I don’t like to write. It doesn’t give me much pleasure. My attention span tends to be short. If I’m writing in a room that’s filled with books, I’ll quickly become distracted. I suppose they call this ADHD but let’s not distract ourselves with labels. Despite this lack of pleasure, I’m committed to creating new articles. I take it seriously and accept responsibility in producing something that’ll inform and I hope elevate the reader. Because of my level of self-inflicted distraction, I try to write as quickly as possible. There’s always something to say and comment upon but how long should this commentary be?
William F. Buckley, Jr. was famous for his weekly columns, which averaged somewhere between 700 and 800 words. The columns usually dealt with the political and social events of Buckley’s time, and in them, Buckley contributed his thoughts on how culture was changing and what needed to be done to preserve the order of things. He wrote his columns quickly. Reportedly, it took him around 20 minutes to write it. Is this really that inconceivable? Buckley didn’t think so.
People of Buckley’s time noticed his gift and had plenty to say about it. One critic, Morton Kondracke, wrote in 1986: “He [WFB] reportedly knocks out his column in twenty minutes flat—three times a week for 260 newspapers. That is too little time for serious contemplation of difficult subjects.”