PETER BRUCE: Why I write, in brief
The object of writing a column is not to impose my beliefs or values on others, it is to spark conversation and debate and to state some personal principles against which I’ll allow myself to be judged
I try never to write about my life as a columnist. I love it but it’s much harder than people think. I write three a week. The object is not, as so many people seem to believe, to “impose” my beliefs or values on an unsuspecting public. The object is to spark conversation and debate, perhaps now and again to say something so perfectly that reading it brings a moment of actual joy to one person. My role model in everything I write is a man called Peter Temple. He taught me to edit copy at Rhodes University back in 1975 and, being of limited intelligence, I took just one thing away from his three years of lecturing and friendship. Keep it tight. Keeping it tight is what makes writing a column, particularly for print, a pleasure. Space is strictly limited, unlike on the internet where people drone on forever. But over 20 years of writing, new people start reading you and others get bored and give up on you. It’s OK. Temple died earlier this year, I presume of lung cancer. He smoked lik...
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