Of Writers and Strippers

It's been a long time since I've shared any thoughts via blogging, but I keep intending to.  The truth of the matter is that I'm the world's worst (or best if you want to be optimistic) procrastinator.  Well, hopefully, I can work on fixing that.  One step at a time.  Maybe tomorrow I'll start.  All jokes aside, here are some reflections I had yesterday.

I'm just going to cut the chase here and put aside any kind of pretentious bullshittery.  Writing is so vastly and incredibly difficult for me to do.  In one sense, I feel like a stripper.  For the ignorant among us, a stripper's job is to get naked for complete strangers.  Writing is a similar experience, but at the same time, almost completely different.  With what I write, I'm peeling off layer after layer of the "clothes" of my personality.  When I write, I put everything into it.  Every piece I have written (and many of those I have thrown out or burned because I have massive self confidence issues with what I write (a point in which I'll get to eventually here)) contains everything I am.  And I mean capital E Everything.  My hopes, my dreams, my fears, my failures, my successes, my secrets, my beliefs, my philosophies, my scars, my loves, my hates, my envies, my prides.  All of that (and likely, more which I failed to remember to mention) goes into it.  And that's a huge part of why I have so much trouble writing.  It can get taxing extremely quickly.  (And to all the writing or English majors/degree holders flipping their biscuits over how many adverbs I've been using and how rakishly amateurish this monologue is, well, fuck off. This isn't for you, this is for me.)  I write because that is the best way I have of expressing myself.  It's entirely of a private nature and because of the nakedness of what I reveal about myself, I'm mortified of sharing what I write with others.  (To the extent that the the people who have read any pieces I've written can be counted on one hand.)  The second half of that fear is that there is a large part of me that feels grossly inadequate about what I write.  That my works reek of immaturity and awkwardness.  There's a feeling of mass inferiority after finishing reading something like Ulysses or One Hundred Years of Solitude.  Works that are just so immensely complex and are really and truly crafted by geniuses.  How could I possibly write anything that comes close to a single page of such works?  Daily I struggle with those feelings of inferiority.  Because those are precisely the types of works I want to write.  There's nothing wrong with escapism literature and I'll gladly admit that I'm an avid fan of (some) science fiction and fantasy, however even among those writers, I feel dwarfed.  I guess what I'm trying to get at here, as ineloquent yet genuine as it is, is that writing is the ultimate form of isolation.  All we ever are is alone.  But that's not entirely a bad thing.  Because there are billions of us, and we are all alone, but we are all alone together. (I promise that if I ever find the original owner of that quote, I'll provide them credit for it.)

Finally, I'd like to thank the cute girl at the bus stop I met today.  (And let me again apologize for my toxic Funyun breath fumes, in the off chance you happen to read this.)  Even with the briefest of exchanges and the most common of small talk, you've managed to reignite a fire within me that I have been trying for many, many years to raise from the dying coals of the deepest cave of my soul.  "Everything happens for a reason."  Those words you spoke are words I've spent countless nights pondering over while I battled (and frequently lost to) insomnia.  Maybe I'll never strike it big, maybe I'll never write something as massive and impressive as Infinite Jest or Gravity's Rainbow, but the scant words we shared today have been enough to fill me up with enough energy and inspiration to give it everything I have.  Thank you.  We may never see each other again, but you've managed to turn me from an "aspiring" novelist to an Aspiring Novelist.

As for you, the readers of this blog post, you are welcome to join me in this journey.  It will likely be a long and arduous journey full of highs, lows and dull, boring landscapes.  You are my witnesses here and I fully expect you to hold me accountable.  Because there will be times when I'm gonna need a kick or a shoulder to walk on.  So, I cannot make it without your help.  Your comments and criticisms will be more appreciated than you may ever realize.  Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this and allowing me to share some of my most personal thoughts with you.