By Steve Candidus (Steve C.)
“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” – Louis L’Amour
Some of the things that come with years of writing experience are the ability to write well and to write fast.
The essay that I wrote about “The Making of Sunday Morning Classics on TBP” is a good example of writing fast. From the original draft, the changes, and fine-tuning, all-in it took me about half an hour to write.
I don’t always write fast though. Sometimes I take my time and just enjoy writing for its own sake.
My article on saxophones is a good example of that.
I never intended it as an article for TBP. I just got what I call, ‘a wild hare’, and decided to write an essay about them.
I am at an age where I write about whatever the hell I feel like writing about. In effect, I don’t write so much for TBP. I write for myself. I just share some of what I write with everyone on TBP.
After writing about saxophones, I got to wondering how I could combine my love of saxophones and my love of the Japanese movie “Swing Girls” into the same essay. It seemed an interesting concept.
I ended up playing with it all day one Saturday. I was having a wonderful time. No need for speed.
I find that it’s very important for me to sleep at least one night on something I’ve written. That’s especially true if it’s something important. My night-brain will always help me to fine-tune it.
“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” – Saul Bellow
After I had slept on it, I wondered if I could make it into an article that I could share with everyone here.
In order to format it for posting on TBP I had to completely rework everything and then add the photos and videos, but I was going slowly because I was just having fun. Writing for the shear love of writing. Besides, it gave me another day to play with it.
What a wonderful and versatile language English is. Anything that you can see or even imagine can be described by a good writer so that the person reading it can visualize exactly what you saw or imagined. You can literally paint a picture in someone else’s mind with words (HSF does that beautifully). No other language is that versatile.
After I finished it, and had slept on it for a night or two, I sent it to Peter to proofread for me telling him that I was thinking about posting it on TBP.
Peter’s revisions were minor and I incorporated all of them into my finished piece, but it was his enthusiasm for it that convinced me to post it. I still wasn’t sure how the monkeys would take it, but I figured, ‘what the hell?’
There weren’t a lot of comments to my saxophone article, but I was very pleased that those who did comment seemed to enjoy it.
They say that no man is an island, and it is no different for writers.
The first big influence on my writing was my first grade teacher Mrs. Hartman. She had also been my kindergarten teacher. My birthday is in August so throughout my school years, I was always the youngest kid in the class and I was intensely shy. I was so shy in fact that I used to hide under the table during playtime. Mrs. Hartman used to let me stay there and just come out when I was ready.
When she taught me my letters and how to read and write in first grade, I started writing stories and my writing just got better and better. She used to have me get up and read them to the rest of the class. Then she had me go around to the other two first grade classes and read them.
By the end of the year, I was reading my stories to almost every class and every grade in the school. When I would walk into to my sister’s class, (she was a sixth grader – woo-ee) she would always exclaim, “That’s my little brother! Isn’t he great? Isn’t he great?” Big sisters are wonderful. I still send her some of my essays and she always emails me back, “That’s my little brother. Isn’t he great?”
Being asked to read my stories not only motivated me to write more of them, but it also gave me my first introduction to public speaking and it brought me out of my shyness shell.
The next big influence on my writing was my dad. He was also a good writer and he spent countless hours with me helping me with my essays. He would ask, “How else can we say that?” and told me to think about how I would say something as if I was talking to someone and simply, “write it that way.”
He used to tell me to write as if I was having a conversation with an old friend. Put the reader at ease. “Make it enjoyable for them to read.”
Those father and son hours are like gold to me now. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
Another of the main influences in my writing came from an English professor in college by the name of Mrs. Keller. She was a little odd and had the nickname of, ‘The Squirrel’, among the students, but she taught me a lot about writing.
‘The Squirrel’ graded me much more harshly than she did the other students because she said that I came into her class already an accomplished writer. Her job wasn’t to simply pass me along she said. Her job was to make me better.
That woman worked me hard. She was like a female LLPOH. She beat me like a mule. She made me rework and rewrite my essays countless times. No one else in the class ever had to do that. Just me. I was still rewriting essays long after we had all submitted several new ones, and she made me rewrite those too.
At the end of the semester, she told me to see her after class. She informed me that I was exempt from the final exam – that I had earned an ‘A’ in her class with my very first essay. She told me that she gave me all of those D’s and F’s just to make me work.
She said that she was very proud of me and she made me promise her that I would continue to write and continuously improve my writing.
She also told me that I would know that I was a good writer when I could write an essay about dishtowels and make it interesting. I never forgot that.
She worked me hard, but she made me a better writer and I will always be grateful to her.
When Peter wrote back to me that my essay on saxophones was a topic that he knew nothing about and had no real interest in, but that he thoroughly enjoyed reading it, I knew that I had just written an essay about dishtowels.
My beloved mentor Mrs. Keller would be proud.
I write for the shear love of writing, but always remembering those that helped me along the way…
(My thanks to my friend Peter Underwood (Austrian Peter) for once again proofreading this essay for me)
Steve Candidus is a writer and history buff that works as a product and application specialist of large AC electric motors in Spring, Texas.
Steve – Thanks for sharing. I have attempted to write several essays to share with the TBP family, but my writing tends to wander from topic to topic and in the end does not flow. As with many things, I have ideas (at least they are good in my mind), but cannot commit them to paper.
You have a talent and you use it well. Keep sharing and I will keep reading.
Thanks TN Patriot.
Keep writing. You will get it…
As my literature teacher in summer school (yes, summer school) used to say, the more you write the better you get. She also recommended reading books. Doing so makes you absorb correct sentence structure and will help write like the authors you read. She was a hard-ass teacher but I learned the most from her.
