Starting to write something is always the hardest… at least for me. Several people I know have been telling me for quite some time that I should “be a writer”. Sweet! Sounds good; I’m a writer. And a monkey, and got lousy grades in English and “creative writing” classes. Which were really English classes - not a lot of creative and a lot of writing, but graded on spelling, punctuation and none of the creativity. Besides, I like to eat. And live in a house, not a box, and provide for my family. I read “Stephen King’s “On Writing” - Brilliant discouraging competition like that… So I did all that, got a great job, had some kiddos, and kind of breezed through life for a long time. Some of the wheels have fallen off that breezy life, but that’s “more than 140 characters” for another time.
It turns out that all that damn time I was writing. There is a lot, I mean like a LOT of correspondence that goes out from the company I work for under other people’s names and titles. There are ISO procedures, corporate policies and procedures, memos, emails, founder introductions, checklists, and on and on and on… stuff I’ve written for other people. That doesn’t include the never-ending string of email, notes, journal entries, “and covering my ass in writing” crap that goes out under MY name. So la-te-freakin-da, I’m a writer. Just like everyone else. Well, I guess not “just like” everyone else. If everyone else could do it, then they’d write their own crap and I wouldn’t have to do it for them right? Huh…who knew? Oh, did I mention I have a full time job and the writing is extra shit I “get to” do? Bwhahahahaha…. (That’s the sound of me laughing through the tears.)
Then there’s the stuff I write for me. Stuff I write because I like to and want to. Twitter posts, Facebook (…gag, I just puked in my mouth a lil) updates, IM’s, text messages, personal emails, those cheesy “holiday letters” everyone reads because it’s like watching a train wreck and you can’t NOT look and yadda yadda yadda. My problem is, my internal dialog gets in the way, and I loose my direction and ramble.
For instance, when I just typed “My problem is,” my internal dialog took off with “my problem with -writing - that’s one… there is the problem of the wheels that are falling off the breezy life, the medication, the kids, the nagging headache I have right now, the damn TV going, gotta get the kids in bed – oh, is that a text message? what’s that cat doing, cat…did the kid fed the dogs? – whoah, Nellie, reign it IN! you’re supposed to be working on this tumblr post! See, that’s just how this shit works.
One of the best times I ever had writing was in college when the wife and I took a Government class together. Taking a class with your spouse almost ensures a fantastic grade because it’s not like you’re going to skip class to chase some piece of ass, and there’s always the “I’m smarter than you and I’m going to prove it right_fucking_here” factor. Plus, by the time you’re married, you’re paying for your own damn school, and that’s a great motivator! Anyway, there was the infamous “term paper” we had to write on the assigned subject. My assigned subject was something about the National Endowment for the Arts or some such bullshit. Hers was something kick ass like the FBI, or the Secret Service. We did our research; hers on nice neat “Suzie Derkins” note cards, (Thank you Bill Watterson for Suzie and her great friend Calvin) mine on mostly rumpled notebook paper. She sat down and wrote out a rough draft, edited it, then typed it out over a couple of lunch periods at work. I went to work on a Saturday to use the computer (young, just married, early 90’s no computer at home) and banged my paper out in 45 min or an hour. We turned them in and waited for the grades. I smoked her. The prof. deducted 2 points and scrawled “learn to indent” on my paper. The whole fucking thing was one giant paragraph – oops! She got an “A” too, but not a Ninety-damn-eight bitches!! Yeah, that was fun.
Then there were the letters home from Desert Shield/Storm… Yeah, nothing like writing in the cold & rain (Yeah, it’s cold there in Jan.) at night, under “light discipline” sure you’re either going to take a sniper bullet, or get blown to bits “tomorrow”. That was “fun”.
I need ideas and direction. Ok, I have ideas… Lots and lots of ideas. I have stories in my head, I just need to get them from brain to fingers without losing interest or getting distracted. I think that’s why Twitter is so appealing. It’s easy to stay focused on 140 characters. I gotta find direction, focus and inspiration - all at the right time in the right combination. I just decided I’m a female when it comes to writing anything resembling a story. Saying to myself “write a story” is like telling a woman to “have an orgasm”. It happens, and sometimes it does really easily, but that’s the exception, not the rule. It’s usually more of a process. The direction focus and inspiration has come in the form of a paycheck and has resulted in a lot of words in print that I really just don’t give a shit about.
Huh… not the direction I thought this would go, almost deleted the whole damn thing. Then thought “sometimes you just gotta say –what the fuck-“… AND brain just spun up the entire “Risky Business” movie, stopping at some of the better sex scenes and catching “the egg” in slow motion right before mom & dad got home. I always think of that movie when I rake leaves, and it’s the only time I want to smoke…leaning on a rake, with the wayfarer’s on…great, now I have the song “Boys of Summer” in my head because of the damn wayfarer’s…which leads me to the t-shirt I had in the 80’s “Smuggling – it’s not just a job it’s an adventure”…que the Jimmy Buffett songs, cut the sleeves off that shirt and start drinking… and I’ll just stop now and let my brain spin while I decide if this will make it to the tumblr page or not. More characters later – or not. “You did a good job cabin boy, I’ll most likely kill you in the morning”…damn, Andre the Giant died too early, he was a messed up fucker…I wonder whatever happened to Buttercup….hmmm… what size cup did Buttercup have?…
