Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-05-07

! ooh, it Just comes to mel" smiles the
other. And he is literally truthful, al
| though few will believe him. But the
point is that these thoughts come to
him because he has prepared himself
to receive them. That is one side of
the drudgery of authorship.
The actual physical beginning Of any
sort of writing is the great dread of
most writers. In news writing, where
the beginning is called the lead" it
assumes unusual characteristics. All
news writers will tell you that once
they get good lead the rest is plain
sailing.
In other sorts Of writings the open
ing paragraphs are not so important,
since the working out Of the compost
ton Is the main thing. Here the dread
of beginning is none the less operative,
however. There are hundreds of capa-
BILE writer's carrying around in their
heads plots for novels that have not
yet seen the light of day-and maybe
never will.
Lazincss?
One who knows the "drudgery of au-
thorship" will doubt it. The world is all
too ready to hurl the word lazy" This
word constitutes an excellent mental
missile to cast at others, but one must
be careful that he does not live in a
glass house, for it Is a stone that flies
both ways.
No, the hesitancy Of authors, as a
class, to begin upon something which
calls, is mostly due to an innate regard
for their art. Writing is work, and they
know it. AS the ages have passed the
world has demanded more and more
tn rat RYrYkN
because it has never gotten over the
old first feeling that words have magic
in them. The plethora of writings of
all sorts has not taken away the appre-
citation of the people for writers. Even
those who have abused writing by Grass
inability, hoping to make up for lack of
basic training by artifice, have not as
yet been able to sour the public on
writing as profession and joy to the
world. Some must write magnificently,
others less So-there are all gradations
of writers and writings-but so long
as each one genuinely tries to do his
best the world has seemed to find a
place for him.
The reluctance to begin a new work
mostly implies realization by a writer
Of his acceptance of the best standards
he knows. There never was writer of
any degree who willingly wrote any less
capably, than he could. Few writer's
ever LAY down. on what they pro-
duced. They did the best they could
And it was the realization that they
must do their best that made them
hate to begin" We have never seen
any sort of writer who didn't long to
equal the great writer's. They all, big
and little. have great standards to live
up to-. 1t is the glory of the tribe
There is no writer who Is not willing
to correct and amend, and very few
who do not feel that somehow they
ought to have done much better.
There is no such thing as a satisfied
writer. This feeling, from the highest
to the lowliest. is the worlds guarantee
that it will get its moneys worth when
1t invests in reading. A reader never
need feel that he is getting cheated,
for he may know for a certainty that
each writer has given him the best he
has. He need not fear that the writer,
whether on the sport page or on the
editorial page, or in a magazine or book,
Is holding out on him.
When a writer goes through the
drudgery of writing, no matter in what
form, he has three rewards. The first
of these is the Joy of creation, without
which the drudgery would have over
Whelmed the art long ago. The second
is what makes the wheels Of commerce
go round. and the third is the contem-
plation of his mental craft. Joy, some
money and satisfaction-these overbal-
ance the drudgery and cause even the
most temperamental to sit down and
do that most difficult Job in the world
begin. Anybody but an after dinner
speaker can stop, but it takes an artist
to start.