I did a little quick math last night and realized, to my surprise, that today’s column is my twenty-seventh with our hometown daily newspaper. In other words, it’s been six months since I first began writing it – way back in September – and all I can say is my, how the time truly does fly.
I’d like to think that, in the past half-a-year, I’ve managed to cover a fairly wide range of topics, which was my ultimate goal when our esteemed editor first offered me this opportunity. From politics to religion, modern technology to music, war, climate change, Facebook, hydrofracturing, my fear of dentists and yes, even alien invasions, I’ve done my best to offer up something a little different, week in and week out.
And while I’ve certainly enjoyed the positive feedback that’s come my way, I’ve also appreciated the occasional criticism – it keeps me on my toes.
Looking back, I distinctly remember my preliminary research on newspaper columns in general. For the first month or so, I even kept a list of “rules” on the wall overlooking my computer here in the office. I think there were three, if I’m not mistaken, and they went something like this: a column is a regular feature in the newspaper, it’s personality-driven and it focuses on the opinion of the writer.
Which I took to mean – it should be in the queue, by deadline, every week; I should try my best to be myself while writing it (as potentially dangerous as that sounded at the time), and I shouldn’t be afraid to state my honest opinion (also an alarming thought when you happen to be as opinionated as I am).
Regardless, I must say it’s been quite the experience over the past six months, even those times when my stress level (not to mention blood pressure) began to skyrocket.
What I find particularly funny is the gradual progression that’s occurred in the process of writing my weekly column. At the very beginning, I spent an entire weekend trying to come up with four or five individual columns, so that – no matter what – I’d have some handy back-ups in the occasion of a crazy-busy week or a case of dreaded Writer’s Block, which I like to call, “What am I going to do now? I can’t think of a damned thing to write.”
Needless to say, it didn’t work. In fact, that first Wednesday on Sept. 29 found me scrambling to wrap up my first-ever column on time.
What can I say? I was a little nervous, OK?
Next up, I decided I’d write my column while holed-up in the comfort of my own home, on Tuesday evening. I’d sit down with some good tunes, flip to a new page in one of the many notebooks lying about my apartment and write away.
Unfortunately, there were simply too many opportunities for life to intrude on my peaceful little set-up (neighbors, cell phone, Common Council meetings, et cetera), which would leave me with no choice but to crawl out of bed extra early on Wednesday, haul my half-awake keister into the office and type as fast as humanly possible, typically right up to deadline. This, of course, would leave me running behind for whatever else I’d been working on for the day’s paper, however.
Since then, I think I’ve finally managed to find my groove. And don’t ask me why my current method works any better than those I mentioned previously (it’s certainly not rocket science, I can tell you that).
No, these days I simply try to plan ahead and set aside some time on Tuesday afternoon and get a healthy head-start on this, my weekly column. For some odd reason that just seems to work out the best for me. I refuse to get comfortable, however, because I’m well aware that – sooner or later – it’s simply not going to work out that way. And when that day comes, I’m fairly certain that here I’ll be, with ten minutes to deadline, typing away a mile a minute and hoping all the while that I’m not offending anybody too badly.
I guess things really haven’t changed all that much in six months after all.
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