(Old post from last year)
Until the end of the year this blog will be different. I’m on vacation…A writer like me is never really on vacation. I went back to the career path look around today. Put gas in the car. Smoked and made some lunch, read the New York Times and some of this book called Thinking Fast and Slow, and I thought about sending notes to agents and looking at literary sites and magazines. I don’t have time for that bull-shit. I’m a writer. Every minute I’m not writing or editing or sleeping or writing writing and editing, every minute I have to take part in this digital madness I’m wasting my life. Not this writing on blog thing, this is productive, I’m seeing what I’m all about, and damn, now a guy just started a chainsaw and is cutting down another tree, savages I tell you.
I’m talking about the endless scrolling we do nowadays, and waiting for updates and I don’t even know how most people with money even have a job. They don’t seem to be doing much of anything. But I want to not be so poor, buy a plane ticket, and my books aren’t selling anymore, so did some regular man things, I DONE ME, for about five hours, THE NORMAL LOUD HUMAN THINGS.
I was bored, and so I’m going to write , ok? Normal things and resumes and this whole world is so full of shit. Nobody seems right in my book, you have to give and take, you can’t take take take, and this is what politics and the citizenry seem to do. Random thoughts. For now on, until the end of the year when I’m back on my regular schedule, this blog will be about whatever random thought my mind goes off towards, and You’re only a writer if you talk about sports. I like sports. I don’t want to write about sports, because that doesn’t seem real. I write about life, your life, my generation, and nobody cares, they only want to know how I feel about basketball, and then I tell them, and they say “man you really know your sports, you should write about sports.”
No, you’re never on vacation when you’re a writer like me. I worry about not writing and not getting better, because I want to be great. I said it. I want these hours to work for something. I want all the years to mean something. I know, and people know I know, but I want to be relevant in the time that we see exploding all around us. I don’t think anybody really has a clue anymore, and the sounds, so many sounds, it’s hard to write but even harder to edit. That book I just released was utter hell, because editing is so painfully lame. It drags and you read and read the same thing over and over and then its done, and then, move on, wait, wait for what, for sales, and for all you know the thing could be a classic, but too philosophical, too heavy man. Fuck you.
I wonder too much about things that will never be proven What the hell are we? Humans. That’s what that book is about. And it took forever and people celebrate getting a promotion at work and a book, and you wrote a book, another book, so what now, what now, have you read it, no, you don’t care, you just throw garbage away and ask me questions and complain about money and so much noise, when and if I ever do make any money I’m out, like Salinger. I’m leaving and I’ll hide away and write and I’ll still blog and use these blogs as an outlet, but I’m gone, off the radar. I’m sick of hearing about the chaos in this world I’ve been born into. It’s much too loud. A writer needs time to be left alone, to be by themselves. They need people who give a damn and want to understand them. They need to be respected. Writing, if you are a writer, is an art, and you should be honored by society, what you give to society, for the history that is stored in your books, and maybe that’s why they don’t read anymore, because they don’t want to step outside of their heads, they want to be safe, they don’t want to see who they really are, because they would be disgusted with what they put the good ones through. The garbage and the yelling at their dogs and the hell of daily normal american life is draining, especially during the editing process. I hope I’m accepted into the real world, because one day I’m going to move into a nice little place away from society where I can think and grow again. I don’t know how to get there, it might not ever happen. I won’t ever stop writing. I’m not like you anymore. I wish I was. I’m not. I’m no longer a wild savage who hides their weakness within what they call normal life.
And I’m going to write whatever I want and I’m not going to edit any of these blog entries for a while. I’m going to just write. I’m going to write something new and about what I don’t know, and I know that I said, that I was taking a sabbatical from this blog and for the most part I am, but I need to write, just to hear those tapping of the keys and try something new, get this junk inside of my head out of me, and this blog allows me to do that. I don’t know what I want to say but I’m angry and I need to write something to keep going to see what this anger is from. I have to book a plane ticket to New Orleans, and why the hell am I going there? I’m broke as hell. Everybody hates me in this town, no jobs for people with brains. I’m the only one who went back to their hometown after college. I had to . I was broke. I’m a writer. I don’t necessarily like any of this.
