“Sean, every time I sit down to write, I can’t make the words come… Maybe it’s because I’m not any good. I got a C in my journalism class, and I feel like I’ll never be a true writer, but a big failure. What should I do?”
This question was posed to me by a twenty-one-year-old journalism major who I will call Merle. I call him this for two reasons. Firstly, Merle Haggard is one of my favorite country singers. Secondly, this man’s name is actually Merle.
The thing is, Merle, you already have more credentials than I do. I never took a journalism class. In fact, I’m not what you’d call a “true writer,” either. A true writer finds incredible stories, then polishes them into poetry. I don’t do that.
Case in point: Once, I wrote an entire column about eyebrow hair.
This proves that I am not an “author” per se, at least not in the traditional sense. Actually, what I am is a “talker.” Which means I can talk at great length about topics I know
absolutely nothing about. Kind of like I’m doing now.
I inherited this natural gabbiness from my mother. My mother could chat with anyone or anything. Once, when I was a boy my mother lost her prescription eyeglasses in a JCPenney and mistakenly struck up conversation with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Brooke Shields who was advertising tight-fitting jeans.
After Mama’s pleasant conversation, she remarked, “What a nice young lady, maybe you’ll meet a young lady like that one day.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “That was Brooke Shields.”
“Brooke who?”
“Shields.”
“Well, Brooke’s mother should’ve never let her leave the house in those britches.”
Not only do I sometimes feel like a non-writer, Merle, but I am a classic late bloomer.
Just last night, I was watching a baseball game. The announcer was a former big league right-fielder who is considered…