Texas Till I Die

We made it to Saturday. What a week! What a month! What a summer!

I'm so thankful not to be at the hospital, the med lab, or the doctor's office this morning. My daughter and I are chilling, cruising the Internet, and doing a little retail therapy.

I was shopping one of her online boutiques Texas Guys & Gals and ordered one of these Ringer Tee Shirts with her Texas Till I Die design. Only $16.00 so I thought I'd recommend it to you if you also love the Lone Star State.

Takeaway Truth

I love online shopping because you can get original designs that, like they say on TV, are not found in stores.

Another Opinion On Newspapers

A couple of days ago I posted What's Wrong With Newspapers and received a comment so insightful from Harl Delos, writer of Canthook, that I asked him if I could run his comment as a blog post.

I wanted to do this because a lot of people don't read comments, and his was simply too good to miss. Harl agreed and added:

You've reminded me of another takeaway truth: beware of the "DWT"s. Not the DTs, that writers are stereotypically associated with, but the DWTs: Doing the Wrong Things.

I spend too much of my time writing comments on others' blogs, instead of writing guest blogs. What's worse, I don't even post the commentary on my own blog. (I just now posted this essay on my own blog, with a couple of trivial changes to provide context.)

Samuel Johnson had something to say about that: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."

In my defense, though, I did make an even more general post about this sea change on my blog yesterday: Cash In Your Stocks, Quit Your Job, BYOB, and Get Horizontal! It's quite applicable to writers as long as you realize that writers are manufacturers of copy.

Webster Kuswa's book "Sell Copy", a couple of decades ago, pointed out that you can write highly valuable copy with no more effort, perhaps less, than that, ahem, "masterpiece" that sits unpublished in the bottom of the closet. It's highly worth reading, even though it's out of print (and you can buy it for as little as 35c, used, on Amazon.)

I know I'll be looking for the book Harl recommended. In the meantime, here's Harl's comment on What's Wrong With Newspapers.

Harl Delos Says

About 30 years ago, the automakers were in big trouble, losing market share to imports, and the joke was that US automakers had begun to emulate the Japanese; so far, they had started by serving sushi in the company cafeteria.

About the same time, USA Today came out, and many local newspapers changed to meet the new competition. Yes, using better paper and full-color printing made sense, but the big change, the bad change, was that they turned themselves into McPapers, devoid of content.

As a former newspaper owner, I screamed, but nobody was listening. Local newspapers, I said, should play to their strengths. They need to beef up local content. Instead of a newspaper of 150,000 circulation, they needed to publish 5 newspapers of 30,000 circulation each, each doing a better job of covering local news, like schools, etc.

Before WWII, newspapers were published on a 40" web - which meant the newspaper was 20" wide. By 1970, newspapers were to a 34" web, and working towards a 32" web. Today, they're on a 24" web.

When you print a narrower web, it means you print fewer square inches per minute, and press runs are longer and more expensive. A 40" web, producing a tabloid, is about the same size as today's broadsheet newspaper, and but it is cheaper and faster to print. Why does faster matter? Because it lets you print 5 community newspapers instead of 1 city newspaper.

Our current economic mess isn't just a normal recession; we've also got a sea change happening. Materials are more expensive, and computer-controlled machinery is cheaper. That means it makes more sense to produce custom products for each customer, less sense to mass produce something that fits nobody very well. Instead of being a wage-slave to a 5000-man factory, tomorrow will see people working in bedrooms, garages, and barns, in enterprises of 20 or fewer employees.

Smart businesses are going "high touch" and succeeding. Newspapers are dying because paper, ink, and gasoline are much more expensive than electrons, and the product isn't worth the premium cost; it's worth far less.

Weekly newspapers are still doing OK, because they're "closer" to their readers, and local stores (whose advertising pays most of the cost) can easily adjust to readers getting their ads on Tuesday instead of Thursday.

So yeah, you've hit *this* takeaway truth on the button. And as writers, we need to apply that same takeaway truth. When we figure out what makes our writing really *valuable* to readers, we thrive. When what we produce is just a time-killer while the waitress brings us eggs and coffee, we're going to go hungry.

Takeaway Truth

Explore Canthook by Harl Delos for more insightful comments and food for thought.

What's Wrong With Newspapers

While I was at the hospital with my daughter, I had plenty of time to catch up on my newspaper reading. I'm a lifelong newspaper subscriber, but sometimes I don't have time to do more than scan the headlines.

Newspaper Habit

Once, I enjoyed reading the newspaper from front to back. I read everything from the news to sports to business to entertainment. Sometimes I even scanned the ad pages, looking for oddities like weird personal announcements.

I can't remember the last time I did this. I began to wonder if it was my lack of time that had made my newspaper reading decline or was it something else.

