Writing in "Green Ink"

It has been several years since I was reporting on the environment. But reading from Michael Frome's book, "Green Ink" has inspired me. It is like eating a food and having it trigger a memory, a deep-seeded passion.

In Chapter 12, Frome gives some advice for writing a journal. I'll call that a blog. First, he states some truisms: "Being a professional writer is at least as difficult as becomming a surgeon. Writing, especially writing about the environment, demands hard work, persistence, patience and a thick skin -- it does not happen overnight."
I have to agree. My approach to writing, reporting, has been to get stuff that no one else had. I always tried to get that extra interview, ask one more question. Whenever someone was not in or not calling me back, I thought, "What is another way to get this information?" Or: "Can I reach this person some other way." It became a competition. I didn't want to let that source beat me. I'm still like that, even at home. Drives my wife nuts (and she is a journalist!).

This goes with what Frome says later: "Never sell yourself short." If you think you have an idea, go with that idea. Find out stuff no one else has. Write it in a way that draws in the reader, captures and keeps his attention. Stephen King says he writes for his "ideal reader" or IR. Would what you are writing pass the test of your IR?

Second, Frome says cover topics (in this class) that you want to report and write about. You should be driven by curiosity and by what I call "righteous indignation." Is there something that bothers you? That is wrong but should be right, or at least exposed to the scrutiny of the world? That is a driving force in environmental writing. I remember doing a story on a family in a house next door to a chemical plant. At the house, wafts of odors, like burning plastic, would engulf the backyard where the mother and her children sat. I remember her face as she asked me whether that would hurt her or her child? That motivated me to report the truth.

He says set realistic objectives. I hope by following the assignments in this class, (Comm. 438T) I have done that for you. But also, push yourself to find out things and write about them in your blog postings. Also, to that end, Frome says "read everything ... read all the time. Read fiction, nonfiction, in different fields ... read the back of cereal boxes if you have nothing else. The good stuff will seep into your head and sooner or later leak out on paper. (I would suggest as a novel, Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang.")

As an environmental writer, I like his advice: "Be affirmative, focus on solutions, not simply problems, with abiding belief in people to make the solutions come true."

Finally, he says: "Get outdoors. Balance the introspection of writing by going outdoors. Cam, canoe, kayak, hike, walk or sit in a park -- whatever works."
I will hope you will do that for your in-depth project, or just for fun. Take your kids, your sisters, your brother for a hike. Or to the beach. Or to Bolsa Chica to walk the paths and just stare at the great blue heron as she stands seemingly motionless. Then, without warning, jumps into flight in a slow motion scene that is way better than any movie or video could deliver.