The Day I Didn’t Meet William Zinsser
I pressed the phone into my ear and waited patiently, listening to the sound of a keyboard clicking on the other end of the line. I have to meet him, I thought. I have to tell him “thank you!”
“Oh, you didn’t know,” the woman replied with a sympathetic tone. “He passed away yesterday.”
I couldn’t believe it. Both my mind and my heart were in shock.
A few months earlier, I was standing in the aisle of Barnes & Noble. I had just moved from Mexico City to Orange County, inspired by my love for English language and determined to become a prominent writer in America. Although my English was good already since I had been studying it for 20 years, it was writing professionally, with the cadence and style of an experienced author, that presented a new, fascinating challenge — I had to start somewhere. I’ve always been the self-made, self-taught type; finding the holy grail of books on how to write like an author seemed the perfect first step. I started looking through the shelves to find the right volume; took one book, then another, then one more, but none seemed like what I needed.
“Do you need any help?” A staff member had seen the look of confusion on my face, and was now standing directly to my left, staring at me intently.
“Yes, I do,” I said. “I’m looking for a book on how to write. I don’t want grammar or language. I want to learn how to write good stories.”
“Let’s see,” she replied, and began a search through the store that lasted fifteen minutes and yielded no promising results.
Noticing that my new friend and I were getting nowhere in our efforts, a woman browsing the same shelves came to our rescue.
“You should take this one,” she said, holding in her right hand William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. “It’s a classic, and I’ve read it before. It’s excellent.”
I followed her advice and paid for the book — my first effort to become a professional English-language writer.
If you open my copy of On Writing Well today, you’ll discover a story within a story. Over the course of the time I took to finish the book, I stuffed various mementos into its pages. Between pages 40 and 41, there’s a Metrolink ticket from the train I took a couple of times a week between Orange City and Los Angeles — a stand-in for the time and distance I covered while reading. Between pages 114 and 115, a map of LA’s Metro Rail, showing the Downtown LA-Culver City route — by then I had moved from Orange to Hollywood, some two months later. Between pages 174 and 175, there’s a Fortune Teller Miracle Fish, a cellophane-made fish that curls and moves depending on your mood, I got at the Santa Monica Pier — I can’t remember if, according to its movements, I was jealous, indifferent, fickle, false, tired, passionate, or in love. Finally, between pages 284 and 285, there’s a business card from a flower shop in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, and at the end of the book, my designated bookmark: a ticket for the Whitney Museum of American Art.
I imagine that for many people, On Writing Well may be a classic they read in school, nothing special. For me, reading it was the most exciting experience; the prose, the rhyme, the way the author made me laugh again and again with those unexpected, well-placed jokes filled me with joy. Reading every page inspired me endlessly. Until this day, even if I’m writing in my native language, Zinsser’s teachings resonate in my mind while I’m typing a new word, a new phrase, and a new paragraph. “Be precise,” “Short is better than long,” “Good writing is in rewriting.”
By the time I finished On Writing Well, I had been in New York City for about six months. Honestly, the West Coast was not, is not, and I still don’t know if it ever will be a place for me. What inspired me to move to Orange, inspired me to leave and find a place in New York. As I knew from his book, Zinsser was a New Yorker who spent a good deal of time teaching at The New School where, I discovered, he had a class for which I didn’t need to be alumni or spend a hundred grand in tuition to attend. The idea to be his student and shake his hand crossed my thoughts as soon as I called New York my home. Time passed, however, and I never seemed to get around to it.
Finally, the day came when I was determined to move forward with my master plan of taking a class with William Zinsser and thanking him in person for forever changing the way I thought about writing. I started by looking for an enrollment form online in The New School’s website, but I couldn’t find anything. Then I looked for his name on a list of the faculty, hoping to discover another route to get to him. Again, nothing. That was a bit odd. Wasn’t he a renowned academic at one of the finest creative institutions in New York City? How could the school not have his name and classes advertised all over its website? Eventually, I decided to call the school and ask someone how to sign up for the class. It was after three phone calls and a few confused staff members that a kind lady took my call, only to tell me that Zinsser had passed away just the day before.
For months I had held the book in my hands, reading, highlighting, annotating, and learning from every paragraph and phrase. And most of that time, I had been living in the same city as William Zinsser. He taught me always to be myself and find a style true to my personality. To never say anything in writing that I wouldn’t comfortably say in conversation. To think of writing as a craft that expands and evolves beyond the rules. But the day I decided to find him, meet him, and show him my appreciation for his work, he had been dead for 24 hours.
What weighs on me is not that I didn’t take action sooner or that I won’t be able to take his class. What I’ll always regret is that I will never have the chance to thank him for all the things I learned from his mastery of and love for writing. I’ve read On Writing Well twice and others of his books since then, and every time I feel the same way about his vision of what a good writer should do and why. I still consider him my mentor, from whom I learn something new every time I read and reread his words — a mentor I won’t ever meet in person.
“I’m so sorry,” said the woman on the other end of the line.
“That’s okay. Thank you,” I replied, and hung up.
That was the day I didn’t meet William Zinsser.