Things Change

As I read the extended coverage of the Michael Jackson event, I reached a rather startling conclusion. I don't read the newspaper much any more because it's nothing special. I can get the same coverage online or on TV. Gosh, I hate making a statement like that, but it's true.

Death Spiral

For the first time, I really looked at the newspaper in my hands. When had it shrunk so much? The width and length of the pages are barely more than a countertop giveaway paper. The thickness of each daily paper is about the same as a countertop periodical. The Sunday edition is larger because it's packed with glossy advertisements, though even those are much fewer than a year ago.

Mistaken Identity

The real problem though is that the newspaper has lost its identity. Formerly, it was a source of "real" news. Now, it's a source of "reel" news, kind of like a print version of Entertainment Tonight. Even the way articles are written has changed. Now, they read as if written by a high school kid, complete with the syntax and vocabulary used by that group.

No longer do you find journalism. Now you get introductory paragraphs that are laughable because of the purple prose. You get entire sections of the newspaper aimed at a target audience of 18 - 25 year olds, but the bean counters calling the shots at newspapers don't realize that this target audience does NOT subscribe to newspapers. In fact, they rarely read newspapers.

Takeaway Truth

Newspapers are dying, not so much because of the Internet offering free news, but because they've lost sight of what makes them special.

Home, Sweet Home

Quote for the Week

American writer Ann Douglas said: "Home is an invention on which no one has yet improved."

Oh, how heartily I agree with Ms. Douglas.

After spending several days and nights bunking in my daughter's hospital room, we were both thrilled to when the doctor said she could go home. She's in her bed watching the DVRd programs she missed, and I'm in my bed trying to recover from the raging respiratory infection I picked up at the hospital thanks to frigid air conditioning, little food, and no sleep.

The hospital was really nice, and the staff was wonderful. Adina said the food was great, and it did look good. But, I swear, it was cold enough to hang meat without fear of decay.

Thank you, everyone, for your calls, emails, comments, and prayers. It's wonderful to be home.

Takeaway Truth

I'll end with another quotation. This one from Robert Montgomery. "Home, the spot of earth supremely blest. A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest."

Scariest Week of My Life

I was answering my friend Bill Crider and decided to just post what I said here. I'm home to shower and change while Larry stays at hospital with our daughter Adina.

DVT

The blood clot was found in time. Thank God for Ultrasound. Deep Vein Thrombosis in right leg below the knee and above the surgery site. Adina has been on IV pain meds since admission on Wednesday so the pain management has improved so I don't have to watch her sob in unbearable pain. They started injections of Lovenox, a blood thinner, in the stomach the day she was admitted.

Last night they added Coumadin, an oral med of blood thinner. If all goes well, she may be released tomorrow. We'll continue the Lovenox injections for a few days in conjunction with the oral med which she'll be on for at least 3 months.

We've had cardiologists and hematologists as well as her orthopedic surgeon and the admitting doctor so we've got acquainted with some of the great physicians at the hospital.

Adina will have a blood test every week for as long as she's on the Coumadin. There's a long regimen to abide by including wearing a medic alert bracelet so we're all getting educated. Later, when I'm not as exhausted, I'm going to post an important message about DVT. It's for everyone but especially for young women.

Takeaway Truth

They say you can't go days on end without sleeping and eating, but that's not true. You can, but you will feel incredibly exhausted. I'm off the get some shut eye before I head back to the hospital.

Family Emergency

My daughter is in the hospital. I'm out of reach until further notice.

Thanks for any and all prayers and good wishes.

Best Laid Plans Derailed

I've been away. This is the first time I've had so many non-blogging days since I started Sling Words in early 2005. I was so busy packing up my daughter and me for our summer in Junction, Texas, at the Texas Tech campus that I didn't even have time to post a farewell blog.

Plans

This was to be the first semester of my daughter's post grad campaign. This is the same daughter who had surgery in early June. Things seemed to be progressing well during her recovery.

Derailment

Unfortunately, pain bloomed Monday night, and it grew worse and worse. We were up all night, watching the deer feed below the ranch house where we were staying until dawn brought the realization that we needed to get back to her doctor pronto.

Fabulous School

The people at Texas Tech were simply wonderful. Karen Lopez in Admissions was completely understanding and supportive. Robin Germany, the professor teaching the digital photography class offered to work with my daughter via video conferencing since my daughter has such a clear focus on her project and is so goal oriented. That way my daughter won't lose her semester credit. Of course everything depends on the doctor's report.

I packed us up. Closed the house, and drove like a bat out of "you know where" to get us home. Now we're waiting for the doctor. I'm worried. There's a lot that can go wrong with the bone grafts and steel pins holding her foot together. I try really hard not to let my writer's imagination get a toehold in my brain.

Waiting is hell.

Takeaway Truth

A writer's imagination is the key to hell.