“I’ve always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it’s a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don’t do much giggling.”

-Hunter S. Thompson

What Thompson, the Great Bard of the late twentieth century, was trying to say in the above quote is that nothing is enjoyable when you’re driven to it out of necessity. As a journalist, he knew this all too well. As a writer considering journalism as a future way of putting bread on the table, such a statement from one of the biggest journalistic powerhouses in history gives me pause.

English majors are required to take at least four “Earlier Literature” courses to earn their degrees. This generally involves buying very expensive, very stuffy works written by dead people. They often have entire supplementary texts to help you understand the jokes. It’s not the sort of stuff one would pass a summer’s afternoon with.

That’s only the start of it, though. Remember three-paragraph form? Back in grade school, it used to be the case you could address pretty much any topic in three paragraphs: Intro, Body, Conclusion. Thesis goes in the intro; make sure you restate it in the conclusion. Your opening sentence should be a sweeping statement about the subject matter. Throw a bunch of quotes into the body. Rinse and repeat a hundred times, then it’s off to college.

Where it doesn’t get a whole lot better. When you’re staring down the fifth Shakespeare paper you’ve had to write in two years, you quickly realize that slamming out an academic paper can be just as easy as you want it to be. Just pick something straightforward, like gender role reversals, and apply some tried-and-true arguments. Insert character names according to whichever play you’re reading. It’s easy to start feeling run-down and used by such monotony. It’s what I imagine an old whore might feel like.

Then again, there’s the hopefully not-too-rare moment when one of those papers really comes together with fresh ideas from your own head. Perhaps you change the format of the traditional paper to get them across, or even get edgy and use the first person. It’s fun and refreshing, simply because of the novelty. Then again, you might get a C back because your professor doesn’t have the time to assimilate something that’s not in standard form.

I didn’t even get on this word train with any intention of getting involved in academia. I, like many English majors here at Generation, wanted to write something spectacular. To be creative. In fact, as a slightly awkward freshman, I had the vision of punching out my first novel between classes, then upon graduation immediately retiring to a remote cabin somewhere to hone my craft and receive checks in the mail. The Great American Novel would come some years later. Alcoholism would ensue, followed by an untimely death that would leave an unfinished manuscript. Why wouldn’t that plan work? I like writing.

While “the novel” is often something rattling around inside the heads of writers both fresh and experienced, finding success in constructing long fiction is something of an exception to the rule. As a slightly less awkward upperclassman, I quickly realized that very few people are willing to pay you for aspiring to write the Great American Novel. If I wanted to turn black and white into green, I was going to have to be flexible.

Enter nonfiction writing, which is historically where a lot of would-be novelists find themselves. Telling stories that actually happened was at least new and thrilling to me, if not somewhat daunting, and writing features was not nearly as difficult as I had imagined. The writing itself is actually fairly easy, since most stories can be dropped into some sort of form that is preexisting in the experienced journalist’s mind. “Blank just loves to blank, but with blank blanking, will blank be blank?” Gold.

This sort of thing can get boring, just like the three-paragraph form. I can see why so many beat reporters (who cover the same topic every day) turn to the bottle. But just like works of academia, it only requires a little effort to turn a by-the-book event feature into something special.

Thompson was a trailblazer exactly because he outgrew the mold of the standardized feature and evolved. 1970’s “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” flew in the face of the conventional form and epitomized what later came to be known as Gonzo journalism. It contained almost no facts and basically just related Thompson’s drunken experiences over Derby weekend, but one still left it with an undeniable knowledge of the realities of the race. Such reporting had been attempted before (much of Tom Wolfe’s work, for example, came close), but the interesting thing about this story is that Thompson thought the Derby article would be the end of his journalistic career. He figured a story that broke the mold in such a harsh fashion, and was so obviously incomplete by the standards of journalism, would never be acceptable. It turned out to be a story that helped launch him to fame.

You don’t have to be a writer to take away a lesson from that story. If you’re leaving UB this May, as I am, and moving on to The Real World, remember that there is no standard form in which to place your life or job. Odds are, at some point you’re going to figure out the mold, and the temptation to slip into its intoxicating familiarity will be strong. Most of us have already had the experience. But if every day looks the same and The Real World gets Real Dull, remember that old whores can still learn new tricks.

Thanks for reading.