The Reasons Are There, Don't Say I Didn't Warn You...

20 Reasons to Not Date a Writer...

I think that my ex would find most of these to be especially conclusive. We don't make good dates, people. We just don't make good company as we probably will not find you nearly as interesting as what our characters are going through at the time. If you don't buy that, then what's more interesting (two examples so as not to be labeled 'sexist,' always a lovely adjective that I find 'feminists' like to affix upon me with a fanfare usually left for parades and New Year's Eve galas):

1. Girlfriend is talking about her day in which her and her bestfriend got in a fight lasting approx. 23 minutes in which only two words were actually spoken and the whole thing ended when that especially hot guy from Twilight showed up on VH1. You are erstwhile thinking about a ridiculously harrowing scene from your sure-fire breakthrough novel in which two friends must fight to the death whilst the third friend is hung upside down and slowly lowered closer and closer to a Vlad The Impaler-esque spike.
2. Boyfriend is letting you know of the most recent heart-rending defeat of his local college and/or professional sports team, and can you believe that call? Bullshit! Meanwhile, in your mind, you are busy fine-tuning the technical aspects of armies about to run down into a trench to start an epic battle you labeled in the first chapter as "The Battle of Red Trench" where the ground must literally flow with blood. Who cares about football?

And there. I mean, what are we really talking about here? Obviously that writers are inherently vain and self-serving. Possibly assholes that find themselves much more interesting than they find you. This says one of two things (and note that the second solution is quite possibly just because, me being a writer, I see myself as just incredibly fascinating):

1. Unlike other people who kind of figure out what their "self" is by the time they turn, you know, 12, writers are the metaphysical equivalent to that kid in first grade who still has "accidents" and whose undergarments crunches while s/he walks.
2. We really ARE just that much more fascinating. We don't have a lot of friends because we are wayyy too busy trying to nail down why we are different from you, and how come a 30 minute discussion on the principles of 'friendship' don't make other people giddy in contemplative exaltation.

That is two lists in roughly a paragraph. Obviously I have no idea what I'm trying to say here or I would actually work these into a real paragraph. (Although I read somewhere that making lists is better in blogs, or some such nonsense? I don't think I will ever have a very good blog following.)

But maybe I'm being a little too hard here. I really do find my girlfriends interesting, I'm usually just off on my own planet, doing my own things. This draws a thoroughly depressing problem that writers are usually inept at human contact, and yet we yearn for human contact through our literature. Does that not strike you as inherently sad, and perhaps a little destructive? We want that human contact only after it becomes somewhat base, where you want to talk to us because you like what we wrote, and not because I am, let's say, me. I want your adoration and praise, but that's much easier for me to take than being really really good friends, or significant other with you. In short: it's much easier to have fans than friends, because I don't have to really export much of myself into our relationship. Instead, you see what you want to see through my writing, and then you draw a (perhaps unrealistic or false) view of the writer. Now I am whoever you want me to be, and that won't change because I probably won't hang out with you, because I am probably busy, y'know, writing. And even if we did, I probably would decline, because then you'd see me for what I really am, which is an incredibly shy, yet superficial person who would rather have you as a fan than a friend. And no, you can't have a friend who is also a fan. Friends tell you when you suck, fans just smile.

So, am I lonely? Yes. Very. Would I change it if I could? Probably. But I can't. My demeanor is inherently secluded and standoffish. I want to communicate with you through my literature, and then I want you to really like it and then come to believe that you therefore inherently like me, even though we have never met. I have my friends that exist in my novels. The characters are my friends, and they are diverse and all hilarious and fun. I hang out with them daily, and really, that takes up an awful lot of time and energy. So much so that by the time I'm done, sleep comes quickly.

I just realized that this has become a rant about why I am lonely as opposed to a nice link to a nice list on someone else's website. Funny. But not really.

More on this in a later post, I think. There's more here.

-Ken

Christening.

Now, gentle readers, starts my nervous hand-wringings and contemptable snappishness.... if that is a word.  I have one short story that was mailed this morning, and another waiting breathlessly to be sent out, both harboring that inextinguishable desire of wanting to show a glow so formidable that when the readers at the respective lit mags lay their furtive glance upon its pages that they cannot help but run to the nearest blackboard and write, in large, swooping hand, "A+++++++++". 

