When I was in High School my father clipped out a very short piece by Kurt Vonnegut published in the New York Times.  It was about how to write, and it was excellent.  He began with the advice to always give the thing you are working on a title.   This is the first step in framing what you want to say, and I have found it helpful.   I don’t recall much else from his excellent advice, but that was help enough.

(Spent the last half hour searching the web in vain for that piece.  If I ever turn it up, I’ll post it here.)

I have been reading a biography of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. called “And So It Goes”.  Engaging tome.   I am reading about how diligently Vonnegut worked at his craft, how tirelessly he pursued a paid writing career.  In passing I learn that he apparently played the piano well enough to execute Chopin’s Funeral March as the new owners walked up to the decrepit house he was selling.  This is the second mention of him at the piano as an adult, with no explanation of how he knew how to play.   During a time he should have been finishing a novel he’d long ago gotten an advance for, and when he was still completely unknown, he took a few days to build an 18 foot sculpture at a Boston International Airport restaurant.  Huh?  He took time to add many creative touches to his home in West Barnstable.   We have no inkling where these skills came from but we learn that he was handy, he could build things, he had many creative interests.  But mostly, he wrote.

I am reading about his struggles, including his bouts of depression, and trying not to think too hard about my own struggles.  I tell myself there are lessons to be learned from Vonnegut’s life, things I can use.

“One thing you could use is his discipline and drive,”  a voice announces, “the ability to soldier through terrible moods, fear, rejection, and keep producing something you can SELL,” a voice announces.  “He wrote every day from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., no matter what.  When he worked full time, he woke up early to write and wrote at night.  Another thing you should keep in mind:  you are no Kurt Vonnegut.” 

True enough.   Vonnegut was, from the beginning, a writer with his eye on making a living.  He wrote what he could sell, changed his ideas, often grudgingly, to sell short stories to glossy magazines at a time when selling three or four stories could provide a decent year’s income.   It was decades before he was able to write what he really wanted to write. Decades before he got any respect as a writer, something that troubled him immensely during those long years.  He was, from the beginning, a working writer, struggling to put food on his family, as a former president once observed was a challenge many Americans step up to.

Write with an eye for what the market will pay you for.

Write to one person — the one who loves what you have to say.  Come to the point, don’t waste a second of her time being clever.   Write what will touch her heart, make her laugh, and then, cause the tears to flow.

And so it goes.