Okay, so it's pretty hilarious that I started this blog to be a place where I would write something everyday and managed a total of six posts and the last one was 2 1/2 years ago. Turns out, I had a pretty crappy last 912.5 days and while that's not an excuse, it is an explanation.
When I decided I wanted to be a writer and I had no idea what that meant. First of all, I think that people who decide to be writers are already swimming against the tide. And the tide is full of stinging jellyfish. And sharks. And piranhas. Piranhas riding sharks. Oh, and the water is really acid. I think you get the picture.
Writing is hard. There is nothing natural or comfortable about writing. Physically, it is awkward and cumbersome just to pull one word after another out of the stream of your thoughts and get them onto a page. The words jostle and push each other out of the way trying to be the next one out. They get carried by the rush of the rhythm of the sentence as it is being formed. They form coalitions and try to clump together into stock phrases or idioms or develop some weak attractive force like electrically-charged balloons and cling together unexpectedly.
And, of course, like practically every other thing in the universe, these patterns and resonances at the microscale shape the larger entities that are constructed from them. Phrases and sentences and paragraphs are shaped by the physical laws that dictate how words interact, just as words are shaped by the sounds that comprise them. K sounds are funny. A broken three-item list (A, B & 3) is funny. They both cause some kind of mental misfire that evokes a laugh of surprised discomfort. Musically, they're Spike Jones (and not Spike Jonze).
The words want to flow and a good writer lets them, but directs the flow to where they want it to go. They don't let the words run all over the floor and soak into the carpet. It's hard to do both of these things. It can be like trying to commute by whitewater raft. Often, the river doesn't go past your work. Sometimes there's no water.
More later.
