Writing A Page A Day

JOHN GRISHAM, who is my age, a more successful writer than I, and who may be better at it, although he and I have totally different approaches to writing, once said that the best way to be a writer is to write, and that to do that, a good formula is to turn out one page every day, of something. Now that I have been involved in actively writing and publishing for nearly fifteen years,I wholeheartedly agree with Grisham. Whether you're talking about exercise, knitting, writing, or whatever, go Nike, and, just do it. There's a lot to write about, or talk about. In our era of Trump, its like somebody said; you get out of bed every day, thinking, "now what"? With what new horrors or disgusting obscenities will we be confronted on this fine summer day? Trump pmore than does his part. Another new war today? Another salacious scandal? New federal crimes, lawsuits, or accusations? We must tend our gardens, as Voltaire said. You can go about your business, clean house, work, whatever, feel good that you are doing your part, taking care of business, with a radio droning in the background - I recommend National Public Radio- and keep yourself in the global ball game. These twenty four seven television news channels feed us mostly escape entertainment, not news, so one has to be selective. Most of my life I have started by finding out what the American president is doing, and going from there. With Trump, I have become almost afraid to continue this approach. You can easily write a page a day about Trump, and indeed during the fifteen years or so that I have been publishing this essay website Turmp has dominated the past ten or so. He is truly that important, much as I hate to say it. I long for the day when he is gone..really "gone". Republicans have disgusted me since Nixon, so there is nothing new in that. A famous historian was asked to provide a succinct definition of "history". His definition? "One damned thing after another"... If you want to write history, keep a idary. There will come a time when your diary will be a valuable historical document in the twenty third century, like Mary Chestnut in the pre Civil War south. History would be geratly served if everyone would keep a diary. The diaries from people in past centuries are valuable historical documents, and scholars do doctoral dissertations about them. You, a cashier at Wal Mart, could become a vital primary source of information about blue collar working class culture in early twenty first century America. History is monstrous, because it encompasses everything; there is a "history" of everything. Every moment of every day is unique, with no repitition. What you are doing this very moment is unique in all the universe, unless our universe is merely a carbon copy of billions of other universes. There is no evidence for that. If we all would write our page a day, about ourselves, and end up with a book which is part autobiography, part societal history, our descendants would know much about who we were. And yes, I think we want to leave as much information about ourselves behind as we can, even more than the endlessly fascinating ancient Romans did. We are all part of history, making history every second of our lives. Einstein wrote a book about relativity, but not about himself. He did, however, leave a note in a time capsuele, which said to future generations: "If you have not become kinder and more compassionate than we were, may the devil take you." Do your writing.