Writing about Whining and Whining about Writing

Part I

Where have all the writers gone? Gone to Facebook, every one. I think they've given up on the social aspect, the groupthink. Remember the camaraderie we used to share? The wit? Gone. A writer hooking up into Facebook and all its games and article-sharing is like a mathematician on a daily dose of sloe gin. Was blogging not as bad? Was it a shot of caffeine, or just thin hot chocolate? It did provide a challenge. The challenge was to produce some quality every few days. Few ever met it. Most everyone seems to have given up.

A few still write. Away from the crowd, as perhaps it should be done. NaNo should be that way. I will go to coffee shop meetups because I need social interaction, to feel a part of things. But writing is essentially solitary.

I'm guessing the bloggers decided either they would ride the Facebook to nowhere or would just get their writing done and quit talking about it. I hope so. Writing is all I want to do when it comes to brain-work.

I want NaNoWriMo to start and the rest of the world to end.

Part II

Writing is all I want to do when it comes to brain-work. I falter at my job (or so it feels sometimes) because it requires studying technical stuff and collaboration with other people on technical stuff. But when I light the fires under my brain it doesn't lean that way. No, it wanders off in search of dreams to mold, and characters to build, and vibrant language. It's a daily chore to switch the train over onto the right track and chug it up to speed. Today, that didn't happen. All my train did was crawl out of the shed, take a slow turn around the yard, and idle at the back edge, leaking steam.

And it's no secret and I don't care who knows it. My old brain is just plain tired of trying to fit. That engine wants to get lifted out of the old iron frame that hauls freight around on rails and settle into something light and buoyant and start tracing words and music into the ripples of a trackless sea.

This is a bad attitude. I want my boys to get through college without any financial hitches and so crank away, crank away, crank away is what I need to do just like everyone else. Just like everyone else. It's funny: Part of me is still the youngest child who thinks he is special and unique and can get away with relative poverty because no one needs to depend on him. The major portion is of course a man engaged with the world in some productive way who knows we are all in the same boat together and thus holds the deliberately unproductive (this includes lazy and/or under-talented writers) in low esteem. This tension won't go away.

And yet, still I want NaNoWriMo to start and the rest of the world to end. Except for music. Music can stay. And food. Music and food and warm autumn sunsets. The rest of it, begone. Begone, I say! People with nice smiles can stay. Nice people, food, music, sunsets, and the sound of rain or of a distant train passing. All that can stay. But the rest of it: End! Begone. We gots writing to do, doesn't we?