The Art of Writing Pt. 2

So now that you know why I fell in love with writing from Part I , you probably want to know what sparked my love with journalism. To be honest, I kinda fell into it accidentally. There was no column that made me want to write, no desire to know more than what I saw – I was always a kid who knew a lot and if I didn’t know, I could figure it out myself.

I always watched the news as well as read the sports pages as a kid as well as Sports Illustrated. I took it to school every day starting in junior high and I read it when I could, mostly as a fan. I remember reading the last column of the great LA Times wordsmith Jim Murray before he died and I still have the special edition pull out from his funeral. But it wasn’t until 8th grade when I took journalism that I really thought about it.

Initially I was going to do sports, but when a guy ahead of me dropped out of the class, I ended up becoming sports editor. It seemed like a perfect fit – sports fan who gets to write about what he sees? Easiest fun I could have. I remember doing a NFL piece every month called “The Good, The Bad and The Strange” and I ended the year doing a story on our principal retiring after being at the school since its second year. I did it again in 10th grade but again, it felt like my passion was sports, not journalism.

It never crossed my mind again until my last semester at college when I told this lawyer that instead of doing law school, I really liked sports and could be a writer. I had written an op-ed piece in our school paper that fall that was received pretty well but it wasn’t until I talked to him that I took it seriously. Next thing I know, I went on a job shadow with a guy from the San Diego Union-Tribune and I was helping him proof his stories and taking advice at the same time.

With no time to spare, I began writing articles for the school paper based on a professor I knew in the communications dept. I did as many as I could and I got a foundation ready to launch when I graduated. Course, who knew that the journalism industry was already seeing signs of trouble. I applied to every paper with no luck but I got help from a friend.

He knew the publisher of the LA Sentinel and they put me in touch with the editor and the rest is history.

As far as my style, I was frankly inspired by literature more than sportswriters as well as my love of history. I borrowed Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fascination with the past, Charles Dickens’ wit and storytelling and James Baldwin’s passion and purpose with every word plus a little bit of Shakespeare twisting around with wordplay

I never thought about sportswriters that inspired me until after David Halberstam was killed in 2007. I had gotten used to him on Jim Rome’s talk show as well as his work on ESPN.com and he was so smart when it came to sports. No clue that he was one of our country’s preeminent journalists during Vietnam as well as a great historian. I heard people talk about him and his style and suddenly I felt lost.

If I was going to survive in this field, I needed to start looking at how other people did stories. I’ve considered my time at the Sentinel to be like grad school so People that I had gotten used to reading now became my unofficial teachers. I bought a few sports books to help (including the best Sports Writing of the 20th century – writing sure has changed over the past 100 yrs).

Here’s a list of sportswriters that I draw inspiration from. Don’t always agree or like them but I analyze their style – Bill Simmons, Scoop Jackson (who I’ve read since his SLAM days), JA Adande, Bill Plaschke, Michael Wilbon, Jim Murray, Jemele Hill, Ralph Wiley and Halberstam. I consider Anderson Cooper and Brian Williams my journalistic models for not just reporting the news but finding a good story.

My motto is keep things simple. Let the story speak for itself. But when you can, be creative. I’ve mixed in Shakespeare references quite a bit because I’m a fan and frankly, I know how to use him and make it plain for anyone to get.

And here I am. Three years into being a journalist – mainly covering HS sports with the occasional news twist – and two years as sports editor. That’s also how I came up the 2nd half of my blogging name – Clark Kent, journalist at the Daily Planet before being Superman.

The Art of Writing Part 1

So I'm sure you're probably wondering how I wanted to be a writer. It's a question I get asked by people occasionally but it's one I never really knew the answer to. If you guys could have seen me in high school, I had no clue that I'd be so in love with writing like I am now.

Writing was something I really fell into accidentally. It started as a hobby with journals and then it evolved to poetry and now its blogs/mini-essays/articles. Throw in the fact that I'm a very cerebral person who thinks a lot and soon it became natural.

I've always been a heavy reader since I was 2. I'd read the back of license plates and say it back to Mom in my car seat. When I got to preschool, the older kids would ask me to read the namebrands on their outfits and I'd do it - not knowing they'd be getting a kick out of it.


I always kept journals, mainly because Doug from that Nickelodeon cartoon did it. But my love of reading/writing wasn't cultivated really until high school when my 9th grade English teacher (who was also my 10th) had us reading for various book reports and honors assignments. It was my first exposure to classics like Shakespeare and Animal Farm. I'd get more exposure my junior year when I read Scarlet Letter for the first time and became a fan of Nathaniel Hawthorne - his imagery, storytelling and fascination with the past stuck with me.

Junior year, I began writing poetry. Every year, my English honors teacher (R.I.P. Mrs. Smith) made us write something for our literary magazine and that year I wrote the poem that started it all off "Innocence" - my ode about breaking out of my shell. It was simple, conversational and based on the feedback I got, I started writing more often and by senior year I had a book of poems. It was something I kept doing for the next few years and occasionally I still write here and there.

Too bad it didn't translate to loving my papers.

In school, I was more comfortable in math and history than with English. But as one of my oldest classmates would tell me, you can't do anything majoring in that except teaching. Outside of poetry, my high school papers were thoughtful but not sharp. I was somewhat okay with analysis but it definitely didn't come easy like math/history.

I looked at writing as a personal outlet, not something I would make a living do. I had no clue what I wanted to do after college but I decided with teaching because I was inspired by those who had shaped me. By my sophomore year, I said why not pursue English because I'd have to be sharp with my writing with whatever job I'd have and I did love reading....five years later, here I am.

If you followed me on Myspace, you know that I started blogging there but it was reluctant. I had no desire to put some stuff on there that could be private. But once I got started, I couldn't stop, it's like I had a disease (c) Slick Rick. I'd debut some new poems as well as find my voice on major issues and it's another reason I drifted from poetry to mini-essays.

Eventually, I started reading some great blogs out there but I was hesitant to join the blogsphere. I worried about finding readers and getting lost in the shuffle because writing isn't just something I do when I'm bored. It's something I take seriously and I wasn't going to do it unless I had a clear vision of how the blog would turn out. By the new year, I made up my mind to start it and here we are.

Part 2: How I became a journalist/sportswriter, my favorite writers and inspirations.