Writers, Self-Indulgence, and You (and Me)
Don't worry, if you're not a writer, this will be interesting, even if it isn't about you. And does it always have to be about you? I mean, seriously.
We watch reality TV shows so we can see we're just like the stars. We read books because we can relate to the characters. We listen to music because the sounds speak to us and the lyrics are so, "OMG it's like he/she/they read my diary!" and it's all about you. Can you just stand reading something that's not all about you? Criminy, people. There's more to life than you.
For example, there's me.
Now you probably have nothing in common with me. Or maybe you are a woman or you giggle with glee when watching cloggers or maybe you read my blogs because they make you laugh; can't get away from yourself, can you? You're hopeless, aren't you? Well, so am I. So that's something else we have in common, so I guess this blog is about you in some convoluted, weird and 6-degrees-plus-you-might-know-me kind of way.
But I'm not talking about you right now, m'kay? We're not going to talk about you at all today. We're going to talk about me. And if you can't handle that, and this is as far as it goes for you, you know, then godspeed, is all I'm going to say. About it.
So here we go, not talking about you. I'm not really talking about me in my entirety, though, I'm going to talk about me in the context of writers in sort of a generalized, hyperbolic way, meaning I'm going to exaggerate things a little, maybe, since I really don't know all that many writers. I mean, I know more writers than, say, the average Costco employee or medical assistant or the average stay-at-home mother or parent, I guess, if I'm going to be all PC, since this will ultimately BE about you in your twisted, solipsistic world, so I might as well just accept that you're going to make this thing about you, but you know, I can't control that shit any more than I can control who reads this or not. Which is probably nobody from maybe two lines ago on out.
But I'm going to press on because there might be one person who has nowhere to go, nothing really to do for the next ten minutes or so, and they might want to see where this is going a little. Maybe. I don't know, is the thing.
So writers. We all have this dream. Our dreams have names and they're all printed on the backs and spines and covers of the books we have in our houses. Oh, I should note here that my husband will read this, so hey, honey, thanks for reading, and we'll just carry on from here.
So writers. We all have this dream and it's to be *kind of* a big deal. There isn't a writer alive who says 'Yeah, I'm shooting for mediocrity here, and I hope that less than five-thousand people read what I write. I don't want it to go over five-thousand. In fact, five-thousand is way too many people, and that might lull me into thinking I have a modicum of success, so let's bring it down to a four-hundred-person audience who will read me, like, ever, and only because the local paper printed my letter to the editor on the four-way stop on Vine Street, and my name will only be a household name among my parents, certain past lovers I've wronged in indelible and meaningful ways, and maybe the third grade teacher I aggravated to a point where she quit and went into sales, and is addicted to benzos simply because I was this totally incorrigible sociopathic attention-seeking brat at the age of, what, eight? Nine? And I totally sucked her teacher's soul OUT of her body with my impudent mouth and refusal to understand fractions.' Or whatever.
So that's not how writers think, is the point. We all want to be a big deal. Except for ghost writers. I don't even know what their deal is. But so okay, we're just going to be a little self-indulgent here, if you don't mind.
So I had this writer tell me he wanted to write this "Big, Truthful Thing." And I get what he means. But not every writer has got the BTT in him-slash-her. Some writers only have new and interesting ways to make characters fall in love or serial killers mutilate their fictional victims, or whatever.
But even those writers want to be a big deal and write a BTT, they just need the money, like, now, so they write their template-type stuff and look into the future with this idea in the backs of their heads that one day, the BTT will manifest itself to them and they will go into a sort of crazed mania of writing and it will all come out like word vomit, only a vomit you wouldn't throw sawdust on, like they did in elementary school when some hapless kid got sick in the classroom and couldn't make it to the restroom, I mean the kind of vomit that's edible with an ornate, silver-plated spoon. I realize that's sort of a gross metaphor but if you can picture unicorn vomit as being like ambrosia, that's what I was going for there.
And look, I get that I'm being totally self-indulgent here with the length of this blog and whatnots. I know that. I know that I'm doing a word-vomit right here, right now, but so that negates the self-indulgence, I think, and it totally blows pretension away, to my way of thinking at any rate. My awareness.
Because there's nothing worse, I mean nothing,(bolded AND italicized), NOTHING (caps added) worse, like the worse of when your waffle-soled shoes sinks into fresh, steaming dog shit worse, than a pretentious, self-indulgent writer. The writer who writes only for him-slash-herself and forgets his-slash-her audience and frankly doesn't give a rat's you-know-what about the audience because only pretentious sycophants will read him-slash-her anyway, and all of those sycophants are, undoubtedly, writers themselves, only on a different level, kind of like "I write, but it's more of a hobby until I can make it big" type of thing.
So back to the thing. A lot of writers want to write this "Big, Truthful Thing" and
I've met a lot of writers who won't write because they are waiting for that BTT to explode from their subconscious and come into their conscious minds and then, wahlah, they are the next Joyce or Wallace and they change the literary landscape forever.
