Ars Blogica

Avram Hooknoobie, aka Kyle, applauded (I think) my work on this blog--saying, in effect, that a writer writes. It is an old adage. Perhaps you've heard it before, but perhaps not. But it's true, a writer does write. In fact, this can be used two ways. If you're writing (Jason) then you are a writer. If you are not writing then...well, maybe you should re-think your job description. I mention Jason, of course, because he writes constantly and never lets anyone see any of his work--the same held true for the bastard's master's thesis as well as the short stories, or whatever they are, that he produces, I can only imagine, at a flurry that would make this paltry blog look...well, paltry I suppose. If you know Jason, you know that you'd probably want to read his work. His fiction 59's were incredible (and disturbing). I have seen one or two pieces from him and can tell you with all certainty that he is gifted, talented, and worthy of the jealousy that I have for him. And though I want him dead, I also want to read his stuff. Aye, there's the rub.

From my own point of view, I have recently not been a writer. A few things here, a few things there, but nothing really of note. This is a major problem when you're working on a novel, which I am. It is an even worse problem when you are nearly two hundred single spaced pages into your novel and you feel that you've run out of steam, which I do. And the problem in a nut shell is that I have not been a writer. I have not written.

Oh to be sure, my character, Death Monkey, in Baldur's Gate II kicks major butt, and my Eldar army is almost nearly painted, but when all is said and done there is no great reward for the well painted army, nor shouts of hurrah from the general public when I tell them that my character now possesses both the staff of themagi and the ring of Gaxx. But a big fat book on the shelf of Barnes and Nobel...well, that's another story indeed.

One may, of course, mention that I have a master's thesis under my belt as well, and that such a tome pretty much represents a book, but it's really not the same thing. And though I am proud of the effort I put into my thesis, I am less enthusiastic about the output. It is as incomplete as my novel in many respects, and requires far more editing than the novel on the work that is already there.

So, there it is--file Fullshock4n taking up 658 kb of my computer's space, day in, day out. Waiting for me to write another sentance or paragraph. But unfortunately, it would take a writer to finish the book, and as I mentioned before, I have not been a writer--recently, at least.

When Kyle says, "aha, I see what you're doing. You're writing. You're being a writer." He's absolutely right. And when he says, "I know why you're doing that." Well, he's right about that as well. He's officially hit the nail on the head.

See, before you say, "but that's absurd. You are a writer, now get to writing," realize that I'm not so far out there as you might believe. One of the greatest problems with thinking of yourself as a writer is that other writers have come before you. I mean yeah, sure, you can read Tom Clancey and say, "well, I can surely write as well as this guy," but that's a fallacy. With Clancy it isn't skill that's the issue--it's speed. To put it quite simply, I stopped writing poetry once I read Rilke, Stevens, and Vallejo. I mean, it's easy to say you're a poet when you've only read the lesser people, but the real poets, I mean the real poets, they're hard to contend with.

I have no problems like this with fiction--novels and short stories--because, there, I've read the real master's, and while I'm not always on their level, at times I am. The problem is that when you hear these guys biographies, you realize that they're habits are nothing like yours. I'm not talking about the socializing and the drinking and the opium smoking or any of that stuff. Some writers were crazy party animals. Others never made it out of their homes. The thing about all these writers is that they wrote, they wrote constantly. Ray Bradbury says that he writes a story a day. I'm lucky if I get a story a season--lately, a year.

I'd love to say that it was working at the woodshop that kept me from really getting into the story writing mood, but heh, Wallace Stevens was an insurance underwriter and he managed to write Sunday Morning. So, a writer writes, and here I am writing. I'm trying to write some everyday, trying to knock the dust off the Shock Tea machine, and I think...well, I think this may just be working.

The other side of this is, of course, that Jason will see the ammount that I write in a day and proceed as if it were the norm, forcing him to double his output which he will show to no one, until he produces a real gem, which he'll show to me, forcing me to curse his talent even more, and move my own writing up to a higher gear. Hey Jason, what was the name of Mozart's rival in Amadeus? Kyle, Lynn, the same goes for you too.

And, of course, I wouldn't be telling the whole story if I didn't include you, the audience, the readership, the people who actually make it through my long winded entries. It's strange because I have been pretty much writing under the assumption that no one was reading this thing. I just figured I was writing as a sort of journal. Still, it would've been nice to have an audience. Then I started to receive e-mails from various friends who said they are reading my blog. While this should have meant that I now had reason to write, and therefore, would write more, it has had a strange side effect. I wrote two blogs yesterday, for instance, and didn't put them up because I didn't figure they were in keeping with the spirit of this thing. Hell, this blog really isn't in keeping either, to tell the truth, but whatever. Next time, I'll be more ammusing. I promise.