In Draft No. 4, John McPhee shares what he has learned about the process of writing. Thus far, he has created 32 volumes of general non-fiction, all published by Farrar Strauss Giroux, and hundreds of articles for Time magazine, then for The New Yorker  (since 1963). He is a graduate of Princeton University where he continues to teach a course in wring.

In several previous blog posts, I have characterized the books I read in childhood as “magic carpets” that transported to me to people, places, and events throughout human history. To the plains of Troy, for example, and to Christmas in Charles Dickens’ London. I also followed Alice down a rabbit hole, wished I had a seat belt when riding along with Mr. Toad, and wept when Charlotte died.

Important as books have been, I should also include the great museums in Chicago: the Shedd Aquarium, the Natural History Museum, the Art Institute, and especially, the Museum of Science & Industry. These abundant sources also fed my curiosity in countless ways.

Here is a passage in Draft No. 4 that caught my eye:

“I once made a list of all the pieces I had written in maybe twenty or thirty years, and then put a check mark beside each one whose subject related to things I had been interested in before I went to college. I had checked more than ninety percent.”

The minds of children really do resemble sponges that can absorb far more than they are asked to do. Most children live in or near areas where there are vast resources available.

Curious, I made a list of what has been of greatest interest to me during the years since childhood and I have not as yet been able to think of more than only a few of them that cannot be traced back to the years before I enrolled in college.

That said, my memory is not what it once was so John McPhee’s 90% probably applies to me, also.

To learn more about him and his brilliant work, please click here.