Dr. Lewis B. Turndevelts Big Book of Forewords | Page 6

two years later how utterly ridiculous they really looked. 6. Sneaking out, again with the same two friends, to attend my first rock concert at the downtown municipal auditorium. I ended up having to secretly soak my clothes after the experience, as the smell of "liberation" would have been too strong to explain to the parental units come laundry day. 7. Smoking my first cigarette. 8. Getting sick in front of a girl I had a crush on after smoking my first cigarette. 9. Skipping school, again with the same two friends (those knuckleheads... whatever happened to Ronnie and Merv, anyhow?), only to realize that all the rest of our friends were still back in class and we didn't have a car, so we walked down to the movie theater and caught a matinee of... I don't remember what it was, something about aliens living among us. It wasn't nearly as good as it sounds. 10. Getting in a fight with an older boy, that had obviously been in fights before, and losing badly. Then later explaining to my Mom why my lip was busted and swollen by making up some story about trying to "show off in front of the cute girls hanging outside the cafeteria. Boy, I learned never to do that again..." Yes, even back then I was beginning to hone my skills as a storyteller.
By the time I was ready to go to college, I had managed to check off most of the things on my life experience list. I felt able and ready to get this degree thing that would help propel me into the fast-paced world of writing. I opted for a Bachelor of Arts degree with an emphasis in journalism, because much to my dismay, they did not offer an emphasis in novel writing. But I was still excited, because hey, journalism can be fun too, right?
Sadly, no, it can't. I was to find that out the hard way after taking my first job out of school as a writer for the local paper. Keeping in mind that I was still in South Dakota. And I was working at a local paper. In South Dakota. At this point, many writers would begin describing to you, with an excruciating amount of adverbs and adjectives, exactly how and why this scenario might not have been exciting. But as is the case with most adverbs, that's unnecessary. It takes up my time and tries your patience. All I really need to do is re-emphasize the words "local paper" and "South Dakota." I rest my case.
But I persevered. I made the best of a tedious situation, took a little creative liberty, and actually learned a few things that would benefit me later down the road. For example, when you're writing news articles, or any material based on current events or other "facts," you find yourself in the habit of doing a lot of research. Frantic, coffee-fueled research. A wise older writer explained the tricks of the trade to me that you don't have to read a whole article to pick up background information. Simply scan the first and last two paragraphs of said article and mentally fill in the blanks for the rest. Sometimes it's not even necessary to do that much. Also, it's typically a good idea to generalize your sources instead of naming them specifically. "A reliable source" is much more difficult to verify and/or refute than is "Deputy Sheriff Scotty Lochs." (I'd like to pause for just a moment here and address any of the youth that might be reading. Students: the techniques and shortcuts described in this paragraph are not to be taken and applied to schoolwork. Research on term papers and bug collections is of critical importance to your educational career. You are our future, as difficult as that is for both of us to swallow. Stay in school. Your pal, Lewis.)
So write, write, write on the local paper continued for a couple years there in South Dakota. Eventually I decided that I had learned all I could about school board meetings and highway expansion. It was time to move onward and upward to the Big City. No more small town soup and salad, I was ready for the main course. A buffet of opportunities awaited my arrival in the hustle and bustle of the metropolis. A veritable smorgasbord of options was available to me. So I did what any small fry of a newspaper writer fresh out of the sticks would do when the world is their oyster: I starved.
Turns out that for some reason they didn't need my expertise in.... well, anything. They pretty much had most things covered. I lived on various and exotic varieties of bologna and managed to scrape by cleaning up at the dog tracks (after