.
A poet that I met the other day during the pub crawl.
Let's call him Marshall. Marshall grew up less than three blocks from where I live now and he lives less than three blocks now from where I grew up. Karma, right? Well over drinks we were talking about Poets & Writers. His observation was that a poet and writer needs 'alone time' to function. He/she needs a space that they can work in. Unfortunately this space is solitary and free from others. Still a real poet/writer needs solitude.
The problem with solitude is that a poet/ writer needs EXPER IENCES to write about. Without exper iences, what is a poet/ writer to express? He is without material to write about. It's the old Catch 22. One thing feeds off the other. That's interesting. I nod my head. I adore my loneliness, and I also like to get outside in moderation. I don't like overdoing anything. But mostly, as you well know, I like being right here, right in my room, writing.
DJ said the same thing about writers. Writers HAVE to shut themselves off from the world to do their work. They need to be alone and have their alone time. Either that, or their lives get frustrated and they get mean. Yes, when a writer is in his 'flow' he hates to break it for some inane interruption. It's just that simple. But DJ hasn't written anything long, like a book manuscript, in awhile. He's restricted himself to short stories because he didn't see the point of being an isolationist. He didn't want to take long vacations from humanity just to write a manuscript that might never be published and if so even read.
Whereas short stories and poems are easier to publish. I nod. I really understand what he is saying. But I'm a fiction author. I may not find lightning in a jar, and be able to ever support myself on my writing but the truth of the matter is, is that I will write, and write something every single fucking day, for free if you'll like. For nothing if it has to be.
Yeah, that's right, when I was born there was a pen in my tight little grip. Fuck the world. I studied the English language hard, and I never got any formal college training. All of my education comes from grade school in the public school system. I am the product of the Inner City. I am here to tell you that public school works for making zombies and a slave class. That' all that it's good for. People from the ghetto have to fight night and day to get the education that they want and need. I should know. It's the national cesspool that I was spawned from. I am the product of a disenfranchised minority.
But I learned what little English that I could and now I write. Write with gusto and vigor. I write like my whole fucking life depends on it. As if death is standing behind me, sickle in hand, skeleton face whispering my name in my ear. I am too frightened to stop writing. Too scared to get up out of my seat, open my front door and join the teaming millions outside marching to the beat of life's sacred drum. I don't hear it's pounding. I am separate and apart from time and space. I hear only the scratching of pen to paper without a beat.
Like a rat scratching it's way through a wall, I hear pen against paper. Yes, pen against paper. And I get behind my computer and start to write like the wind. But I am running out of experiences to write about. I am running out of differing observations. I'm not witty or funny or quaint. I'm just me. Me and this blog that I find I must put time in daily or go nuts. I mean that.
I hibernate from humanity and I don't miss human interaction ...much. I just like it under my terms.
Hobobob
No comments:
Post a Comment