Fail, fail, fail, fail, succeed

Monthly Archives: May 2022

And Then You Turn a Corner

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Life can change on a dime and not even bother to tell you about it. A year might go by before you realize you have become someone else, before you stop trying to be the person you were before, before you shrug your shoulders and let go of who you were to more fully become who you are meant to be now.

I think I’ve hit that point, or turned that corner as it were.

For roughly four years, I published something in this blog everyday. Didn’t know why I was doing it, mind you. Just did it because I was somehow compelled to. Then the last year or so my output here slowed down while my output as a writer of fiction picked up.

Turns out I was becoming a writer, I just didn’t know it at the time. On this blog, I Wrote and published, I don’t know, maybe 400,000 words?

Somewhere in that mountain of free-association I began writing short stories. Never really thought about it, they just came organically. Then I started getting some published. Life was teaching me something, I just had to listen.

I kept the blog up while becoming more serious about writing. Then COVID happened. I’m not going to rehash my experience, except to say that it profoundly changed who I am. To the point that it has taken me a couple of years to fully appreciate what that means.

Which brings me full circle.

I’ve turned a corner.

I’m a fiction writer now.

This blog has outlived its usefulness, at least as a daily endeavor. I’ll still write posts from time to time, but now my writing has become what it’s been trying to tell me all along.

I just wasn’t listening close enough.

The Long Slog

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I used to go through this with music. The white-hot process of creating the thing is intoxicating and fun. Better than drugs.

But when you finally complete the songs, or novel, or whatever; what you have in front of you is something cool. Rough, but cool. You created this fucking thing that didn’t exist until you gave birth to it!

Then you step back and realize, Wow, this is a lot of shit. How am I ever going to get this to a finished state?

There’s only one way, son.

Pull up your big-boy pants and start grinding.

Who’s it For?

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If you’re an artist, whatever you do, do it for yourself. Don’t think about what might sell, ‘cuz then you’re gonna fall into the trap of making your shit “fit in.”

This isn’t nonfiction. The only rules are it must be interesting.

Here’s the uncomfortable thing: at the end of the day, the chances of actually selling your art is next to nothing.

But if you did it for yourself, you already won.

An added bonus is you’re probably going to have a lot more fun, and are much more likely to come up with something original.

What does the world need?

More cool art.

Harold and Maude

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(Sheepish look)

OK, I’m a little late to the party here. Can’t really explain why it took me 50 years to get to this one, but there you go. It was worth the wait.

File under: How did this ever get made? Directed by Hal Ashby and written by Colin Higgins, Bob Evans was the head of Paramount at the time, and he liked the script. God bless him.

Let’s see, so what do we have here? A 79 year old woman who picks up a 20 year old boy at a funeral both have gone to simply because they enjoy funerals.

Turns out the boy likes her back. When he’s not staging elaborate faux suicides for his mother, they sleep together. And it’s kinda beautiful.

After falling in love, he finds out she’s a holocaust survivor. They get together for her 80th birthday and she commits suicide.

The end.

In the brittle milieu that passes for culture today, who do we cancel first? Everyone involved, I guess. How dare they?

Did I mention the 80 year old woman is Ruth Gordon, who was 75 in the movie? And that she’s really quite beautiful? So full of life as to be combustible.

Oh, and BTW – Cat Stevens did the soundtrack.

More please.