“I just wrote a book, but don’t go out and buy it yet, because I don’ think it’s finished yet.”
    - Lawrence Welk

Sometimes writing a column turns into work, much to the chagrin of the unsuspecting writer. Good writers loath work and being trapped in the belly of the beast who eats up words and ideas and refuses to spit them out. A column out of control, worse yet, the stillborn blank white page, easily turns the normally happy scribe into a grumpy, grouchy, foul-mouthed SUV hood ornament shell of a creature.

Luckily, great writers learn, or purchase for a nominal fee, tricks of the trade to make unsuspecting readers think not only has work been done, but, that amazingly, yet another tome has been released upon the world which measures, more or less, up to snuff.

I purchased just such a set of tips from a starving journalist in Baton Rouge some time ago, a man who parted with the information, or at least the concept of the tips, for a Moonpie and a Big Mac, on the condition that I promise never to publish them in East Baton Rouge Parish.

Now that the boundaries of EBR and Ascension Parish are blurring beyond recognition each day, and I have no blasted column in sight, the time has come to make use of the fortuitous purchase. To wait any longer would risk the sodden journalist rising from his grave and cursing me for breaking our pact by publishing his tips in a place that looks so much like EBR it must, in fact, be EBR, even though it carries another name, Ascension.

Here then are things for columnists to consider when the sands of time have left the beach and no column can be seen upon the shore, as passed on to me by a starving, or maybe it was drunk, writer, whose name I promised never to utter, whether in public or seclusion:

1) Never underestimate the audience. If you write only with the IQ of a billy goat, you can still succeed. Someone will always find meaning in your work, perhaps even bastardize your ideas as part of a campaign platform for elective office. Just don’t expect to be paid for it.

2) Nor should you overestimate the audience. You are writing for football fanatics, lovers of fried food, drivers of four-wheel drive diesel pickup trucks, reality show fans and people who gab with talk show radio hosts. Ideas of worth are always over the heads of such people, even on days when their biorhythms are shooting off the charts. Be kind to them. Some support the symphony. Others may have bought a book by Pynchon.

3) Write whatever is in your heart, even if your heart has turned to stone. Simple words of truth spun into a sentence and flung upon the world, followed by more simple words of truth, have changed the world, and will change it again.

4) Never spend more money on a car than on your laptop. You’re a writer, not a wannabe Nascar driver.

5) When you absolutely cannot think of anything to write about in a column, walk out into the street and stand in front of a moving truck. If the driver stops before hitting you, there will be material for many columns. If the truck strikes you and you survive, you will also have much material, particularly if the driver is a beautiful blonde and not your ex-wife. If the truck runs you over and you die, relax. For once, someone else can do the writing.