On writing...and being a writer
Just before I decided to start my own blog and write these entries, I had been reading a few others I had found online. I never really considered myself "a writer," at least certainly not someone whose career was writing, or earned a living from writing.
Yet, when I had to think about it, I realized, I have spent some of the most important years of my "work" life doing just that...writing. I didn't write "creatively" in the literature sense, but factually. I wrote news releases and newsletter articles, and even advertising copy, to provide information to the media, and ultimately the public, about things that either had an immediate impact on their lives, or served to promote some idea, concept, accomplishment, place, event or thing. I wasn't trained in writing, per se, but I had enough of a solid education and exposure to decent writing that I got by, and even got better, and - dare I say - downright good at it. I can do "spin" if I have to, and deal with tough (and not so tough) questions from probing reporters, but I found some of the most gratifying things I've written were those in which I had to meet a number of objectives, and, at the same time convey a little humanism in the process.
Whenever I think of those writing challenges, one in particular always leaps to mind. It was late 1987. I was working for a state highway agency and just before I joined the organization six months earlier, an interstate highway bridge had collapsed, taking with it the lives of 10 people, mid-morning on an April Sunday during a particularly rainy Spring. I had no real, in-the-trenches experience in media relations, or in anything engineering or transportation-related, until I joined that agency, and it was like stepping into a foreign world. Daunting and overwhelming. But like all things, the longer I was there, the more I learned, and I became a little more comfortable.
There's nothing worse than speaking to media on subjects of technical complexity, or policy matters with huge political implications, when you feel in your gut (and in your brain) that you're way out of your depth. It's godawful. But I did what I had to do and tried not to make too much of a mess of it.
So in early December, after a truly Herculean effort by my engineering colleagues and consultants, a portion of this fallen interstate highway bridge was rebuilt, and traffic began to flow freely across a once-flooded, raging creek. It was for the occasion of the re-opening of this severed highway that I was asked to write the remarks for the agency's director to deliver at the site, in front of a slew of television cameras, radio microphones and reporters with cassette recorders, and notepads in hand with pencils poised.
I knew enough of the facts to speak to the substance of the event, but how to blow the agency's horn at the speed and success of its response to the tragedy and crisis in the face of the fact that 10 people had died as a result of it? It was keeping the right balance of purposefulness and human sensitivity that would be key - and it all had to be conveyed in only a minute of comment.
There were many public servants and professionals rightly proud of their swift response and technical accomplishment in rebuilding that bridge and the section of highway that it linked. But there also were grieving families whose feelings had to be considered and respected. It is the worst thing in the world to be an engineer and be connected with a structure that fails and, in the process, kills people. So I spent a few hours thinking about how to say what had to be said. "Much was lost, but much was learned" was a phrase that came to mind - the alliteration seemed to work well. I acknowledged those who died and the devastation of their loss, while also indicating that perhaps it was not in vain, and that new standards for bridge design, and improved procedures for routine maintenance and inspection, were the result.
I eventually drafted the one-page remarks incorporating that phrase, along with mentioning the technical advances that had resulted from the tragedy, and gave them to my boss, the agency's chief press officer. He made no edits at all, and submitted it to the agency's director, an engineer himself, who delivered it at the site on that cold and cloudy December day without altering a word.
That was a very satisfying moment for me, and was something involving my writing I hadn't experienced before. I had thought of myself as someone who was creative visually, but never as "a writer." So it was at that moment, standing on the bridge and hearing my words sent out to the media and the public on such a solemn occasion, that I realized I indeed was a writer, a communicator of thoughts and ideas. Not the author of the "great American novel" perhaps, but a writer whose work was considered acceptable...maybe even good...at least good enough for government work.
Since then, my writing, while still based in factual observation, has become a little looser and, I hope, more creative. I do it now not because I have to (although I do "have to" for some work projects), but because I like to. I like to write for myself and I like to write for, and to, other people who, strangely, seem to like and appreciate that I do it. It's one of the great thing about computers, and email and blogs. And it's the curse, too. I have to be a bit of an editor, along with being a writer, not only in what I write, but in how much and how often I write. But, like writing itself, I get better with practice at that, too.
Eventually, I'll probably move into writing a little fiction as well, but for now, I like writing about what I think, and reading writings of others about what they think. For example, I enjoy reading several periodic columns of writings submitted by others in The New York Times. And those have led me to some of the blogs I've been reading. Obviously there are a lot of "closet" writers out there if the proliferation of blogs is any indication. It's nice to be a part of a larger community of writers, thinkers and communicators. It's yet another trail to ride. And I can't wait to follow it and see where it will lead.
