About a year ago I got a bug up my ass, and decided to do something about writing. I admit it; I had dreams of grandeur, and had forever wanted to be a published author, but just never did anything about it. I figure dreams are like that; they’re such a powerful thing to embrace. If you go after them you might figure out, in the end, you didn’t have what it took to achieve it. And after the dust settles, you fully understand what it means to live an existence without your dream, and how dismal that actually is. I think that NOT going after something is a very potent thing because if you never try to realize a dream, you never have to lose it.
After college I wrote this completely awful book that fully contemplated the origins, status, and future of my naval, written in the second person (why be ordinary), which had no discernable storyline. I called it “experimental fiction” so that people would feel smart for reading it, and equally I would feel smart of writing it. It was full of rants and rambles (not unlike this), and had amazing things to say, but said them badly. I also wasn’t really ready to face the truth about myself, and who I was at the time, and the dishonesty oozed out from every word. I think that truth and writing fiction may seem like an oxymoron, but the cornerstone of good writing is a writer who is believes in his own truth. I know that sounds a little silly, but my writing didn’t become the thing it is today until I faced down my demons and owned my life. So perhaps I was the only one who saw the deceit, but it was there and it made my writing less than it could be, although at the time I thought the damn thing was brilliant. I actually printed it out, bound it, and sent it to every publisher in the Writer’s Guide. Paid a fortune for postage, and got back about an equal number of rejection letters. Man how I feel sorry for publishers who have to read this crap. I feel awful that my childish ramblings and mutterings ended up on someone’s desk, and they might have even had to read a little of it. So to those people I apologize.
So here we are today, I bunch of years later, a lot more honesty about who and what I am, and I was right about finding a voice after that, because by all accounts I have a pretty strong voice in everything I write. I grew up with dyslexia, and I hear words when I read them. I start projects with sentences I think sound amazing, and work a story from there. The greatest thing, however, is that I love to read what I write. I no longer want to write the great American novel, but I love to write short stories. I took two online writing courses, which I’ll talk at length about later, and then submitted some stories to the Squaw Valley’s Writer’s Workshop, got accepted, and went. The problem with all of this is that although I think I’ve got the real beginnings of a short story author in me, there really isn’t any money in writing short stories, which means no matter what, my writing is not going to save me from the drudgery of my life, and that sucks, cause my life has a lot of drudgery.
Let me say this right now, I don’t intend to have this blog be all about writing, but it will be about writing a lot. I’ll put on short stories I’ve written, and if you want to read them, go ahead, and if you want to critique them, don’t be a dick, but feel free to say whatever you want. If you want me to publish your short stories I’ll totally do that as well (if I like them, and they’re not so long that I don’t have the time to read). If you want to tear apart my grammar, go right ahead. I think that writing is something you do above and beyond your life, so I’ll try to mix a little of my life into things, and my options about things going on in the world, and I’ll try to steer you in the right direction on how to get published if you want, and how not to care if you don’t. I don’t care about being published, so I’m free to say and do anything I want, which puts me in a great position if you think about it.
The coolest thing about this is that I’ve got a podcast that is attached to this. Scroll down the page and hit the podcast button, and listen to it. I’ll post a title of the podcast so that you can comment on it if you want. I hope the comments to this blog will be as cool as the content. I intend the content to be really cool. Take care, Kael
