I started
writing newspaper columns in 2001when I was a librarian at the Peterborough
Town Library in New Hampshire. All four professional librarians on staff there
shared the writing task and I was assigned every third week of the month. I joyfully
wrote about children’s books and programs that we offered to the youth of
Peterborough. Sometimes, I volunteered for an additional week because it was the
part of my job that I loved best.
In
January 2009, shortly after I came to Norwood as library director, I asked the
Norwood Bulletin if I could write a weekly column. They were happy to oblige
and the From the Library column began. Within a few months, I realized I was
burning out quickly by writing every week, especially when I was too busy to
write but still had a deadline to meet.
And
so, Morrill Memorial librarians: April Cushing, Marie Lydon, Margot Sullivan,
Tina Blood and Shelby Warner agreed to produce 1000 words or less once or twice
a year. Their topics, style and humor kept our From the Library column varied
and lively. A year later, others on staff joined in.
In
the past seven years, 30 of us on staff - librarians, library assistants, and Simmons
College interns - have contributed to the From the Library weekly column, never
missing a deadline. Jean Todesca, Diane Phillips, Norma Logan and Bonnie Wyler
and others have all covered areas of librarianship, including reading and
library services, and have enlightened all of our readers.
In
the fall of 2014 when I began a yearlong graduate certificate which required five
master’s courses in public administration. I realized I would only be able to write
twice a month at the most. I rearranged the rotation and some of our newer
staff agreed to write at least four or five times a year – Liz Reed, Allison Palmgren,
Nancy Ling and Kate Tigue. I hope you’ve enjoyed their point of view, their
humor, and their knowledge. Recently, two of our newest staff members,
Technology Assistant Sam Simas and Senior Circulation Assistant Jeff Hartman were
added to the rotation. The staff of our library has collectively written over
375 columns. At a conservative estimate, we’ve written about 300,000 words or 3
or 4 novels.
You
can imagine we were quite proud when the Massachusetts Library Association
awarded our library the 2015 Public Relations award in the News/Journalism
category.
What
I’ve learning since writing columns for the past fifteen years is that writing
takes discipline, deadlines and continual attention. I’ve listened to published
authors speak on the subject of writing and they all have one thing in common:
to produce writing you need to set aside a time and stick to it. You need to
write every day. That was a habit I had to learn when I wrote weekly. I found
that as soon as I finished one column, I was thinking of the next. I jotted
down notes, collected book titles or articles, and spent a few minutes each day
organizing my thoughts about the upcoming column.
The problem now that I don’t write
as regularly is that I find myself a bit brain-dead. I often give in to the
habit of procrastination. It’s becoming harder and harder to write a column
simply because I am not actually writing or thinking about it on a daily basis.
I used keep a list of column ideas and I
gathered information all week in a skeleton “idea” document. I’ve conveniently
given up the habit as my deadlines become farther and farther apart.
I’ve heard many authors speak and
they almost always suggest that a writer set aside a part of his/her day to
write. Although most of us working full time don’t think we have that luxury,
I’ve always been amazed by writers of non-fiction, surgeon Atul Gawande or pediatrician
Perri Klass and a multitude of college professors who manage to write book after
book. It seems they must set a part of their day aside and discipline
themselves to write.
Stephen King states that he writes 2,000 words a day, “and
only under dire circumstances do I allow myself to shut down before I get my
2,000 words.” In his book “On Writing” (2000), he advises that “you have three
months [to write the] first draft of a book. Even a long [book] – should take
no more” than the length of a season.
In 1924, twenty-two
year old Arnold Samuelson spent a year with writer Ernest Hemingway hoping to
learn how to become a better writer. He documented that journey in “With
Hemingway: A Year in Key West and Cuba” which was discovered and published after
Samuelson’s death in 1981. Hemingway, Samuelson wrote, advised him that rewriting
is the key and it should be done every day. Hemingway professed that he rewrote
“A Farewell to Arms” 50 times. “The better you write, the harder it is because
every story has to be better than the last one.”
E.B. White
wrote that “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will
die without putting a word to paper.”
When Haruki Murakami is writing a novel, he rises every day at 4 am and
writes for 5 to 6 hours. And keeps to that routine every single day.
In “The
Writing Life” (1989), Annie Dillard write with brutal honesty about a somewhat
love/hate relationship she has with writing. In one of her essays she wrote
that “a work in progress quickly becomes feral. It reverts to a wild state …
you must visit it every day. If you skip a day, you are, quite rightly, afraid to
open the door to its room.”
There are a
multitude of books in our library about writing, including those by Stephen
King, Annie Dillard, and Arnold Samuelson. Check the library catalog and
contact a librarian for help in finding them.
