An Evening With David Mehegan

In this interview, David Mehegan gives the reader many strong points of advice. He tells begining writers to use strong verbs (hey, I am trying), to be trustworthy, and to be--above all--human. It was the human focus that first struck me. I was going to write about, "I try to write every story with such a voice and tone that the reader is aware that here is a person on this side of the keyboard." Thisis a great idea! Humanity from a newswriter, the concept never dawned on me that you could be reporter and person at the same time! I was so captivated by this idea that I started to soar out of my chair, but then I read this. "I also think we shoudl try to entertain whenever possible, to give good reading, using style and eyes for detail, without going so fatally overboard that we are attracting the reader's attention to us rather than to our story." Damn, he makes a good point, and my feet slowly came back down to the earth.

Balance. Oh, how easy it is to forget about balance. It is easy to write up a bare bones story with no voice and basic structure. It is easy to remove yourself from the facts, and have nothing human in your story. It makes for dry writing, but I was just saying that it was easy. (I should edit this to say easier and not easy, but I am not going to do that.) These are the kind of stories that I believe Mehegan is talking about when he says, "most stories read like they could have been written by a newswriting software package."

However, especially as a student, it is easy carried away with your own sense of self, that you forget why you started writing the article in the first place. You start thinking about getting noticed by someone, or writing an article that is so personal that any editor who ever sees it is going to hire you on the spot. That kind of writing has no place in a paper, and I fear will probably make every editor laugh, and throw away my portfolio.

Balance--One word. He never says it, and I may imagined this entire rant, but that's what I got out of this interview.

Donald Murray

Well, Doc wanted me to answer this question. Due to my love of passing his classes, I feel obliged to answer.

Donald Murray was 82 years old when he died. Is there anything in his last few columns that you can learn from in your own career as a professional writer?

I liked his style, but adapting someone's style to your own, just happens when you read thier work. Though I love his light conversation style, there is nothing to adapting such a style. What I truly learned from him, and I think I should try to integrate into my own life, I found in his obituary.

My parents and teachers got together and decided I was stupid," he wrote last year. "My response was to develop a private mantra: 'I'm stupid but I can come in early and stay late.' Surprise. It worked. Good work habits will beat talent every time."

I try to use this idea at work too. This is just a great mantra. Hopefully I have talent, but incase I don't I can still succeed as a writer.