Quote: Lucas Mann on Objective Reporting versus Personal Writing

From this post at Harper's. Curious what the journalists in the audience think. This certainly gave me pause. There are many times I've thought it would be more comfortable to just slip into a first-person account of the story I'm writing, often because of exactly what Mann says here. I definitely consider myself a work in progress as a journalist and as a writer on the whole, and this just made me sit and think for a minute. Curious what thoughts others might have on the subject:

Lawrence Weschler, the great New Yorker writer, has a quote along the lines of, “I like to insert a strong I into what I’m writing not out of some sense of egomania, but precisely the opposite.” I agree with that. I don’t have the hubris to traditionally report on something, then step back, remove my personality, biases, memories, and screw-ups, and speak with authority. I’m the neurotic, often-confused dude who is trying to figure out why all this stuff is important to him, and that crucial, intimate honesty isn’t something I’d ever want to remove from the work.

And We're Back

Hey everybody. How’s it going? Been awhile over here. Missed you all! How’ve you been?

In case the twelve of you are wondering where I’ve been, here’s a quick update. Finished my master’s. Taught a couple freshman English classes. Had some stuff published. Now I’m back freelancing in journalism fulltime, and I’m actually working on some fiction, too. I’ll also in all likelihood start teaching some college courses this fall, although I’m not sure where yet.

Blah blah blah. Enough about me.

About this blog. It’s shifting. It’s going to be more about us, not me. 

The creation that human beings are capable of just blows my freaking mind. This blog will serve as a sort of running log of those things that inspire me and that help me in my own attempts at such creation, because I figure if that stuff helps me then it’ll help lots of other people, too.

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What Happened With Jonah Lehrer?

Just some quick thoughts about the whole Jonah Lehrer fiasco. I may update it as things develop.

Quick recap: Jonah Lehrer is a young and, until recently, rising superstar in the journalism world. A brilliant thinker, or so it seemed, he's only 31 years old and has already written several books and landed a full-time job writing for The New Yorker, a veritable pinnacle of the field. 

Today he resigned from The New Yorker after multiple scandals in which he was implicated for plagiarism and, most recently, for fabricating quotes from Bob Dylan in his latest book, "Imagine." Here's a New York Times story about it. 

You ever been to a volcano? Or a sulfur pit? (Because, you know, I just assume EVERYONE visits volcanoes and sulfur pits for fun.) You can feel the heat from a great distance, and by the time you're on top of it, it feels like you're going to bake. My guess is that Lehrer's felt the heat a long, long time, but the trail behind him had collapsed by the time he decided to turn around. 

Some of the big questions I see flying around Twitter right now are: HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN? WHAT WAS HE THINKING? HOW DID HE THINK HE COULD GET AWAY WITH IT?

I'm working on a story right now about someone who did something very similar. Those are the same questions people asked about him awhile ago when his story went viral. So I talked to a behavioral economics and pscyhology professor at Duke University about it all, this strange art of deceiving others as well as oneself. I asked him the same questions about my guy that people are asking now about Lehrer.

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Stories' Stories: Michael Weinreb on Writing Rhythm and More

"I've always been kind of obsessed with rhythm in writing, which is odd, because in real life I have absolutely no rhythm at all."

For some reason fantastic writers keep agreeing to answer all these questions I ask them. What I mean, in case you're new here, is that I keep emailing writers asking them questions, and they keep answering, and we're all just way too lucky for it. What tremendously nice people, right? 

You can find all those interviews here.

Today's guest: Michael Weinreb, staff writer for Grantland and author of Game of Kings and, most recently, Bigger Than The Game. Make sure to drop him a thank-you in the comments below or hit him up on Twitter (@michaelweinreb). 

Read on, good people and others. Read on. 

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The Grind

The last couple weeks, I've been looking for my next story idea for ESPN The Magazine. It's been a tough, frustrating stretch. 

I'm not complaining. Life is awesome. I'm just writing this to share some struggles I think lots of writers face, journalists in particular. 

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Why I Can't Wait For Christmas (And A Quick List of Where You Can Read My Writing)

I am so stoked about the holidays. A lot of people sort of dread them. The cliches, far as I can tell, involve dreading seeing family, dreading spending money on people you rarely see, dreading spending time around people you don't really care to see, yada de yada. Not me, man. I can't wait to see my family. This is why.

The past three years, I've been working my butt off. Been busier than Justin Bieber's bodyguards in a mall. (Ignoring, for the sake of that metaphor, the fact that no way the Biebs ever actually goes to a mall.) Writing, writing, writing, hustling for more paid work, spending days at a time in front of my computer, drinking too much coffee, typing until my hands cramp and my eyes cross. 

Spending way too little time with my friends and family. Seriously, it's like I never see them. And that sort of sucks, because most of my family is only like an hour away, and so is my best friend, and yeah, we never see each other. It's pretty lame. 

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The Trouble With Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

“That’s always been the trouble with standing on the shoulders of giants; if we see what they see, they won’t look like giants anymore. Suddenly they’ll just be men, trying to get along, and who would want to cheer for anyone like that?” — Chris Jones, "Access Denied" in the Dec. 12, 2011 issue of ESPN: The Magazine

If you haven't read Jones's back-page column in the new issue of ESPN: The Magazine, do so soon as you can. It's quite good. (It's the issue with the cover of a bulldog French-kissing Ozzie Guillen. Yah.)

Paintball! Part III (a.k.a. Why I'm The Wimp Who Does That Instead Of Going To Egypt)

I'm the quintessential American twenty-something ex-collegiate-athlete. I love feeling a rush without doing something actually dangerous. Like shooting at people and getting shot at with no chance of death.

Me laying down some paint hiding. 

Like paintball. (My much-mentioned Wilmington Star-News column went online today; it's in print tomorrow. An excerpt is at the end of this.)

A week and a half ago I was running through trees and diving behind mounds of dirt and leaves and crawling through ditches. I was a soldier, baby, and loving every second of pseudo-war. I was breathing hard and my thighs were burning and I felt like I should have stretched out first. I was hunting and being hunted. I was, as I say in the column, living a video game. 

I love this stuff. I love experiencing things; it's even better that someone's going to pay me to do it and write about it. 

Then Chris Jones posted this blog the other day called "The Kid in the Tank in Cairo," and it mucked my mind all up.

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