I just started reading the Writer’s Digest Guide to Magazine Article Writing by Kerrie Flanagan. I’m barely into the book, but I read a sentence that stopped me in my tracks and I can’t stop thinking about it.
First of all, a little background. I’ve been a writer for years. Well, for years I was a non-writing writer. And then I was a sporadically writing writer. And now I’m a writer who writes for his day job and also writes a little on the side but wants to write a lot MORE on the side.
I’m a nonfiction addict, too. I gravitate to writers like John McPhee, who held me rapt for more than 700 pages on the subject of geography in his Annals of the Former World; Gay Talese, whose ability to parse even the smallest of details just astounds me; Chuck Klosterman, a pop culture addict like myself who can wax philosophical about anything, including heavy metal music; Lester Bangs, whose music criticism leaps off the page, slaps you around and leaves you wanting more; J.R. Moehringer, whose ability to tell a true story is absolutely devastating; William Finnegan, whose book Barbarian Days just hypnotized me and pulled me into an appreciation for the art and craft of surfing I’d never considered before.
These are just a few of the people I want to emulate. I want to be like them. I want to write like them. John McPhee alone has written books about a tennis game, about transportation, about Bill Bradley, about oranges. The man could write about insurance and I’d read every word.
I guess what I’m saying is that I want to be able to write like these people, but when I sit down to the blank page, when I think about a subject that would command my attention for the years it would require to write a book — something I’ve dreamed of doing for years — I clam up. “I don’t know what to write about,” I think to myself.
And then the sage advice comes to mind, known and repeated by anyone who’s ever even glanced at a writing book or searched for writing help on YouTube — “write what you know.”
But then I started reading this book. And here’s what Flanagan says…
“There’s advice floating around that says, write what you know, but that should be expanded to write what you want to know.”
It seems so simple, but it absolutely blew my mind.
When I think about what I want to write about, I feel like I should be an expert on what I’m writing, that I should be an authority before I put fingers to keys.
But with Flanagan’s advice, I can just chase my curiosity — something that again sounds rudimentary, but I never considered.
And I am curious. One of the things I love about working for a university is that I’m constantly writing stories about things I’ve never heard of before.
I’ve written stories about algal turf scrubbers. I’ve written stories about nanofibers that can deliver cancer medications to specific areas of the body. I’ve written about interesting people who’ve succeeded in their lives, and I’ve written about people who had to experience abject failure before they found their path.
Following my curiosity is something I love to do. It’s why I read as widely as I do. It’s why I love journalism and the journalists who create these riveting stories. And I want it to become the thing that drives me to realize the writing life I’m after.
So if you’ve ever been stuck like I am, take this great advice. Don’t just write what you know. Write what you WANT to know and see where it takes you.
