I don’t understand a lot about writing, or about how to write. I sorta just do it. I’ve been like that since I can remember, but after reading Mikey’s recent blog entry, it occurred to me that some writers are very much into defining themselves and creating a style.
I don’t really do that.
I’d love to tell you that I have some kind of process or am heavily influenced by certain comedians and writers, but that simply isn’t the case. To borrow yet another line from 311, “It would be a lie if I said I was inspired.”
One day, when I was eight years old, a teacher figured out that I could write and that reading class wasn’t really teaching me anything. So she gave me my own computer and let me write. People were impressed. I was impressed that people were impressed. End result: throughout each schoolyear I received a buttload of independent studies, all of which were essentially centered around the theme, “just write kid.”
So I did.
Now that I get to be a part of this e-community to which Mikey has alluded, I am learning that many of my colleagues work really hard at their writing, chipping away at metaphors and similes and more than casually giving a shit. I mean for fuck’s sake, Mikey analyses his own work with more depth of emotion and thought than I use for all of life, period. For me, again as Mikey pointed out, it’s more of a mental masturbation. I have to do it. And lucky you, you get to watch (I think we’ll all agree that no one needed that picture in their heads, but I can’t think of a better metaphor for it and I’m not gonna. So there).
Don’t get me wrong, I love writing. I just don’t think I take it as seriously as Mikey. (That being said, I don’t really take anything seriously, but that’s a topic for a much funnier piece.) I’ve loved writing since I could remember, and outside of playing catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, all I ever wanted to be was a writer.
I guess what I’m saying here is: if Mikey were a murderer, he’d be the calculating, lurking-in-the-shadows, I-have-thirteen-kinds-of-poison type of murderer. Whereas, I’d just be a dumbass with a loaded shotgun and a love for blood.
But now here’s the worst part, this bothers me. It bothers me that Mikey is essentially developing and nurturing his writing as if it were his child, and I’m whacking off for fun. But again, much like actual masturbation, I can’t stop (ask anyone who had to suffer through my five thousand word e-mail rants) and I can’t change the way I do it.
This is more introspection than I’ve given my work since… well, ever.
Quite frankly, I think all this self-analysis is overrated and, in the end, detrimental to happiness. Which is why this is the last time I’ll ever explore the topic. Nevertheless, the lil’ bearded bastard got me thinking.
And I really haven’t done that in a while.