Clark Kent never had these problems, I thought, but then everything he writes is at super speed.
Some writers lust for that time when the presses are just about to roll and the editor is screaming for copy. Adrenaline surges, fingers fly across the keyboard and another issue gets put to bed, only to beat the sun to the streets.
At least that's the way the newspaper "bidness" was always shown in the movies.
This column was almost late. But that fact should be of no importance to you if things work out the way they usually do: what will happen is that I'll send it over to the editor's office, and Rick Levin will get me on the phone and yell and scream and generally pitch a fit over the columns lateness while I stare sheepishly out the window.
Then he will send the copy down to the production department and everything will be back to normal. Or he could just leave this space blank, except for a boldface message to all the readers of Ramblings: "AIN'T NO COLUMN THIS WEEK BECAUSE McDANIEL WAS LATE AGAIN!"
But that's not bloody likely, because newspapers generate verbiage and the hole would be filled with something.
I learned about pressure long ago while writing in my Newswriting 305 class at Michigan State. We'd be sitting in front of our typewriters (remember the world before computers?) and the instructor would assign a story from a workbook containing a synopsis of imaginary events and, then, "copy will be due when the timer's bell goes off in five minutes."
Do 10 or 15 of those during a class period and you begin to feel like Dragnet's Joe Friday-"Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts."
Spring term of my senior year I'd already completed all of my required courses, and I just had to fill my credit load. I needed a class that paid the required three credits I needed to graduate, yet didn't take a lot of brain power or time.
So I asked my hassled roommate as he struggled to finish a final term paper on coniferous trees for his forestry major: "Swine, what easy classes are there in forestry? I need three credits to graduate."
"I haven't come across any yet," Swine snorted from across the table as he held up a sprig of evergreen. "This look like a cedar or a spruce to you?" he asked.
"There's Wildlife of North America," he continued. "It's an entry level course that I've skipped and still have to take-we could take it together."
On the first day of class the instructor assigned a weekly, two-page paper requirement that had Swine spending the first three nights of the week in the library. I simply poured a drink the night before the paper was due and sat down at my typewriter and showed him how a journalist works.
I handed in my first-draft, a little two-page ditty about squirrels, and pulled a higher grade than Swine and all of his hours in the library. With a class of more than 200 students, the instructor didn't want two pages of deep research every week-he just wanted to be entertained.
Since this is the new year, however, I've made a resolution to get my column copy in on time. But then again-you know how resolutions usually turn out.[[In-content Ad]]