I remember reading a piece by a newspaper columnist who described the process by which someone in that field can finally claim to have mastered the trade. The aspiring newspaper columnist starts with a head full of ideas. He might even have rough drafts or outlines for many weeks’ worth of columns in a bottom desk drawer. But after about a year of doing the column, all of those ideas are
going to be exhausted, and the columnist will have nothing left in the storehouse to draw from. Around that time, the columnist is going to be facing a looming deadline with no idea what to say. And that is when any newspaper columnist worth his salt begins to prove that he knows what he is doing. The columnist still has to file the column no matter what.