making writing good

This is actually a blog about writing, about journalism, albeit a very peculiar form of journalism. If you’ve read the other entries, you know I write about booze, under the sobriquet Dr. Booze. (I know I know. The website needs updating. I’ll get there once I sort out licensing fees etc.)

Writing about booze has many benefits. For a start I can assume anybody who wants to read about it, has a an above average IQ.

Why? People who just want to get retarded need no help. They are just smart enough to realize this. You can find them at any kiddie bar, in any town, in the country of your choice. Their haunts of choice will have loud music, dim-ish lighting, and be full of folks under the age of 25 trying to work up the nerve to talk to the cute person across the room. They will therefore swallow some godawful dreck, like Jagermeister and pineapple juice to assist. Happily, I am now in the sere and yellow of life, a certifiable old fart, and can avoid such drinks, and such places.

But to return to the topic at hand, writing about booze, one of the great benefits of the job is the audience. Knowing this means I get to use words like ‘sobriquet’ in a sentence, which relieves the strain (I don’t have to work too much at dumbing down.)

The downside is: it is still a job. That means punching in, and writing a column, whether you’re in the mood or not. Anybody who thinks writing a weekly column is easy, has never done one. (All of you daily bloggers out there are probably howling with laughter at this.) Most people have about 5000 words in ‘em I reckon. Once they’ve got them out, that’s it baby. Another abandoned blog.

In newspaper terms, 5000 words is about 8 columns. So there you are beginning month three and starting to sweat...

I don’t have much trouble coming up with topics, because I actually do drink a lot. Enough that professional scolds think me an alcoholic. (Plbbbt! to them.)

One of my only rules is that I don’t have a drink until my partner in vine comes home. (Tasting, does not equal drinking. Usually when tasting I spit. And if I don’t I seldom am swallowing more than a whole glass of wine when I taste three bottles.) I learned early that when you work at home, you have to treat it like a job. Get up, put butt in chair, do sundry tasks of the small business/self-employed.

The next issue is writing the column. This isn’t too hard for me, I pick a topic, like say Port, and spew what I know. Then I wander to the liquor store and select a few I think worthy of note, and add tasting notes. Finally I do the edit.

This is where the writing comes in. Writing is pretty easy. Making the writing good, is Not Easy. Anybody who has read a few blogs will understand what I’m driving at. For all the good intentions and knowledge, very, very few blogs have the writing standards you will find in any daily newspaper. And most professional journalists, feature writers, fiction writers, just about all of us, would not hold the dailies up as a great standard of writing.

So what you must do is edit. It takes me about 6 hours over 3 days to produce 600 words. Only about an hour of that is actually writing. The other five are editing. And it is a very rare column I don’t reread a month later and find things to improve.

This blog is very lightly edited. I read it, spell check, re-read and post. I think it acceptable, but not great, writing.

Over to y’all.