European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 10, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 18 columns the stars and stripes monday. November 10,1986 today s crossword lessons Learned Over 7 years Bawd Rhooney when i started writing this column seven Yean ago i we fuzzy about the detail of the column writing business Here arc a few things i be Learned it in t easy. On the Day you Don t fed like doing it you have to do it anyway. The obligation to write is the Best thing that can happen to a water. If i water he a Choice he usually does t writing column is one of the most utilising things a writer can do and anyone who gets to Wale one ii Lucky. This column u bought by about 300 newspaper. I write it three times k week but some papers Don t use All of them. When they Don t print one pro torn be tween worry that it was t Good enough and irritation that the editor did t recognize How Good it wit. Most newspapers print it the Way i write. The Chicago Tribune almost never does. The Chicago trib Une edit it 10 mercilessly though professionally that 1 often with it haunt been printed at All. Tail week the Tribune printed just 20 Lino of column that would have been 80 if they d printed u the Way i wrote it. If i wanted to write for Reader s digest. I d have sent it to Pleasantville by. Columnists Are so nervous about being dropped by newspaper that they Don t complain often. 1 like hav ing my column in a Good newspaper like tie Chicago Tribune so much that i would to for a minute want the editor to think i am anything but delighted with the Way they Butcher my column. My Hometown paper the Norwalk hour gives my column lots of space. I think they like it. Somehow it reads better that Way. I read a lot of other columnists. There Are a lot of Good ones. Bob Greene is Good. People Tell me they re tired of Art Buchwald but i m not. Several newspapers print my column under the heading they must be disappointed most of the time. It s a mistake to try to be funny All the time when you re writing. Not Many people can do it. Cant. Humor should be incidental to writing. There should be some of it in everything and not much of it in anything. A Little goes a Long Way. Depending on circulation a newspaper pays any where irom about $10 to $ i i for three columns a week. If you re curious i get half. Getting the column to the Tribune co s Syndicate that distributes it can be More trouble than writing i Tribune Media services Headquarters Are in Orlando. Fla. 1 write fint on my old Underwood for flavor an then rewrite on � word processor for Iraa Boussion. The word processor has i Telephone attachment i write the column Call a number press some buttons and away it goes to Florida when the oranges freeze every year. It s magic when it Woika. A great Many Alert readers pick me up on Points of grammar. One of the most frequent complaints is bout my misplacing the word it does make a difference to the meaning of a sentence when you put it one place instead of another . Only i complain about the Tribune i Only complain about the Tribune i complain about the Only Tribune i complain about the Tribune editor Only three time a year newspapers somewhere print Ziy column with someone else s picture and byline onit or vice Vena. Ave bad my name on columns by George will William Buckley and Ann Landers. 1 try to write 600 words but there s no Universal agreement on How Long 600 words is. It depends on How Many characters you figure make a wont. You can t count an a or an an As a word. If everything goes right it lakes me two hours to write a column. If everything goes wrong it takes All Day and it Hill in t right Truw a do Surv Coj keep metaphors Short consistent by James k1lpatrick a sportswriter for the Greenville . Piedmont tried his hand not Long ago at metaphors. He was writ ing about Furman University s football team and ils former coach. Art Baker. Under a Microscope Rinnan football demands study As a whole bul taking it apart for clinical examination the nucleus stems from these genes David Whitchurst ran the ship during Baker s beginning years setting the rudder hard Lor those who would eventually Chart the course set by a bit further along the writer explained that in game Between South Carolina state and Furman state threw a curve at his Furman offence that was expected to be Green about the two guidelines govern the use of metaphors. The first is to keep them Short. The second is to keep the consistent. The gentleman in Greenville took us from a clinical examination of nuclei and genes to a ship with a rudder set hard for those who would Chart a he threw a curve at an offence Green about the edges. Block those metaphors in the Portland oregonian last year the superintendent of Crater Lake National Park said it s difficult to create a National Park it s got to go through the whole enchilada of legislation through Congress. In another Portland publication an editorial writer observed that it took hard knuckled guts to build the Bright red Mccormick pier in Nebraska Thomas a. Fogarty of the Lincoln journal Star quoted sen Tom Vickens of Farnam it is not easy to Slick your neck out on a sen. Yard Johnson of Omaha offered another interesting image we will have no economic climate in which businesses can swim in the absence of in Cleveland the Plain dealer carried some Astro logical advice to Sag illyrians listen 10 what others have to suggest and Slop mulling in your own week s mix master award goes to an and writer for , West information lurking amid the opportunities of the communications marketplace there area few rather treacherous evidently a pitfall was lurking somewhere in that l let a few horrid examples deter you from try ing a metaphor now and then. Deftly used metaphors Are delightful devices for improving your and then the temptation cannot be resisted to fire off a hoi idler to the editor. A suggestion draft your letter in the heat of indignation let it Cool Over night and then try again. Thai Friendly advice might have assisted a gentlewoman in Powell Ohio who was irked by one of my columns in the Columbus Dis Patch. The column had to do with cancelling an appropriation 10 the Library of Congress for a braille edition of Playboy. She wrote the editor As a female College student learning to teach English w High school students Kilpatrick i callousness toward the visually impaired offends me More than anything in Playboy Ever the same vein a gentlewoman in Louisville wrote the courier journal about my observation that the women s movement has contributed to such sole isms As every student has their said my critic As the Holder of the b.a., m.a., , and now . In Progress All in languages and literature there Are few grammatical errors that escape my my first year of teaching languages in 1970 i cannot find evidence to support his , i would say to my assailants by All Means feel free to give a columnist any columnist Good hiding. It improves our character. Bul hide us grammatically hide us Lilor i by by Eugene Sheffer 4ven. 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