I hated school but was never adverse to learning. My hardest teachers were actually the best. If you weren’t hard, I hated your class and usually skipped it.
Agreed about school VV, I really didn’t get much out of it myself – learned much more through reading and when the Internet arrived I was in my element. I do believe that self-learning is the best way to gain skills and of course working in groups. This is what Steve C achieves by generously sharing his writings without fear – I stand in admiration of this.
If home schooling would have been widely available when I was in high school, I would have been a prime candidate.
Maybe you can help me Steve, I have been commenting here for a few years and I still can’t get the hang of this writing stuff. Is it adverb before verb? Do I even need adverbs? What’s up with adjectives? And what should I write about anyway? Some people write in their bras or on them, I’m not sure. I don’t wear a bra, maybe I should write in my shorts.
What, not even a FU? I feel so bypassed.
So beautiful, ’tis a pity she’s blind.
Why, I’m sorry, EC… I thought you were being serious. Seemed true to me. But then I tend to be an agreeable fella.
For a muppet chicken.
It’s a lunch mob!!!
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write about the intersectionality of coyotes ,cats,and dogs,and the pronouns each identify with–
He needs to write a reason for Wednesday’s twofer.
Why not start with The Sour Grapes of Math.
Just write as you feel EC – don’t worry about grammar and all that stuff – it comes with practice and I will be only too happy to review your work.
You’re such a nice and helpful man, Austrian Peter.
E.C., to write correctly and to put your thoughts into words, read authors you admire and study how they do it. I once had a college English professor who told me he had a hard time reading fiction because he always focused on the writing rather than the story itself. Become that English teacher. As far as adverbs and adjectives, you may want to buy a copy of “The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers.” It’s the definitive book for writing and figuring out the English language.
LOL, I hope you take this in the spirit it is intended –
Writing for the shear love of writing.
sheer. Otherwise, baaah.
I do enjoy your writing. All writers know that every now and then, some quibbly little typo is going to sneak in. If that is all I can find to point out, then I consider your post to be exemplary.
I, too, began reading and writing at a very young age. Unfortunately, I had an English teacher that just about destroyed my desire to continue. Years later, another teacher rekindled that passion, and showed needed encouragement just about when I would’ve turned from it forever.
Thanks for sharing. I personally would welcome more.
Thanks TS.
Your writing skills are quite good. I’m glad that you continued.
My spelling is not quite so good however.
Thank doG for spill cheek…
Yes Steve C – but it’s American! drives me mad, what with ‘z’ (you say zee, we say zed) versus ‘s’ and double ‘ll’s – I have to keep adding to the dictionary to stay all Oxford and all that..
One of the keys to writing (just one of many!) is reading anything and everything in your native language. Also be curious: look up the roots of words and explore words in different languages. Life experience–“paying your dues”– is also helpful. Thank you Steve for this inspiring essay!
Hey Steve,
I hope you will continue to write. You have a talent for it.
Just for the record, it’s called a ‘wild hair’ as in ‘I got a wild hair up my ass to write”. Unless, of course, there is an actual ‘wild’ hare up your ass-in which case it must have been tamed.
Or wrapped with duct tape.
I like it! I was busy all day correcting typos in Biking Biology Experiment 101. I used to write stuff. Now I correct stuff.
Jim’s tolerance is vast.
Very well executed, Steve. Keep ’em coming. Please.
Yes Steve,
Keep them coming and maybe Nkit’s mind will be lifted out of the gutter,always posting teen porn.
Nkit,I have the ladies in my Sunday school class praying for you and also the ladies in the garden club.
How about me, you put in a good word for me?
she seems to be an old lady,i doubt she has the time/energy to it would take 4 you–
Dee is on a rampage against nKit.
I always enjoy your essays. I thought the saxophone article was really interesting. Thanks for those you submit to us.
Steve,
Great post, I enjoyed every word!
Writting is the only music I can play.
I have written for 8 magazines, but one I had a 5,000 word continuing serial commitment to…due every other month from 2004 to 2010. The song ‘PRESSURE’ by Billy Joel comes to mind as I write by re-write. To get 5,000 passable words I have to write 15,000 or maybe more. In exchange I received substance that made a huge difference in my bank account.
I was raised in Edison NJ just outside Camp Kilmer, named after Joyce Kilmer…who wrote the international acclaimed poem TREES…inspiring me as a boy to write.
In his honor I dedicate my humble attempt to mirror his simple but touching poem…TREES.
https://poets.org/poem/trees
FEES
I think I shall never see
A check as lovely as a writing Fee
A fee whose desperate need
Is to my bills as a planted mustard seed
A fee that looks at my bankster’s balance all day
And keeps those loan sharks away and at bay
A fee that in summer may wear
My paid for vacation in its bi-monthly serial check care
Upon whose bosom my bills have lain
Saving me from the debtor’s pain
Poems are made by TBP fools like me
But only a deep pocket magazine editor can send the writers fee
A very good rendition!
I love stories. I like the way different writers discover how to tell one in a way that is completely unique, that displays the way they see the world so that you can see it through their eyes.
I learned through stand up that if you wanted to hear some really good stories from people, all you had to do was be the one that got the ball rolling. You tell them a story, later they tell you one. And no two are ever the same even when they cover the exact same experience.
Thank You, Steve C.
Your encouragement, tips, and ideas serve as inspiration.
Likewise, to Peter, for lending expertise.
You both are ‘paying it forward’, a commendable thing to do in this day and age, where sharing knowledge with others is a form of rejection to the general trend of: “What’s in it for me?…if I am to impart my wisdom and skill techniques to a wider audience?”
Muchos Kudos, hombres.