"So What?"

When I took writing classes in college, one of the ideas they hammered in still sticks with me, even as my writing has become more of a self-guided hobby: the “so what” question. The idea is fairly simple. It’s been a while, and I admit I had to do a bit of reading online in order to figure out exactly what this concept was called--so forgive me if my definition falls short. But the way I understand it, is that writing has to have a purpose, and more than that, it has to matter. When I sit at my computer, I need to be saying more than “look trees! Look, a river! Look, a really cool park half of you have been too already.” So what? If you have been there already ,why should you care what I have to say about it? That is what has made the second incarnation of the Kramer Paper a bit more of a challenge to write. I can no longer fall back on being a cute little boy mailing newsletters from the desk in his bedroom. I, like all other adults who have a hobby of writing, are competing for your time. 

This is a particularly risky pitfall for the Kramer Paper. As a relatively stationary young adult, I need to rely on distant memories, and places near home to populate the Kramer Paper. Parks, woodlands, trails, events, ice cream parlors: things that make this town unique. And therein lies the challenge. These places are remarkable, but not especially exotic in and of themselves. What makes them exciting are the details, and it is these details that I try to capture when writing. Occasionally I find the places and events that are, by themselves, exciting enough to be newsworthy, but these are few and far between. 

I liken it to beach combing on a cobblestone beach. Occasionally I’ll find something exciting, like an agate, or a glass float, or a piece of driftwood that looks like Donald Trump’s head. (I have only ever found the former, but I’m still searching). But more often than not, it’s basalt pebbles: acres of basalt pebbles. Some are large, some small. Some are cracked, others have veins of quarts in them. Some quartz veins contain gold. The secret isn’t in returning each day with something that could make the news, the secret is taking care in what I bring to the table, and justifying my choice in such a way, that people will see why I chose it. By selecting the best of the best, and then polishing and presenting these pebbles in just the right way, I try to make even the mundane beautiful, and noteworthy. The stone itself doesn’t have to be rare or remarkable, but something about it must be. Else, people ask “so what?” and find no answer. -KP