Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Yesterday in my writing angst -- which, actually, is pretty rare for me -- I made some fundamental writing mistakes.

1. I quit thinking, and started reacting -- to time, other work demanding my attention (I even turned my e-mail off, but that haunted me, so it'll be on today) -- and then I started reacting to my reacting and got totally off track.

"Think" is job No. 1 for a writer. "People can't write because they can't think," H.L. Mencken wrote. And I think he was talking about thinking about the thing itself, not the words. Yesterday, I got tangled up in words and forgot about the thing itself.

2. There's a bit of chicanery in journalistic writing on deadline: You "write around" what you don't know. You set up words and phrases as chicanes to keep the reader from thinking too much about things you can't write any more about. Because of time -- the evil, two-faced bastard -- I don't know some things about what I'm trying to write about. I have to write to remain silent.

Time two-faced? Yes. Because of time that's passed, I've lost some information. Because of time dead ahead, I don't have ... time ... to redo, or do, more research. Since all that was, is, or will be is "now," time is two-faced. Or maybe has multiple personalities. Time is a damn hydra at times like this.

3. "Show, don't tell," editors tell us. Good writers show us. I'm telling you, I was a bad writer yesterday, trying to tell a story rather than show it. I'm out of practice. Most of what I write involves telling, not showing -- it's hard news.

It's a feature story I'm trying to write. To write. To tell. Today, the hell with *that" -- I'm getting out of this story's way, and taking a bunch of words with me. It will show itself. The way I see it now, the story will be about two-thirds as long as I initially thought, and that is always a good thing.

--ER