Post to the Host
GK responds to queries on topics from childbearing to potato salad, with a little bookstore fetish in between.

Send your own post to the host.
Here's your chance to ask GK your most pressing questions—about the writing life, the radio life, Lake Wobegon, Guy Noir, whatever you like. Also, feel free to send feedback about the show. Honest comments and criticism are always welcome!

Mr. Keillor:
I am an aspiring writer and am currently working on a book, but I need some advice on how to proceed. I feel like my characters are moving too fast, things are happening too quickly. I have my plot and everything, but I feel as though I might end it a little too fast. What do you suggest?

Lucy G.
Chico CA

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Hard to advise a writer in Chico at this distance, Lucy, though I remember Chico fondly from a visit a couple of years ago. A different California from the mythical parts — Hollywood and hippiedom — and I loved the little one-story white wood house where I stayed ...

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A message from Garrison, reporting what he did upon arriving back to his St. Paul home last night, Friday September 11, after being released from the hospital.

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I came home Friday evening, had dinner, wrote a limerick about my neurologist, and started writing about the experience of having a minor stroke. Nothing bad happens to writers — everything is just material.

Last Monday I suffered a stroke
Which affected the way that I spoke,
But it revved up my brain,
Which they cannot explain,
And now, when I think, I smell smoke.

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Hi Mr. Keillor,
I work as a content editor for websites. That is similar to editing manuscripts but your eyesight goes south a bit faster. I love to write but I am so busy, that I cannot find the time.
What time of day do you find is the best to get your writing done?

Bracha B.
Omaha

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I sure wish we could get rid of that word "content" to refer to writing, photography, drawing, and design online, Bracha. The very word breathes indifference — why would one bother about the quality of work when it's referred to as "content"? I'm sorry to respond to your good question with a cranky diatribe, but this word has crept from New Media over to Radio Broadcasting where I live in my little cave and now my Show has become Content and is sent around to stations in a nice digital package that squashes the sound. Public radio, which holds itself up as a believer in quality, is cutting corners on all sides and I see this perfidious word "content" as part of the downward slide. I loathe the word. It's like referring to Omaha as a development.

Okay, enough of that.

You're working hard at editing and if you want to do some writing, you probably have to do that before you go to your other job. Simple as that. You don't need to be fresh and lively to edit websites — your intuition and acquired skills will carry you through — but you have to come to writing with a big head of steam, and I suggest you do that for at least an hour, preferably two, before you go to your job. If you work 9 to 5, that means setting the alarm for 5 a.m. so you can shower and dress and have some coffee and take a nice brisk walk for 20 minutes and then settle yourself down in a quiet place and have two luxurious hours of stillness in which to put something on the computer. Then make a hard copy and stick it in your back pocket to mark up during any odd free moments during the day. If you're out of the habit of writing, you may need to do some exercises — give yourself some assignments — write about your parents, describe your best friends, write the story of your worst low point in life, etc. Just to get your brain working. In the evening, I'm afraid, your brain will be tired of words, so the morning is your best bet, and you'll have to give up some of your evening pleasures so you can get enough sleep. But it's worth trying this for a year or so to see what comes from it. And I wish you well.

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