Why do I want to write?Ironically, all my work to pull this whole “GameGen” thing off—the four years of college, the nose to the grindstone after graduation, all the awesome work I’ve done on my website so far (cough cough)—are simply steps forward, it would seem, to a semi-dead-end of productivity and stagnation (not writer’s block, mind you, but more or less a temporary ceasing of writer activity until I can kick it into gear again).
Important things get in the way of trying to "leave a legacy," a new job, my youngest son getting married, relatives visiting, and of course all the good reruns on TV and the need for me to replay several very old video games on my shelf!
Alright, alright! I haven’t been a total lame-ass! I have actually been busy with life and all my plans to write have simply been trumped by many things I couldn’t help—along with a few things I could have helped but didn't. Most of the writing I do is usually done early in the morning, I just need to refocus and kick my own butt into gear (like I did when I was going to full-time college in the evenings while working a full-time job during the day).
The main problem with doing something (or trying to do something) as intangible as writing fiction for fun and (God forbid) profit, is that doing it in your spare time while you try to conduct an ordinary life is difficult at best—at the very least it’s a mind numbing pain in the ass which leaves you feeling very tired and unmotivated.
At least with college, you’ll earn an “F” if you don’t do anything. When a guy tries to write in his spare time, nobody notices if there’s nothing to read, they just ask things like, “So, what’ve you been up to lately since you graduated?” In which case you answer, “Oh, you know, stuff…” (secretly chastising yourself for being such a lame-ass).
This early blog stuff is really just for me anyway, and perhaps some great great great grandson in the distant future who wants to do a book report. The sad thing is that I leave a lot of stuff out simply because life is often too boring, or perhaps it’s just too disturbing to mention normal life events like, “Hey, guess what? In the span of just one hour this morning I took four separate poopies!” I mean, who the hell wants to read about that kind of shit?
In retrospect (at least for me) writing is about exercising personal creativity in a way which reflects my thoughts, ideas, and who I am (or was, as the case may be). Leaving a legacy is really an appropriate word. Writing is, perhaps, outside of having children, the only way one has of leaving a piece of oneself after death.
While writing doesn’t necessarily ensure immortality it does do one thing which having children doesn’t, it definitely reflects a part of the author. Whether the author is the writer of Beowulf, Ernest Hemingway, or Stephen King, all of their writings reflect a part of those people, a part which could not possibly have been conveyed any other way, and that’s really the reason I want to write. Whether I actually leave something that is worth your time to read is still yet to be determined, but I like it so far, and perhaps that’s all that is important.
While writing could perhaps be nothing more than a futile exercise in egotism, for me it is more about fear of being forgotten, and that is perhaps the most disturbing thing of all, or at least it is a bit of a downer, and I'm sorry about that, but it's true. I also worry about the people I love being forgotten, because they are such a wonderful part of my life, and perhaps that is why I include parts of them in some of my characters, even the bad characters.
On the positive side I believe writing fiction (or non-fiction for that matter) is also a way to help me examine my life and try and make the experience of life even richer, because I love life so very much. Lastly, I also have a hope that my writings (perhaps some day) may even do the world some good, because the world often seems so very hopeless (or at least there are many people who seem to have no hope, and that's bad).
I think the world needs more writers who offer hope. Even if it is just a hope that we won't be forgotten as long as we leave a little of ourselves behind. Maybe everybody should become a writer.
