October 2, 2013

• ON WRITING...

  I'd always thought it would be great to write a book. Many of us flirt with the idea of having an affair with a blank page. An idea begins, like the diaphanous silvery column of smoke rolling up from a lit cigarette. The idea begins to take shape and it is a comely shape! Before our eyes the thin smokey thought becomes sharply focused. the smoke has form and content, and she's an incredible femme fatale. If you prefer your smokey idea take a more masculine form; a dark, brooding, muscled, secretly sensitive, but lost hero needing the nurturing salvation of the only woman created for the task.

  Fortunately, most of us only ever flirt a bit. Thinking about writing and writing are so vastly different. I was content not being a writer. I could be just as content today not being a writer.

  For me writing isn't about succubus ideas coalescing from smoke, dragging me unwitting to the mysterious intercourse between the blank sheets; author and demon muse finding that potent magical chemistry leaving every hack writer drunk with the delusion he's knocked up with a best selling literary spawn. For me writing is an answer to prayer. It wasn't a prayer born from conscious thought. I was sitting on my bed with my prayer journal open in my lap. My prayer time always ends with supplication; prayer usually, though not always, aimed at meeting one's own needs. Suddenly, a thought hit me, and I started writing in my journal. I didn't know the content of the prayer request until I'd written it out. It was a bit like automatic writing or maybe even like momentary possession. The thought did not originate in my consciousness. It wasn't the pizza from dinner talking, and it certainly wasn't merely a brain fart. It was something supernatural. I'm not saying the prayer didn't originate in me, it could well have been something coming up from the new spirit God had implanted in me. Even if it was something which originated in me, God had to place his finger on it to get the process started. And so I prayed to write.

  I'm not opposed to creative or artistic work. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theater Arts. I can carry a tune, but no one would pay to hear me sing. I can be somewhat witty at times, especially when I put on a foreign accent. I'm also not horrible at improvisation.

  There are three artistic endeavors I appreciate enormously, but could never imagine, undertaking the tasks myself. 1) Dance, I have a little more grace than a garden slug, but just a bit. As I age I fear I'm losing ground on this one. 2) Drawing, painting, sculpting, and etc.; my hands are clumsy things, it's a monumental miracle that I type. 3) Writing. At times I am a voracious reader. Since I got my first Kindle reader I have read even more. I have the Kindle app on my phone and iPad. Everywhere I go I read. Electronic books are the best invention since the light bulb. Don't give me any of that stodgy nonsense about the smell and feel of real books. Books are heavy, attract mold and silverfish, and take up tons of space.

  I love the literary arts almost as much as the art of theater/cinema. Putting words together is a terribly awkward thing for me. I don't have any delusions about being a good writer. I don't understand how writing works. My grammar is atrocious, sentence structure is crap, and they run on forever! But none of that is really important. A good editor is the cure for most of my real or imagined problems. I'd be an editor's nightmare, but hey, that's what they get paid for, isn't it? The book I'm working on will be self-published online. Anyone can download it for free. I still hope to find an editor, even a free book should be readable. I simply think the subject matter deserves a good writer.

  • 1:43 PM
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