The Thanksgiving Pencil

The new desk has about 3,523 little drawers, so I saw an opportunity to organize some of the stuff that has traditionally been out in the open in my home office, like the cup holder full of old pencils, or scattered about in various places, like the 50,000 paper clips. As I stocked the pencil drawer, this relic from the radio station where I worked from 1975 to 1982 stuck out, so I posted it on Facebook. Why not?

“It’s official: I never throw anything away. I left the Ripon radio station 40 years ago this year,” I posted.

You never know what’s going to charm people, so I was surprised when the old pencil got a pile of “Likes” and a couple dozen comments, which was fun because most of them were from people I knew from way back when, as well as colleagues from later venues wondering if I kept any mementoes from those days. Yep, it seems I have. I always knew I was a bit of a pack rat, and as I unpack and repack the office, I’m seeing just how much of one I am. I still think I’m not quite in “hoarder” territory … yet.

But this is Thanksgiving, and today I’m thankful for that pencil, which sparked a pile of fond memories and reconnected me for a moment with quite a few folks I haven’t seen in those 40 years.

I’m not a pencil chewer, though. I wish I could remember what odd habit I had that left pencils kind of beat up like that.

I don’t believe in crappy first drafts

I heard that advice again, the one intended to reassure writers who feel blocked: “Just write. Don’t worry if it’s any good. It’s only a first draft.”

It’s true that a person can get hung up on perfection to the point where the words won’t come, and they need to find a place where they don’t care as much about the exact words as much as getting the story out.

But you also need to get it right. I don’t believe in a “crappy first draft.”

It’s probably a side effect of working in a profession that is sometimes called “the first draft of history.” If the first draft is wrong, future historians will either be forever wrong or forever debating what really happened.

This probably sounds weird coming from someone who has written volumes on the theme “Write anything until you write something,” that is to say, keep your fingers moving, even if only nonsense comes out, to prime the pump until sensible words come out. That is an exercise to overcome inertia; here, I’m talking about once the prime is pumped and getting the story right the first time.

It doesn’t have to be award-winning prose, but it does have to be accurate, fair and true. “Just the facts, ma’am,” the fictional detective might say, or, “Just tell me what happened in your own words as best you can.”

The first draft should never be “crappy.” It should be “as best you can.” Some days a writer’s best may not be brilliant, but it always needs to be true.

Finding calm in a forest of squirrels

It’s all squirrels. We race from topic to topic in a constant state of distraction. Begin to think about what it would take to achieve world peace, and — Squirrel! Try to understand how the economy works and — Squirrel!

Sit. Sift. Listen. Somehow, find a way to hear the messages you need to hear, and one at a time. The imperative is to triumph over the squirrels lest you succumb to the cacophony.

Concentrate. Stay focused while the world about you is in chaos. That’s the main task. And don’t multitask. Stay on task until it’s finished, then — and only then — move to the next task.