Writing through the 4th Wall
This column is a little difficult to write sometimes. If I have a good subject, it writes itself. Subjects are hard to come by; that’s part of the challenge. It’s also important to write about something that matters to me while maintaining a firewall of privacy. The truth is that without the challenge, I miss out on the good. The second truth is that it is worth the challenge. When I say writing is hard, I don’t mean it in the same way that breaking rocks with a sledgehammer is hard. It is an emotional test of will; however, I am not asking for sympathy as I enjoy the end product. It’s strange to talk about how I write instead of just writing something however it is not without precedent.
When I worked in radio, I did the same thing. It’s called breaking the 4th wall. This is the wall between an audience and those who create a production. In theater, the fourth wall means pretending like the audience isn’t there and not talking to them directly. In radio, it’s not revealing what is behind the façade. In theater, breaking the fourth wall goes back at least as far as William Shakespeare. He used to make “asides” in which he would comment to the audience.
Professional wrestling always had something called “Kayfabe.” My understanding of the term is that it is slang for fake. A few decades ago, professional wrestling admitted that the matches were choreographed. These matches were still exciting and athletic; however, they were predetermined. Wrestling fans appreciated this candor and kept on going to matches.
So what I write is who I am, at least to some degree. Most of my early columns were about farming and growing up on a dairy farm. I was told recently that my dad used to await my columns with trepidation. I suppose he worried that I would write about some little imperfection on the farm. I just wrote what I remembered. Old family memories are usually kind to all involved; the good stays with a person while the little things just get smaller until they are no longer worth mentioning.
The town where I grew up has been a favorite topic. I grew up near Viking and spent some of my earliest years falling in love with this town. I haven’t lived in the greater Viking area since 1996 however my memories of this place are still fresh and full of life. I visit only a few times a year however my mind still goes there regularly. I started writing almost 23 years ago and my stories of Viking seemed contemporary at the time. As I age, these same stories seem like documenting history.
I reserve love for living things, especially my wife Lisa. I do have passions however and the greatest of those would be about five hundred words that I have written every week since November of 2000. Some columns were finished just minutes before midnight prior to hauling sugar beets. Other columns were written in my heart and waited patiently to be mirrored on a computer screen. Either way, I am fortunate that I still write it and that you still read it.
Thank you.