It's like they don't mountain climb, but they know one day they will fly to wherever it is and climb Mount Everest. This is how self-indulgent I'm being right now, btw, I won't even stop rambling to look up where Mount Everest is. So. Take that and bean it as well. As a side note, I'm aware that it should be a part of my everyday knowledge, where Everest is. But it's kind of something I don't care about right now, okay, so just let it go for now.
So I guess why this is about you is this. We all have that Big, Truthful Thing we want to do. I mean writers, we want to write it. But you other people, you want to do it. But, like, the way you live your life is you're wandering the aisles of WalMart and you're shopping for a Chanel® bag. Or Prada®. And you're absolutely sure that one day, Chanel® (the brand, the company, the icon, if you will) will one day say, via an upstart newly minted executive who fought and clawed his way to the top, he'll say, "you know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking Rodeo Drive meets WalMart. Am I right? Are you feeling that with me?"
But nobody's feeling that with you, brother-slash-sister, no one. No. One. So you just wander those aisles and you go ahead and tell people what you're looking for. And they're going to be way too polite to say, "Are you effing nuts? You're not going to find that here at the Wal Marts, I tell ya that, oh boy, no you won't."
No, see, they're going to nod their heads and be all, "great, that's great, you know? I mean good for you, man. Yeah." And then they're going to walk away and when you aren't looking, they do the wide-eyes thing, and you know, even if it's a little on-the-nose, if they're with someone at the WalMart, they might take it one step further and actually be too on-the-nose and bring their finger to the side of their temple, you know, and churn it around in a circle, making sure the guy-slash-gal they're with gets that they just had a brief discussion with a certified loon.
So what is stopping you from your Big, Truthful Thing? Because if it's finding Chanel® in the WalMart, then it only follows in a logical way that you've gotta get out of that WalMart. All WalMart lanes do not lead to Rome is the lesson here. If you want to do the BTT, you've got to find the place that sells the stuff you need for the BTT. And when I say "sell" it's a metaphor. Stay with me, now.
At the risk of losing you with the whole metaphor thing, let's just say you want to climb Mount Everest. So what you need to do is stop telling other WalMart shoppers that's what the plan-a-roo is, and you've got to go get in your car and drive to the nearest outdoor outlet in your town, U.S.A., and then you go in and ask the guy there who's wearing all Patagonia and who's this wiry, skinny dude with like, beef jerky skin who pretty much subsists on gorp and water and climbing, and you've got to ask him how it's done. Climbing.
Then you have to invest. So money here is a metaphor for other things like time and effort. You've got to invest. Then there's the actual climb, the first one you do maybe at a climbing gym with colorful "rock ledges" where you tune your upper and lower body into a climbing machine.
So we'll skip all of the other parts and minutiae and say you do this for a decent amount of time, let's say just short of ten-thousand hours, and then you're back at WalMart one day because you just need a carpet to soak up oil in your garage from your leaky SUV and they have these cheap area rugs for $19.93 and then you see a shopper and you tell them, 'so yeah, going to climb Everest in a few weeks,' and see, then you're legit. Then you've got some merit, some actual merit to your goal because you've been working toward it in this real, tangible way instead of this pipish-dream type of way.
®
So that's the point of this self-indulgent thing I'm typing out right now. The point is, stop talking and start doing. And it doesn't matter if you don't do the Everest thing the minute you think it's what you want to do. As a matter of fact, you shouldn't, because you're not even CLOSE to being prepared to do this BTT yet. It takes tons of time, investment, and practice.
But don't sit there and stroke yourself and other people with words and then make excuses that your BTT hasn't shown up yet, and then you kid yourself into thinking that at some point the BTT will suddenly visit you in a vision. Because it won't. It's the ordinary, mundane, tangible, sweat-and-guts-and-hard-work things that will get you there. And it's totally banal and unsexy, all of this prep work for the BTT. So yeah.
You know, that...or lower the bar. Considerably. Then you won't be disappointing yourself, and quite possibly your life partner, all of the time.
Be prepared to take a tumble or two down the old "humble slope," some humility-laden slope where you didn't tap in your carabiner far enough. You learn from that shit.
Write the Big, Truthful Thing. But start with writing a bunch of little, truthful things. Those add up, sometimes, into a Big one. But start writing it. DO that Big, Truthful Thing. But start with the basics and work your way up. Set the course. You can't get from point A to point B when you're over at the WalMart where there are no letters, no A and B points in which you travel between and forward, only plastic beach balls for $2.88.
And then keep your eyes open. Because your Big, Truthful Thing is something you probably can't do alone. Because Big Truthful things aren't always necessarily about you, are they?
If they are Big and Truthful, it's usually about all of us.
So.
Are you glad you stuck it out through this self-indulgent thing about you and me?
Yeah.
Me too.
Talk is cheap.
Just Do It.®
