Just One Sentence

Today’s “Letters from the Lauffice” is brought to us by Don Follis, writer and participant in our Six Month Memoir class. I hope it encourages you as much as it did me when I first read it.

Dear friends,

Several years ago I had the chance to start writing a religion column for the Champaign-Urbana, IL, News-Gazette. 

When I proposed the religion column to the editor, he was short with me, saying, “You know, everyone wants to be a columnist, but after 3 or 4 columns they fizzle out.”

My quick response was, “Could be, but I’m an experienced, well-read campus minister at the University of Illinois, with the gift of ideas.” 

“Well,” he said laughing, “Then give me 50 ideas for religion columns you’d write. I’ll take a look at them.” That very afternoon I wrote out 50 ideas and sent them to him.

The next afternoon he sent the ideas back. Forty were marked as good fodder for a religion column. Five of the 40 had 3 stars beside them, with this note: “Choose 3 of these 5 ideas and write me three 800-word columns.”

That evening I was so pumped,  I chose one of the ideas and wrote a draft for my first column. The next morning I spent 2 hours rewriting it, before finally closing my eyes and hitting send.

Two days later he personally called me and said, “We’re going to run your column this Sunday. Keep ‘em coming. We’ll run them every other week. The week the column runs I need it on Thursday by noon. They can’t be late. Sound good?” 

The editor had asked for 3 columns. I’d only written one.. 

Sure enough, that first column appeared. Then I wrote the second and third columns, and they made the paper, too.

The week the 4th column was due, I got stuck in molasses. After scouring my list of 40 ideas the editor had approved, none of them jumped out at me. The Wednesday afternoon before it was due the next day at noon, I froze, sitting there looking at my computer screen like a deer in headlights. 

Finally, exasperated, I called my wife at work, and said, “I’m calling the editor this afternoon.”

“Calling him? For what?”

“I don’t have anything else to say. The column is due tomorrow at noon. I jumped in too soon. I don’t have the time to give myself to what it takes to write a column.

“Honey, you have 40 great ideas begging to become columns.”

“Could be, but I’m calling him, apologizing and saying, ‘I’m really sorry. False start. I won’t bother you again.’”

“Please, please don’t do that. Choose an idea, sit down and write a sentence. Just one sentence. Then write another sentence. One sentence at a time, big guy. Columns are going to start pouring out your ears. You can do it. I have to get back to work now. Don’t you dare call your editor.”

Happily, I did not make the call.. Thank goodness. Instead, I followed my wife’s advice and wrote just one sentence, and then another, and yes column number 4 got written that Wednesday evening and sent off on time the next morning. 

And honestly, that’s pretty much how I now have written almost 800 religion columns – one sentence at a time, often not even knowing exactly where the column is going when I write that first sentence.. 

And to think, I nearly gave up after the third column.  

Now that I've jumped in with the 6-month memoir-writing class, I’m trying to start each day of writing the same way – with just one sentence, and then another. There are lots of scenes I’ve written, but they all begin with one sentence. Some of them are good; some are horrible. All of them need to be rewritten. Right now, I’m not worried about that. The editing phase will come in due time.

So one sentence at a time, friends. Just keep going. Being part of a writing clan like this one makes me happy – “The Little Writers that Could.”

Sincerely

Don