No, that writing master certainly ain't me. It's Keith Botsford, my former professor at Boston University. His class on critical journalism was hands-down the most rewarding instruction I've had in writing and journalism. And now he's distilled the wisdom and lessons of his decades-long writing career into a Top 10 list of sorts.
Botsford's guidance for writers isn't revolutionary. His methods aren't unique. And his style can at times be wordy and old-fashioned. What sets him apart is discipline -- something most writers lack, myself included. He doesn't teach discipline per se; he grinds it into you with a clever mix of compliments and (often deserved) put-downs.
Many avoided his class or left early due to his hard-nosed reputation. Think boot camp or Full Metal Jacket. Depending on your personality, his was either the last class you ever wanted or the first one you registered for. I took it twice. On purpose.
Botsford introduced his students to a method for writing that most colleges would likely feel is too extreme today. For a 500- or 1,000-word piece, it wasn't unusual to spend eight hours or more on research before writing a single word. Example: Instead of writing a critique of one movie, we'd watch a half-dozen films and write an essay dissecting the French New Wave and auteur movement in cinema (see some of the lingering effects here).
He pushed us to expand our thinking as much, if not more, than our writing. He taught us that critical thinking was the foundation for exceptional writing. Each week, I researched, absorbed and wrote about vastly different subjects: For an upcoming performance of Olivier Messiaen's music, I read books and articles about the composer, his contemporaries, a variety of previous performances of the piece and reviews of the artists who'd be performing it; then I listened to earlier recordings of the piece and other works by the composer and his influences. Messiaen's piece was just one of three being performed at the concert. So I repeated the process with the others. After attending the performance and discussing everything with some musician friends, it was finally time to write and re-write the actual review. (If I can dig it up, I'll post it here.)
This system of learning -- shock and awe? -- fostered Bostford's own success and he credits it with being the cornerstone of writing well:
Really good writers have to know everything, and for that they need the time to grow up, to stop thinking about themselves. Mature writers know how to connect the most disparate ideas. They are interested in everything: the speech and habits of barbers as much as the compactness of poets.
I took Botsford's critical journalism class right before graduating in 1996. Later that summer, he hired me to handle design and production of News from the Republic of Letters, the new literary magazine he was launching with Saul Bellow. As a fringe benefit of the job, I sat in on Botsford's class for another semester. In that second class, I remember thinking (naively) I was pretty special. After all, here was a high-school dropout who'd worked his way back to a journalism degree and was now working on a Nobel Prize-winning author's magazine, right? Ooof. Thankfully, Botsford put me in my place. He was no stranger to such behavior, since he'd admittedly been guilty of it himself -- and considered it rule #1 on his Top 10 list:
As a young, published writer in my twenties, I thought of myself as a literary figure. That was presumptuous. Writing is craft and an art. Craft calls for art, and art for craft. Others are better judges of what you write than you are. It is unwise to accord yourself a status you have not earned.
Today, the traditional models of publishing and journalistic "authority" are collapsing. Blogs, wikis, e-books, self-publishing, podcasting, social networking sites, etc., may never fully replace books, magazines and newspapers, but they're already taking a mighty big bite. These channels give countless voices an outlet to connect with a worldwide audience at hardly any cost. That's a beautiful thing. However, as the debates over Wikipedia's accuracy, the Washington Post's failed Red State blogging experiment and a steady stream of high-profile plagiarism incidents have demonstrated, there are legitimate, serious concerns about quality control in today's 24-7-365 info-centric world. As Botsford puts it in his #2 rule:
It takes a long time to develop a voice of one's own. Meanwhile you are moved by other writers. There is nothing wrong in imitation (indeed, it is good practice), so long as you can find your way home.
In the 10 years since I took Botsford's class, the majority of my published writing has been for business publications -- and hasn't had much "me" in it. One of the main reasons for this blog is trying to make up for lost time. I may not always achieve the high standards I was taught by this master of the writing craft. But for instilling the values and discipline that are guiding my current writing, and for posting a cheat sheet of those vital lessons online, it felt like the right time to say thanks.
Comments