This is the first time I have turned on my computer in months, and not solely to print out Magic card proxies for testing out my new deck ideas. I turned on my computer because I wanted to do what I am doing right now, which is writing. Having recently gone through the long and taxing process of taking off the blindfold that, for me, is religion, and come out not totally unscathed, I feel I can still use analogies regarding the likes of Christianity. In this instance, when you are "backslid" as a Christian, you don't go near church or anything related to the Bible because you're not prepared to face the self-criticism. I've experienced that. And my computer became the Bible of my backslid, writer self. I stayed away from it because if I lingered on my desktop, I would be obligated to acknowledge the digital sticky notes there with corrections and ideas to formulate for the novel I had written a total of one third of before I quit. I would have to face the icon that is Microsoft Word, which would most certainly beg to be opened for me to resolve the issue of imbalanced contrast of white space to black ink. And should I open my browser for any reason whatsoever, bookmarks for Blogger and a quick route to Words Once Withered would be sitting in my bookmarks bar asking me, "When are you going to come see us again? We miss you."
Well, I opened my laptop. I opened the browser. I clicked on Words Once Withered, and I started a new blog. Empty page. Too much white space. Naturally, I started typing. That doesn't mean I know where I'm going with this, but that's what's so great about writing. It's an adventure for me, too. It might not be extremely exciting, but we're here now, aren't we?
I may have been slightly coerced by Ze Frank's YouTube video, "Thoughts on the Creative Career" (found here). But I came here willingly and intentionally.
If I'm a writer, why do I not write? If you were to ask about Montanna, and you felt the need to say something about him that did not include talking about his day job as a roofer, you might refer to him as a writer. He writes novels. He has a blog. And you might say these things without having ever read anything I've written creatively. But let me ask you when the last time was that anyone read a finished novel of mine (because there are no finished novels authored by Montanna). Let me also ask how many people have read and kept up with my blog better than I have, granted, this blog is meant more to be written than to be read. If I'm a writer, why don't I write?
It's because I'm lazy. I'm not disciplined enough to keep running through the motions. Someone once said, "I don't like to write. I like to have written." Any writer will tell you that writing can become a grueling, if not sometimes monotonous, process, but what they won't tell you is that they secretly like the process. It's because writing is not what you do, it's who you are. That's how I feel, anyway. Even though I don't write often enough, I am always in a writer's state of mind. When I read raw material, whether it be an e-mail or job proposal at work, I always have an editor's eye for mistakes and the need for revision. When I type up my own e-mails, I unnecessarily make sure every word is perfect, almost with a linguistically artistic intent. And when I talk to my two closest friends, we constantly talk about the things found under #deep and #nobutseriously. And every once in a while, we'll share story ideas, because we can't stop making things up in our heads, even when we sleep. If I literally dreamed up my next novel idea, did I come up with it on my own? #deep. Is my subconscious mind separate from the conscious "I"? #nobutseriously.
Do you think this is sufficient? Have I convinced you that I am a writer? I certainly feel reassured. That's really the point. Here I am, writing for "you," but I'm just here to pat myself on the back, to remind myself that my ever-twitching fingers can still emit these somewhat random musings.
