On Being a Writer

…rather than a journalist

I often try to make the distinction between journalism and writing, which my wife, with quite some impatience, says no one understands. I am not, after all, a novelist. I write about real things. I don’t make them up (though I’ve certainly been accused of that). The real things I write about often become the subjects in the news that other journalists are writing and talking about. And, more confusing, I often call myself a journalist, basically because other people call me that.

But what I do is different from what journalists who work for news organizations do—as different as, I hope…military music is to music.