And Moving, I hate moving, and when I get down there if that day ever happens I’ll have nothing and no bed no friends no nothing, no job, no sleep, no nothing and this is the problem, people want me to go here just to make an appearance but life, what about life and how do you live working for nothing? Let’s trade for a day. You see if it’s as easy as you think. Just be me. See how people treat me. It just happened like this….
Oh just writing problems, the writer’s problem, just words trying not to gather enough disgust with this whole world who doesn’t even understand that I need IT not talk to me, just some days, and so many noises and I don’t know about you but if you get older and keep writing your life is in for so many troubled awakenings. Each day you have to get yourself somewhere, closer to something, so I wrote books, buy one, and a writer, this is about the dumbest thing in the world you can be, and if you are, well you can go to hell, because your life is going to move slow and you want it to be something else, maybe you should never have started reading and writing but that’s not what they tell you to do. I did everything that I was told to do and it was so loud I couldn’t think anymore….oh just the writer’s problem
And this keyboard is terrible and everything doesn’t fit right now, the sound and the way my fingers move, older, not as bendable, not as I don’t know. So many words and I have to come up with some fiction so let’s try that. I’m not editing any of this. These are free words you savages.
quiet
There was this old man and he sat in the house and he just wanted to be left alone to read his mystery novels. At first he was peaceful and the light from the day was perfect but it soon would be gone. He started to feel anger, and why he wasn’t sure because he had everything that he wanted. He had his dog and luckily the dog was sleeping, because the dog always wanted something from him, but the dog was sleeping.
The old man had just about everything. He had his books, he had his chair , and he was comfortable but he was getting angry, and why, and not really at other people; he was angry at himself because for some reason he wasn’t content, and he wasn’t sure why this was, because he had everything. He only knew that he was getting angry and once you’re angry you have no choice but to talk yourself out of it, say, it’s not that big of a deal.
He was mad as hell. He just wanted to be left alone to read his old mystery novels that he was given by this old lady at church each Sunday, and “have you read the new one”, she always asked and they got coffee, both of their spouses have long been dead. And he used to read them all so quickly, so many great mystery novels and they had so many great conversations about what had happened in these novels. Everything seemed better back then, and now, how? He couldn’t even read anymore. The old man tried, he sat and waited, but only got more angry, and he wasn’t even able to flip the pages. He opened and slammed and threw his reading glasses across the room because his mind felt this thirst, and what was this he didn’t know, because everything was there, he wasn’t even sure what his problem was and why it wasn’t like it used to be. Why? Because life used to be good, but now it wasn’t, he hated his life, but he had so much joy around him all the time, and why, why, why, he didn’t know, he didn’t want to keep going, he didn’t want to read, he didn’t want to do anything at all, and he didn’t care about the mysteries in the books, and he didn’t care about the mystery of living. Everything was just there, all the plans were long gone and soon he would die, and this all led to him to one thought, the thought of being alone.
This old man was so content that he knew nothing mattered, life was easy , and he listened to the news and could talk about so many things, he had rooms full of books from other friends, everything was given to him, the answers to anything he could look up from the internet , and his grand kid Mark from Ohio showed him how to use the internet and he was so taken back by the power of digital information that at first it was like magic, like the TV used to be. “So much, there was so much out there” he said.
Days went by and more coffee after church and one day the mystery lady died. He wasn’t even that sad, maybe he was, he was too old to care, and dust covered the computer as he sat by the window holding the book, and he thought about the days when he kept learning and opening new web pages and the media gave him so much about everything, about life, and he felt young again, and those days and the coffee talk after church was great and he was old, and then he stopped reading, he didn’t care, what was the use?
He closed the book, the last mystery book the lady gave him. He was only on page 16. He’s been reading it for six months. “And whats the use” he said again. The sun, just down again, and once again the old man gave up being angry for the day. Went to bed. He died in his sleep. His last thought was, quiet.
Adventures In American Writing 