I think that they are good stories.  Probably two of my favorites.  For that reason, I am setting unrealistically high goals for them, namely, getting published.  The chances are slim (I have sent them to highly selective publications) but my hopes for them are anything but.  I should hear back from the one I sent out last month within a month... and the other one about the same time.  Stay tuned for more fumings, rants, ravings, and maybe a particular shade of joy should the story get published.  It will more than likely contain size 72 helvitica at some point during that blog post, should it weasel its way past the editors and into a magazine.

I imagine this post as the glass bottle of milk or champaigne being cracked against the hull of a ship that is departing the harbor for the first time.  So come with me as I begin the slightly painful journey that is "doing this for a living."  The water is treacherous and deep, and the bottom is lined with ships that didn't make it.

-Ken

Why I Will Never Be 'Artsy'

If there's one thing I have learned from my explorations of the "indie"/"artsy" literary world, it is that the scene is predominantly an intransigent party that exists for the single purpose of inserting one's genitalia into another's mouth. That, and party has also reached capacity.  The sentences I have written thus far are not "edgy" enough, they're not incredibly short or incredibly long, and not every word has some obscure rule of Capitalizing Every Word.  My writing is to tell stories and to show a scene and to show dialogue and allow the reader to be transported to the world of my characters.  It is, first and foremost, to entertain.  When people will read my book, it won't change their perception of the world or themselves.  There may be an epiphany, but I hope it doesn't change who they are.  I'm not nearly conceited enough to think that my writing, nor my worldview, is the correct or most morally valid one.  I'm not writing out of some need to project myself onto others' consciousness.  People who do that are known as evangelicals here in the South, and it isn't something I strive for.  I love all sorts of people in their mannerisms and quirks; in their loves and their hates; in their passions and their lethargies.  The purpose that the majority of the world will pick up a book isn't to be told that they are right or wrong -- it is to be entertained.  I don't want to lose sight of that.

I am constantly told through the enternits that I am not good enough, smart enough, deep enough to be a writer.  Readers are, as the enternits inform me, much like Remora, preoccupied with latching onto the nipple or taint of any "indie" reader who is not white and/or has hellacious sideburns (man or woman) and that it would be much better for the Starbucks latte sippers and beanie-wearing hipsters if I just give up my attempt at "art."  It would in the end provide much less angst for everyone involved -- from myself, to the four or five lamentable sets of eyes that had to flit across my pages.*

To me, there is nothing worse in this world than being part of that "misunderstood" orgy of "indie" writers.  Do I say this because, secretly, I want in?  I don't think so.  I think I have a natural inclination towards fineries such as nice watches, polo shirts, and pressed pairs of khakis.  I like my hair short and clean, and only a sprinkle of facial hair every once and a while.  My room is clean (mostly) and I speak clearly and don't do drugs.  I'm not a practicing Christian, but I'm not an Atheist either.  My ideal situation is in a monogamous relationship with a woman and a dog and two kids and a white picket fence where I would write in the front bay window and leave only to go get food, pick my children up from sports, or to the nearest polling place to vote for my favorite Republican candidate.  I will never be a part of their world because I choose to be different from them.  I choose to live a life of sanitation and of sunlight, and not of dingy holes-in-the-wall, greasy fedoras, and bong resin. 

With that being said, there is something I do appreciate about indie meanderings masquerading as contemplative thought: their writings will, every once and a while produce a diamond.  "The Human Condition" is a favorite topic of theirs, for which a wide variety of definitions has been slapped onto it.  The Human Condition is about as nebulous a term as you can have, but intrinsically it has something to do with our innate need to destroy.  I don't think that we would have this endless well of psuedo-prophetic rambling without the original inquiry of what is human?  The question is immediately vague and worthless, but I love it so much because it helped me get through college.  There, see?  It's not all bad.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some selling out to do.

-Ken

*Maybe a truly unfortunate soul had already lost an eye in a barroom brawl, pepper shaker incident, or warring with pirates.  This would, of course, put the "eye-count" down to a mere 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 sets.  However, there is something inherently "indie" about an eye patch, so it would perhaps raise my overall viewership closer to six -- two of which may even be terry-cloth headbanded teenagers who write angsty poems in their Moleskines while smoking marijuana.