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The best thing an aspiring writer can do is to meet some good ones, and then determine why they seem so good. For years I read Don Williams in the Knoxville News Sentinel. Just before the turn of the century I met him at our Writers Association of Blount County, which is where I first sought comradeship with other budding writers. In the case of Don, I learned that one of his talking points that night dealt with his starting what, in the old days, could be called a little mag. Or so I thought. New Millennium Writings is still going on strong, although on that night we had mostly such trailblazers as Tom Wolfe and Ken Kesey to talk about. I can't remember when I first reached Don by e-mail. He taught classes and I wanted to attend. By February, 2007 we carried on correspondence regarding an assortment of political topics dealing with the vagaries of the Bush administration.I probably knew about OpEdNews.com for years before signing up, Dedicated yahoogroups I worked with against the Bush regime carried articles from the pages of OEN. I realized Don was a member.
What caused me to try for authorship at OEN ended up as a diary, essentially opining that Knoxville News Sentinel was the loser and Don was gone as a columnist on contract. The newspaper wanted to dictate how many columns could relate to George W. Bush. Don stood his ground. The Sentinel lost a good writer, a native son, and someone who knew what journalists do. I was determined to let OpEdNews know that one of our own had been speared.
Nowadays, serving as an editor at OEN and seeing how questions concerning freedom of the press come up, I realize that there is a certain way which neophytes such as myself can go about improving on authorship, even without benefit of formal training.
It is for certain that reading is the first step before writing. If, for example, politics is the main subject to be covered, it is obligatory to have a working knowledge of history and a theory of the political process. The real challenge is to determine how to read well-researched articles and books--avoiding too much analysis of other writers. To get no further than writing an op-ed piece, you need a clear concept of what issues are to be explored. Citing sources enhances your position. A position can come through in a thorough argument with more weight when personal outrage is dampered with a sense of irony.
Going one step more, one can think things through in similar fashion, although using a more casual tone at the comments stage. It's assumed that there will be opportunity for two-way communication.
From reading to writing there comes a product. The unknown quantity/quality comes from the thought devoted to the idea. Have you ever noticed that the articles you like best seem so short? In fact their length is irrelevant. What is important comes down to how "fast" the reading goes.
In the last resort, we are all editors. Before submitting a piece, the last step is to look at it from the standpoint of those who will read it. We editors try to do that for those who submit, knowing that a clear thought is what makes the writing hold together.
