Inspiration to write comes from many different places. For writer and journalist Micheal Merschel, this source was The Beatles. Merschel started off as a copy editor, but when he published his book “Revenge of the Star Survivors,” he became a published author. In his presentation he talks about the various lessons the popular English band, The Beatles, taught him about writing.
Merschel’s first lesson from The Beatles was that reading is like breathing and writing is like exhaling, meaning that reading is a crucial part of developing good writing skills. Without books, it becomes more difficult to express yourself in writing.
“Practice, practice, practice,” was Merschel’s second lesson. He spoke about the 10,000 hours theory in the book “The Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell. The 10,000 hour theory suggests that no one starts excellent and it takes a minimum of 10,000 hours to become excellent. Micheal Merschel relates the 10,000 hour theory to writing, and points out that no one starts off as a great writer and it takes a lot of practice and dedication to be a great writer.
Merschel also discusses finding your own voice in your writing, and that writers have their own special writing style or “tick.” This relates back to the Beatles because a member of the Beatles, John Lennon, always plays with an out of tune D-string so his family recognizes he’s playing. Merschel’s own distinctive writing style is adding Star Trek and Bugs Bunny references in his stories about cardiovascular health.
Merschel also highlights how the Beatles taught him writing is a never ending process. Writing and finding new ideas is difficult, but the trick is to keep working at it. Merschel showed a clip from The Beatles documentary, “Get Back”, the clip shows Paul McCartney making a song on the spot while waiting in the recording studio, this prompted all the other boys to join in and create an actual song. This applies to writing. Great stories like Harry Potter and “A Wrinkle in Time” were all created because those authors did not give up on their work.
Overall Merschel provided a fun and enjoyable presentation through his inclusion of pop culture references and trivia questions throughout the presentation, keeping his audience engaged and entertained.
