Textcalibur!

I rag on the publishing industry a lot in this blog. Hell I rag on just about everything a lot in this blog. So far I haven’t ragged on writers so much, aside from exposing my own personal neuroses and letting you draw your own conclusions about what sorts of people so-called creative writing creates. So then. Here we go.

Somehow the notion of saying ‘maybe not everyone is supposed to write’ seems taboo. Like voicing such an opinion condemns your own efforts at ‘making it’, because hell – nobody is born a star. Some of the greatest writing has come from the unlikeliest of places. How do you judge something as subjective as creative writing in the first place? It’s art, man.

Yeah, that may be the case. Maybe everyone can be a writer. Maybe all of our creative writing teachers are right to say ‘keep at it, you’ll make it one day’. Maybe dreams can really come true for all of us. Maybe everyone with a laptop and a copy of Microsoft Word will one day be a multi-millionaire sipping pool-side cocktails. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

WordPress and similar blogging sites are the worst thing to happen to writing in a long, long time. I know, I know; I’ve got my own little corner of it so it’s very hypocritical and all that. Shut up. That’s not what I mean.

Any aspiring writer who starts his or her own blog here will at some point or the other peruse other would-be writers’ blogs. I think that’s a pretty defining moment in a modern writer’s life. Here’s my opinion on what you can surmise about yourself based on your reaction to the first five ‘writing blogs’ you see:

Option 1: “Oh wow, there are other people like me out there! This is so great, I think I’ll join a dozen communities and plaster my blog with cutesy buttons to showcase my support for struggling writers regardless of whether or not they should be breathing, let alone polluting the internet with the textual dribble they claim is fiction. Then I’ll post an excerpt from my ‘funny yet poignant’ novel and ask people to comment on my seventeen run-on sentences and unimaginative symbolism! Yay!”

Option 2: “Jesus fucking Christ these people are idiots. This writing is horrible. I want to die.”

If you chose option 1, you should put all of those ‘great effort, keep at it!’ notes your high-school teacher gave you to good use and inflict enough paper-cuts to repent. Should you bleed to death in the process, your life is an acceptable loss. We’ll miss you. Well I won’t, but I’m sure someone will.

If you chose option 2, chances are you’re a lot like me – a talentless hack looking for a way to express your general discontentment to the world rather than an opportunity to genuinely contribute to human society. I’d advise similarly self-destructive activities as in option 1, but since I like myself I’ll just prescribe a good night’s sleep and a paying dayjob.

If you had an original thought – or better yet, if you haven’t been sucked into this pretend-writers’ virtual playfield in the first place – then maybe you’ve got it in you to write something worth a damn. Seriously, my point is this; encouraging people is great provided they should be encouraged. There are a lot of people out there writing absolute tripe, spending years chasing a dream that will never come true because they’re just awful writers. Plain and simple.

The other day I stumbled upon a blog about writing which was in fact a blog about writing a blog. The author complained of suffering from writer’s block – in regards to the blog! It’s not that the author couldn’t think of the next line for their novel, or they couldn’t nail the rhythm of their latest poem – this author had no such projects in mind at all. They were blocked about what to blog about.

Have we really started to believe this shit? That you can ‘be a writer’ by doing nothing more than posting an update here and there, ranting and raving about whatever? Why the hell does everyone want to be one, anyway? Is there some notion flying around out there that writers lead glamorous lives living off the enormous royalties their mid-list sellers garner? Be a writer; it’s like being Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie without the paparazzi!

Wake up and smell the fucking mortgage. If there is anything in your life you would rather do – anything at all – then maybe you should think twice before spending the next 1 – 50 years opening rejection letters and borrowing money from your parents. Writers aren’t rockstars, no matter how much Neil Gaiman tries to look like one.