Yesterday in my seniors' writing class - the oldest student is 99 - the subject of humor came up. It was suggested that for the next assignment everyone try to write something funny. I told them that the material could come from everyday life, or even the process of growing old. That got a good laugh.
I'm reading a wonderful book: Magpies, by Lynne Barrett. It is a collection of short stories and my favorite, so far, is titled "Links." In it, a woman loses her job at a literary magazine when the magazine folds and takes a job at an events-listing online publication (my career at the Sun-Sentinel in a nutshell). At dinner one night with her new boss she points out a typo "on the little wine promotion tent on the table" and he accuses her of having "Attention Surplus Disorder." (The ability, as he tells her critically, to "sit still for hours on end, working on something...")
People drawn to writing and editing have always been different from the rest of the population. For centuries they not only found soul mates in publishing, academia, journalism, they helped set the standard. What this story makes clear (though it is far from its main message) is that we have reached a crucial turning point: For the first time in history, we are getting our information from people with ADD.
I received the best kind of rejection yesterday: It was from a magazine passing on a story that had already been accepted by a better magazine.
Before going to New York to cover the U.S. Open (this blog keeps going further back in time) I wrote here that, in a world heading toward ruin, it seemed frivolous to write about tennis.
As it turned out, it seemed just the opposite. Traveling to Flushing Meadows every morning I felt a sense of purpose I had not known since getting laid off in 2008. And, writing a story a day for seven straight days, I exhibited a productivity I had never shown, nor needed, as the editor of a weekly section. Walking down 57th Street one morning, on my way to catch the media shuttle, I thought: This is what I should be doing every morning - heading to work to write about things I love.
Blogging in boxers is a bit of a letdown.
I recently received an e-mail from a writer acquaintance who was in the hospital recovering from a stroke. After relaying the news, he assured me that he was going to write about it.
I found this comforting. In our post-literate, visually-addicted age, there are not many reasons for writers to be thankful, but here was one: You can take the worst that life throws at you and turn it into art (or at least prose).
A happy thought during hurricane season.
I wrote a 1,500-word travel story for a magazine. When a couple advertisers pulled out of the issue, my story was reduced to a glorified caption.
Recently, someone at the magazine sent me two letters from readers. One pointed out an error in the map. The other complained that my story failed to capture the experience of visiting the place.