A Rage To Write
Posted By Paul E Holmes on August 31, 2011
THE MORE YOU KNOW: The website is still undergoing an overhaul, so for now if you’re looking for the Broken Meme gamedesignstudio and information on the Cipher RPG, click here.
And now, on to our previously scheduled program…
“…And die of nothing but a rage to live…”
Alexander Pope wasn’t offering up a compliment when he wrote that line in his Epistle to a Lady, but standing on its own, the words have a lot of power. They say, “Get off of your ass and make things happen!” As a writer, I tweak this a bit. I plan on dying of nothing but a rage to write.
Sure, bills have to get paid. Of course, there are dishes and laundry to do. No shit, I need to spend time with the family so the kids don’t grow up to develop a fondness for stuffing neighbor children in a crock pot with carrots and some baby potatoes. None of this prevents me from sitting down and pounding out a few wordgasms in those moments in-between life’s demands.
You want to be a writer? Effin’ write! It doesn’t matter if your goal is to get published by a Big Name publishing house, or if you plan to self-publish the forty-two volume saga of Peckerhead and his sidekick Wrinkles the Wonder Scrote. It’s never going to happen if you allow yourself to keep putting it off.
You’re tired after working a twelve-hour shift? Tough. Make a pot of coffee or go borrow an eightball from that guy down the street with all the Pit Bulls. No time? Bullshit! Use your smartphone to type it out one thumb-stroke at a time while you’re on break at your job or standing in line at the store. No smartphone? Shove a stack of index cards and a pen into your pocket.
Thinking about writing is nothing more than mental masturbation. You’re giving yourself a brief little thrill that ultimately leaves you empty, unsatisfied, and needing a stronger prescription on your reading glasses. To be a writer, you have to stop titillating yourself with “somedays” and “if onlys.” Drop your pants, grab those words and wrestle them to the ground. You have to go 9 1/2 Weeks on those sentences. You’re Mickey Rourke, and the story you want to tell is Kim Basinger.
Ummm….ok. Maybe that’s a bit much, but you get the point. Your story, novel, comic, whatever isn’t going to get written if all you do is think about it in those ten or fifteen minutes in the morning right before you flush. You have to quit making excuses and start making with the word-magic.
You’re going to miss out on sleep. There are going to be times in the supermarket when people stare at you as you chuckle madly to yourself while you type away on your Android in the freezer aisle. Deal with it. Stoke the fire in your belly. Those skull-dwarves that whisper the word “failure” over and over into your subconscious? Beat them to death with your burning, turgid desire to write. (If they’re really persistent, feed them some whiskey. It’ll shut them up for a bit.)
All you have to do is want it. Want it so bad you’d club Bambi’s mom to death with a Remington typewriter. Want it so bad that 3 hours of sleep a night and a intravenous caffeine solution sounds like a more than fair trade off. You have to want it so bad that you will sit the fuck down and die of nothing but a rage to write.
Comments, anyone?
*Strokes beard, drops mic, walks offstage.*