for every writer

no writing should start with an apology unless it's to someone you've done wrong, someone like your lover or your mail carrier, both of which could really do some damage if not properly placated. the only other time you should apologize is if you were about to knowingly write something with the soul purpose of making sounds with your infantile mind and had absolutely no regard as to how it may drain the reader of valuable minutes of her life. i am, at the present moment at least, apologizing in the latter sense.

so don't say i didn't warn you.

i'm in the blacksburg starbucks. i find that i must be some lonely sailor forever attracted to the siren, and of course, who could resist her plethora of caffeinated goodies? i am trying to juice the very last moments of semi-solitude before the kids get here and am also fearful that not writing for a few days will render me, within a weeks time, unable to write...period. i suppose if this did happen i could save greatly on pens, do my part to boycott the slaughter of trees by not purchasing journals, not to mention saving lots of heartache and energy spent sweating over sentences. sentences! such fragile little things. i'd rather blow glass!

it occurs to me that the writer is a rather narcissistic being, only commenting on those issues pushed up against her little bubble, hover craft. and so, how many writers write about not being able to write? too many. and who reads it? other writers. there's an infinite number of ways to spell frustration, agony, and pity. and we writers are dramatists. we thrive on reading about our own private pain through the words of those other tortured souls. the ironic thing is most writers are also a poor lot. thus, it's somewhat rare that one can sell a book that rages and rants about the fragility of sentences and the fickle nature of inspiration because those that read it, the writers, often won't pay to buy it. why would they? they have 10 books on the same subject in the works!

funny, rough-cut people writers are. sometimes i'm sure we are the shabby, ill-fit bits of fabric left over after the others are made and our quest is always, always to understand the pattern. why this and not that? we look down at ourselves and notice we are strange. and we look out and everyone else seems strange too. writers think that others don't realize their strangeness and thus we need to tell them about themselves. put a picture on the front and our head shot on the back. you're welcome.

if you don't like the sound of your voice, you cannot be a writer. it's as simple as that. if you love the sound of your voice you cannot be a good writer. there is a difference however between being a good writer and a successful writer. but here i go again, atop my sloping soap box, (sloping because i spend so much time up there that the wood's starting to bow), being all writer like, trying to define. that's what us rough-cuts do. we need to know our edges, need to know just how thick they are and how wide and how long so that we know just how fast to run before throwing ourselves off these edges and out our bodies. the confines of the mind must be known before we are able to race rhino ready through the walls.

sentences, then, are the fingertips of your inner self brushing against the corridors of your mind as you race wildly down, brown-blond hair down to your butt, swishing out behind you like a spirited pony. that's what happens when you write.