The column of columns

By Ethan Smith

This is my favorite space in the paper. I can write whatever I want, as long as it isn’t naughty. Unlike the rest of the paper, I can be as biased as a I want on this page, and get away with it. The sky’s the limit.

So why is it so dang hard to come up with a column idea?

I struggle all the time with trying to come up with interesting things to write about. I want to make you laugh or cry or get mad, or just think about something in a different light. At the bare minimum, I want it to be interesting.

And therein lies the problem. I have things that spark my interest every week, but is it worth a column? Usually not.

I often wonder how national, syndicated columnists do it. Many of them come up with two or three columns a week. Sometimes they are even interesting.

I like to evaluate how other columnists come up with ideas. Gene Weingarten does a humor column each Sunday for the Washington Post, and somehow, he’s pretty funny week after week.

If he doesn’t have a good idea, he’ll do his old standby when he calls customer service reps for major manufacturers and pretends to be some idiot customer.

I’d be good at that.

Locally, I’m always impressed with Paul Fugleberg’s columns. He seems to be able to come up with good columns every week, either about current events, people or historical happenings. I’m glad when one of us is able to have a column each week, but it’s almost always Paul. I rarely pull my weight. In my defense, Paul has one or two more years of experience to draw from.

Columns have killed people, too. I have a biography of Chicago’s most beloved (or hated) columnist, Mike Royko, and it details the toll of having to come up with three, four or five columns a week. According to the book, Royko often wouldn’t have a column idea until a half hour before deadline or so, and then whip something out.

Some people are better under pressure, but having to come up with an interesting topic day in and day out was tough on him. Sometimes, the only thing that got him through was a six-pack or a pint he kept in his desk, back when editors might have looked the other way for such a popular columnist. He tried many times to get off the sauce, but the stress of coming up with several columns each week always brought him back.

Ideally, I’d write a column each week, but I struggle with that. I often have column ideas that get nixed because I can’t figure out what my point is. (FYI: The point of this column is to explain that I often can’t come up with a point.)

Most of my columns are pretty personal. I like to think you learn a little bit about me with each one that I write, which is the idea. I tend to be a private person, but it doesn’t really bother me to share a part of who I am with you, whether it’s my mom’s death or blowing a call while umpiring or the fact that I stink at skiing and golf.

I just wish I could come up with something interesting like that every week.

So, if you see me out and about, staring off into space with a blank look on my face, rest assured folks, there’s some serious thinking going on. I’m just trying to come up with a column idea.