and took about three months to write. But I became a published author.
Eventually, life happened, and writing was abandoned in the mid-90s. I wouldn't pick it up again for more than two decades.
(** Co-author is a spurious credit. I wrote every damned word.)
Style: Syntax and Diction
Each written piece has a purpose or theme requiring a distinct voice.
I’m told I have a unique style. But believe me, it is anything but spontaneous. Good writers are also good readers. So I have “borrowed” stylings from those whom I admire. I carefully choose the “right” words (Diction) and sentence structure (Syntax), which defines the tone. It can be straightforward … or idealistic and nostalgic … or totally offbeat with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek.
I avoid clichés, which I consider a pox upon mankind. But I’ll admit to performing a bit of a Tiger Woods fist pump when I turn a phrase.
Some call it wordsmithing. I call it expository alchemy.
Mental Acuity
In these later years, I have pledged to maintain peak physical and mental fitness. Writing is essential to the regimen. It makes me think. Hard. I joke that I “bleed” on every paragraph. Hyperbole, of course … or maybe not. I might rewrite one a dozen times.
I fuss over words and phrases, and clarity. Especially clarity. It is not a linear process. I stitch pieces together and work on transitions later. A typical 2,000-word essay may take 20 hours over several days.
I suppose it comes down to taking on a challenge, not unlike the guy who assembles intricate model ships or rebuilds classic cars. It requires mental muscle, self-discipline and focus. Most importantly, I’m chasing my curiosity.
To me, that’s interesting. And worth writing about.
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Jim Geschke was inducted into the prestigious Marquis Who’s Who Registry in 2021.
Geez Jim, I coulda been a contenda! Keep on writing. We dig it
Beauty! Thanks for pulling back the curtain and telling us about the process. I find discovering how other people write more interesting than the usual kinds of stories we see here.