Brandon McCarthy’s Twitter slideshow: Write what you know

One of the fundamental pieces of writing advice is to “write what you know.”

Oakland A’s pitcher Brandon McCarthy, being a baseball player, knows a lot of baseball players. And with his 5,000-plus followers and hilarious tweets, he knows Twitter, and he knows how to be funny.

So in his debut as a Bleacher Report guest columnist, McCarthy listed the 10 MLB Twitter accounts you should be following. And it’s funny.

You can’t always “write what you know,” of course. It’s part of the deal in the typing business that we sometimes have to write about things we don’t know. Sometimes a new concept bursts into the news — in the last decade or two, for example, sportswriters have had to become experts, or at least learn a little something, about performance enhancing drugs.

Sometimes an editor hands you an assignment about a subject you have no clue about. Want to write? Good, we need a story on badminton …

Depending on the story and your point of view, it can be the thrill or the drudgery of the writing game.

But “what you know” is a great place to start. Use whatever expertise you have and build on it.

I told McCarthy I hope he writes for us some more. He’s easy to work with and fun to read. Being funny never gets old, and McCarthy knows about a lot more than Twitter. Check out his slideshow and leave him a comment.