Blogging about Writing

So it is time for another post, and i am just about as shocked as you that i am writing before 3 am. But we all know miraculous things happen so lets just embrace it and move on.

What i want to write about today is an idea that is bouncing around my head and i haven't fully mashed it out so lucky you, you get to be the anvil, i will be the hammer, and the idea is the piece of metal between the two of us. Shockingly complete idea.

First i need to ask if you have ever watched the show Californication then you know of the character Hank Moody. He is a once brilliant writer turned washed up author who sleeps with anything female, stereotypically sexy, and with a pulse. His spiral of pain centers around the woman who got away and the fact that he has sex unknowingly with the 16 year old daughter of her fiance.

Anywho, away from the great show (seriously, watch a few episodes, his daughter will make you cry!) and back to my main point. There is an episode in which he talks to a creative writing class where he concludes his speech with "so at the end of the day if you can do anything else, telemarketing, pharmaceutical sales, ditch digging, or major league umpire do that because being a writer blows, seriously it is like having homework every day for the rest of your life." I have started to come to the same conclusion recently.

It is kind of a sad realization for me because i love writing things so much, like writing this gives me this inner moment of contentment and stillness that i don't often know in other places. And yet i also see that writing is often pointless and without joy unless it is this kind of mindless out-pouring of thought. It becomes a sort of mental masturbation, it is easy to see why Freud called all art misplaced sexual drives.

But then i can't help but be reminded of another quote (isn't this how i work? quote this, quote that). It is that "The truth critics must face is the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."-Ego.

I can't help but feel the truth in this too. Each word written has the potential to inspire someone in some other way. It goes that this can link to the piece of writing i hate most of all, the Twilight series. Like it or not there is some value in them. I may not see it, it may not be there to me but that doesn't mean i get to say there is no meaning in it for anyone (however much i dislike its crappy crappy crappy writing, that's right, three crappys!).

I guess that in the end all i have really to say is that writing is wonderful and joyful but can also be painful and dull. And in the end if you really love it you will stay through all the flaws and hard times and reach those wondrous moments where you write something so wondrous it makes it all worthwhile.