People tend to only give a shit about writers once they’re dead. That’s probably why my father was pretty strongly against the idea of me writing. Even though he read every night of his life, he made a face whenever he talked about writers or artists who weren’t dead yet.
People ask, “What do you do?” It’s how we define each other. Knowing what the person you are talking to “does” as a vocation has to happen before the relationship can progress. Usually, I answer something I quit doing years ago. Saying “I’m retired” just makes them ask what I’m retired from, which doesn’t get me out of the spot, and besides, it’s not true.
I’ve written longer than I’ve done anything. I’ve written longer than I played football, lifted weights, and worked in marketing, advertising, retail, mail order, contract sales, web sales, or anything else. I would never let anyone see what I wrote, mention it, or ask about it, and I would never say that I was a writer. Even now.
Putting “writer” on my social media, Facebook, Linked-In, Etc. was a concession to someone who’s been helping me with some spiritual guidance type of things, insisting that if I speak it, that will manifest my dreams. That sounds like something Joel Osteen would say, but this person is considerably more sincere than that. It’s worth a shot.
I was pretty sick when I first decided to let the world see what I wrote. At that point, I was thinking, “If I die, there will be questions.” So, I hit the “post” button and started a new adventure.
If anyone publishes my books and enough people like them that I can say I’m “a writer” without embarrassment, I’d kind of like to end up like Ray Bradbury. He was one of the most pleasant people I ever met. His office was like a science fiction wonderland, with toys, books, paintings, and records all growing out of the spot where his IBM selectric sat.
I don’t want to end up like Williams, or Faulkner, or Hemmingway, an angry, unhappy drunk who dies before his time in a way you’d really rather not die. My father specifically warned me against that. I think he worried that might be my fate if I went down that path, then did all he could to make sure I didn’t make that turn.
I write things like this and post them on the internet to encourage me to work on my book and finish it, then finish the next one, and then the next one. At the moment, I have six started. Hopefully, before I die, six will be finished. I also write things like this and post them on the internet in hopes that my friend is right, and if I name it, that will manifest it.
There are people to whom I owe good writing: my mom, my dad, my grandmothers, Bubba and Nanny, Martha Hammond, Dot Kitchings, Elizabeth Goodyear, Lance Goss, Brent Lefavor, Catherine Freis, Dan Rose, Mitch Myers, David Elliot, Minka Sprague, John Corlew, Rowan Taylor, Robert Wingate; I’ll be reminding myself of names I left out all night.
I’d like to make money. Not a lot, but enough that my writing is more than a self-absorbant, useless hobby. Hopefully, I don’t have to die before anyone cares.
