How to be a Real Columnist

I have here a letter from Greg, who recently got a gig writing for the local newspaper. “I don’t know how to produce a column,” Greg writes. “Do you have any advice for someone who is suddenly a real writer?”

Greg, yes. The first rule of being a real writer is: Stay Focused. Do not allow yourself to get distracted. Distractions are the bane of all writers.

Here is how the typical morning of a columnist goes. You sit down at the computer. And before you write, you begin by asking yourself the age-old question, “Why should anyone care what I have to say?”

This is the driving question all writers must ask themselves.

Immediately after you ask this question, the honest, humbling answer comes flying back: “You were supposed to empty the dishwasher.”

Ah, yes. The dishwasher. Your wife asked you to empty the dishwasher this morning. But you always forget. Wives are always asking columnists to empty dishwashers. Nobody knows why.

As a columnist, emptying the dishwasher just doesn’t make good sense. Namely, because the Dishwashing System at your house has always worked the same way. You put your dirty dishes in the sink and—snap!—magically, the next day the dishes are neatly stacked in the cupboards. Sort of like the Magic Laundry System.

Even so, your wife insists the dishwasher needs emptying, in much the same way she is always insisting, for example, that you pay the health insurance.

But it’s hard to do tedious tasks like this when you’re a columnist, trying to conjure something to write.

After all, literary ideas just don’t happen. Literary ideas are like fermented dairy products. The columnist is the cow.

First, a cow’s udders must be warmed, then yanked aggressively, until finally the cow produces valuable milk which will eventually be transformed into Limburger or—if the cow is lucky—Government Cheese.

But you can’t FORCE a cow to give milk. You can only allow the cow time so it can eventually crank out “War and Peace.”

Although, heaven knows how any cow/columnist can get stuff done when the columnist has dogs.

Take me. All three of my dogs sleep under my desk as I write. They sleep on my feet. They are constantly battling for valuable positions down there. In Dog World, the most prized sleeping place is the spot closest to the columnist’s feet.

Thus, my dogs are always jockeying for position in the hierarchy, wedging themselves closer, until eventually, all three dogs are nestled in my crotch, whimpering at me.

Whimpering is not good. Whimpering is a dog’s way of letting you know that urination is imminent. So the columnist, deep in the throes of VERY important work, is compelled to put down his or her toenail clippers and let the dogs out.

Meantime, as the columnist passes through the kitchen. There, he sees the dishwasher.

And for a brief, flickering moment there is a vague recollection in the columnist’s brain of something the columnist’s wife once said about the dishwasher. What was it?

And as he is looking at the dishwasher, the writer is overcome by a literary idea. It’s a good one, too! FINALLY!

So for a while, the columnist just stands there in the kitchen, thinking about thematic elements in American literature. And as he one of the dogs releases thematic elements all over the kitchen floor.

I’m sorry, Greg, I’ve already forgotten what your question was.