From Pulp To Paper

I'm currently reading a book by Kurt Vonnegut called Timequake. It's kind of a weird mix between a biography and fictional story about a decade of consciousness on cruise control.

In one passage from the book, Vonnegut talks about two prominent styles of writing that he's observed among his friends and fellow writers - there are "swoopers" and "bashers", he says.

Swoopers throw everything down, and swoop through a story from beginning to end in a single session. Then they go back over the story, later, to re-vise and correct their mistakes. The final product is essentially made from the frame of the first swoop.

Bashers, on the other hand, painstakingly struggle with each word as they bash their way through a story from beginning to end. Bashers work at a slower pace, because writing is a struggle of perfection.

I don't agree that writers necessarily fit snuggly into either of these categories but I can still appreciate the description.

I think I am a "swasher" or a "booper" - a mix between his two offered descriptions. (The fact that I'm a journalist and not a fiction writer might account for this difference.)

When I write an article, I tend to swoop through the story from beginning to end, making sure I can carry some sort of theme or purpose through the article. It is important to have a wide-view as you write an article in order to focus on important ideas and emphasize points that need to be emphasized. However, when I've finished swooping through the article, I go back to the beginning and bash my way through sentences, inserting facts and new ideas and re-writing every single sentence.

I basically swoop through an article, to shape the skull, spine and skeleton, then I bash the fleshing onto the bones, word by word.

Even this entry is an example of my strange style. I kindof write everything down, making sure to mention the main points of what I want to talk about, and then I go back and insert all of the detaily type information to emphasize my message.

I left Toronto five weeks ago. 33 days to be exact. I could count the hours too, but that would be annoying. Having lived most of my life in the outer-Ottawa area, I thought I knew what to expect from the city when I moved there to attend Ryerson University. I expected the same things most people might expect from the city: smog, traffic, crowds, high-prices, a reliable city-run transportation system.

Most of those pre-conceptions were actually pretty accurate. I probably could have bought a house in Ottawa with the money I threw away on rent during my four year stay. But the most common thing I hear about Toronto is probably also the most untrue.

No matter what people might tell you, Torontonians are not smug.

I know most people might find that hard to believe. Torontonians must be smug. They live in an overpopulated, commercially ugly city yet still call it nice things like “diverse” and “world class”. The country’s news revolves around their boring celebrities. They are one of the most polluted cities in Canada yet their politicians continually strive for environmental protection measures. Not to mention, they root for a bad hockey team.

But honestly, the people are not smug. They are just evolutionarily dissimilar to most Canadians.
Human beings of all kinds, even ones from Toronto, have a unique ability to shape their surroundings to fit their immediate needs. There are the obvious historical examples of paved roads, roof tops and those funny looking umbrella hats.

But what happens when nature has been completely subdued and it is the created human-system that is unbearable? It means that a Torontonian’s publicly passive personality becomes part of their evolutionary attire. It’s protection. It’s a shell that keeps the emotionally stifling, disorderly public atmosphere from crushing their spirit.

Torontonians live in one of the busiest cities in the world. At all times of the day, in all parts of the city, things are moving. Things are happening.It’s the reason the sky is so bright at night and the air is so thick during the day. It’s also the reason people on the street blend into the background as part of the landscape.

It was a little troubling to eventually notice the change in myself. Getting off work, tired and irritable. Squeezing onto a subway crammed full of other tired and irritable people. You just learn to retreat within.

Of course, once you’ve left the overwhelming outdoors, you strip back down to your plain personality. But it’s usually this overcoat outlook that people encounter when they visit the city.

I believe that people in Canada are basically the same anywhere you go, at their core. While the pressures of big city life might have created an evolutionarily dissimilar breed of dwellers, deep down we are the same: self-serving, annoyed and conveniently generous.