COMMENTARY: Column-Writing? Driven By Deadlines

Now, you never know how folks are going to react when you start writing a column. I mean, it has been a while since I did this sort of thing, and when I did, I had the safety net of the rolling three-ring circus and general freak show that is college athletics to fall back on. And before you rise up in protest, I’ve got two names for you: Manti Te’o and Honey Badger.

Case rested.

For the most part, however, people have been very gracious. Some have even gone so far as to ask me exactly how it is I write a column. I’m assuming they’re asking because they’re interested, not in the way my father asked “Now, how exactly did you do that?” when I tried to explain I drove through a ditch and dragged the muffler off my car in high school. Which is a long story for another time.

However, I will share that I will certainly never again be as fond of peach daiquiris as my homecoming date was, since peach is one of those things that seems to linger with a car.

But I digress.

Anyway, since enough people have asked, and since I can’t think of anything to say about Te’o that hasn’t already been said and probably is a heck of a lot funnier than what I would offer, I figured I’d share my column-writing process with you. It’s a wild and mysterious thing. Please pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

First, you’ve got to understand the concept of a deadline. Someone in this conversation needs to. A deadline is the time when I’m supposed to have this column to the nice people at Northwest Arkansas Newspapers. It is, unfortunately, a far firmer figure in their estimation than it is in mine. Hey, good navel gazing takes a lot of time here!

The deadline comes into play because, for those of us who write a weekly column, it should signal the conclusion of one week’s effort and the beginning of another. We should transition smoothly in our creative processes to the next concept and begin work right away so as to give our writing the attention it deserves. Or we could just go watch the Hogs play and worry about it later. Care to guess which one I pick?

Besides, as a trained (diploma and everything) journalist, I have learned to thrive on the concept of deadline pressure. It’s a sweeping generalization, but most journalists I grew up with do their best work just before the clock strikes midnight. It’s the writer’s version of the adrenaline rush of going to Vegas and putting it all on red.

Except there’s no actual money. Which is another thing trained journalists understand.

As for the inspiration, well, life always provides.

You get presented a new driver’s license with a photo that looks remarkably like you with your back turned to the camera. You observe with some irony that someone is holding up an entire line of cars outside a fitness center waiting for a parking place close enough that they won’t have to walk very far.

It also helps if you were born with a certain attitude, which compels you to say things that often lead people to reference the intelligence of your posterior. It really helps when you learn it’s actually better to write some of those things than say them. Or at least it cuts down on the number of times you wind up stuff ed upside down in a locker, mostly because the kinds of people who are capable of stuffing you upside down in a locker either can’t read or don’t have very long memories.

So, armed with attitude and fueled by desperation and Diet Dr Pepper, I sit down once a week and see what happens. Or has happened. Sometimes it works. Sometimes, well, I can only hope they used recycled paper because at least no trees died.

But when it does work, the words flow and I remember the blissful feeling of writing from my childhood, of the words tumbling out and the sentences seeming to fight each other to get to the page. And that’s when I remember why I do it every week, and hope the winners outnumber the losers and that the joy I get from doing it somehow translates into some joy for you in reading it.

And if all else fails, there’s always Manti Te’o.

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GARY SMITH IS A RECOVERING JOURNALIST LIVING IN ROGERS.