A lesson from John Rockwell

How to write fast.......

It feels so very strange not to teach. How I wish I could somehow transfer all that I’ve learned in a generous number of years onto some sort of searchable data base where it could still be useful -- anecdotes, insights, suggestions and especially techniques of writing. I’m in pretty good health, and cheerful, and looking forward to new discoveries -- but nobody who is 71 years old can entertain for more than a moment the idea that life is endless.

I met with a young poet yesterday, who delighted me and whom I think I may have helped, at least a little bit. One of the more practical beginner suggestions I made is pretty simple and so I’m going to share it. It is best told in an anecdote.

When I came to the New York Times in 1982, I was writing my first ever article on a looming deadline. I had 45 minutes to write up a program of Beethoven sonatas, played by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the pianist Emanuel Ax. I had 300 words to write; space was being held for me in the Sunday edition; and I was having a nervous breakdown in the Times newsroom, as the computer flashed its black and green lights at me.

I’d begin to write -- “Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax played Beethoven at the Metropolitan Museum last night.” So lame, so lifeless, so unworthy! -- and I’d erase it from my screen. “When Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax get together, as they did at the Metropolitan Museum Friday night.....” Mine eyes glazeth over. And now I only had a half hour left.

Suddenly my colleague John Rockwell came in to file his own review. He recognized my distress and gave me advice that has served me well for almost four decades. He suggested that I write whatever came into my mind for five or ten minutes, no matter how ridiculous it was, complete with words of anger, regret, apology, uncertain cleanliness, barely hatched analogies and anything else that crossed my mind -- but I HAD to reach 1000 words. Thereafter, he promised, I would find my lead, my final phrase, and all the stuff that was needed in-between, and I would be able to cut the whole mess down quickly to the requisite 300 words.

The piece that was published was no masterpiece -- don’t bother to look it up as you will learn nothing-- but it made it into the Sunday paper, it wasn’t disgraceful, and I didn’t blow my deadline. I learned a simple truth that night -- it is much easier to assemble a superfluity of words and then trim them down than it is to wait for a perfect opening sentence that will lead you effortlessly in. The perfect opening may never arrive but somewhere in your recorded thoughts something will be there. Meditation works this way too, at least the kind that I practice: you open your mind and let it wander, returning to the mantra when you remember to do so and, somehow, something is accomplished that you can take with you into your day.

No advice works equally well for everybody, but I have found that this has opened doors for a generation of students now, and I hope that it may be helpful to those of you who find it hard to get started. The solution? Begin in the middle.

At some point, I hope that I will be able to teach again -- likely over the internet, as I have no idea what my geographical status will be for the foreseeable future.