Yet, when I had to think about it, I realized, I have spent some of the most important years of my "work" life doing just that...writing. I didn't write "creatively" in the literature sense, but factually. I wrote news releases and newsletter articles, and even advertising copy, to provide information to the media, and ultimately the public, about things that either had an immediate impact on their lives, or served to promote some idea, concept, accomplishment, place, event or thing. I wasn't trained in writing, per se, but I had enough of a solid education and exposure to decent writing that I got by, and even got better, and - dare I say - downright good at it. I can do "spin" if I have to, and deal with tough (and not so tough) questions from probing reporters, but I found some of the most gratifying things I've written were those in which I had to meet a number of objectives, and, at the same time convey a little humanism in the process.
Whenever I think of those writing challenges, one in particular always leaps to mind. It was late 1987. I was working for a state highway agency and just before I joined the organization six months earlier, an interstate highway bridge had collapsed, taking with it the lives of 10 people, mid-morning on an April Sunday during a particularly rainy Spring. I had no real, in-the-trenches experience in media relations, or in anything engineering or transportation-related, until I joined that agency, and it was like stepping into a foreign world. Daunting and overwhelming. But like all things, the longer I was there, the more I learned, and I became a little more comfortable.
There's nothing worse than speaking to media on subjects of technical complexity, or policy matters with huge political implications, when you feel in your gut (and in your brain) that you're way out of your depth. It's godawful. But I did what I had to do and tried not to make too much of a mess of it.
So in early December, after a truly Herculean effort by my engineering colleagues and consultants, a portion of this fallen interstate highway bridge was rebuilt, and traffic began to flow freely across a once-flooded, raging creek. It was for the occasion of the re-opening of this severed highway that I was asked to write the remarks for the agency's director to deliver at the site, in front of a slew of television cameras, radio microphones and reporters with cassette recorders, and notepads in hand with pencils poised.
I knew enough of the facts to speak to the substance of the event, but how to blow the agency's horn at the speed and success of its response to the tragedy and crisis in the face of the fact that 10 people had died as a result of it? It was keeping the right balance of purposefulness and human sensitivity that would be key - and it all had to be conveyed in only a minute of comment.
There were many public servants and professionals rightly proud of their swift response and technical accomplishment in rebuilding that bridge and the section of highway that it linked. But there also were grieving families whose feelings had to be considered and respected. It is the worst thing in the world to be an engineer and be connected with a structure that fails and, in the process, kills people. So I spent a few hours thinking about how to say what had to be said. "Much was lost, but much was learned" was a phrase that came to mind - the alliteration seemed to work well. I acknowledged those who died and the devastation of their loss, while also indicating that perhaps it was not in vain, and that new standards for bridge design, and improved procedures for routine maintenance and inspection, were the result.
I eventually drafted the one-page remarks incorporating that phrase, along with mentioning the technical advances that had resulted from the tragedy, and gave them to my boss, the agency's chief press officer. He made no edits at all, and submitted it to the agency's director, an engineer himself, who delivered it at the site on that cold and cloudy December day without altering a word.
That was a very satisfying moment for me, and was something involving my writing I hadn't experienced before. I had thought of myself as someone who was creative visually, but never as "a writer." So it was at that moment, standing on the bridge and hearing my words sent out to the media and the public on such a solemn occasion, that I realized I indeed was a writer, a communicator of thoughts and ideas. Not the author of the "great American novel" perhaps, but a writer whose work was considered acceptable...maybe even good...at least good enough for government work.
Since then, my writing, while still based in factual observation, has become a little looser and, I hope, more creative. I do it now not because I have to (although I do "have to" for some work projects), but because I like to. I like to write for myself and I like to write for, and to, other people who, strangely, seem to like and appreciate that I do it. It's one of the great thing about computers, and email and blogs. And it's the curse, too. I have to be a bit of an editor, along with being a writer, not only in what I write, but in how much and how often I write. But, like writing itself, I get better with practice at that, too.
Eventually, I'll probably move into writing a little fiction as well, but for now, I like writing about what I think, and reading writings of others about what they think. For example, I enjoy reading several periodic columns of writings submitted by others in The New York Times. And those have led me to some of the blogs I've been reading. Obviously there are a lot of "closet" writers out there if the proliferation of blogs is any indication. It's nice to be a part of a larger community of writers, thinkers and communicators. It's yet another trail to ride. And I can't wait to follow it and see where it will lead.
posted by Leslie | 3:55 AM
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