If you are well-educated, or at least well-read, it’s easy to become a writer. You just need to take all you’ve absorbed and let it swirl around in your noggin — just take lots of, a plethora of, oodles of, the ginormous number of words you’ve added to your vocabulary, and put them in the correct order.
Easy-peasy. No need for a million monkeys.
But I don’t do that.
Not anymore, anyway. I used to write. There was poetry from time to time, screenplays, even short stories, but I don’t like it. I know how to do it, but I just don’t want to. And not because George Scithers sent me a rejection letter. Or because of the one sale I made which never made it into print because the magazine folded before they got around to publishing it.
And I’m good at it, when I want to be, or have to be.
This stuff here, my weekly posting about whatever, isn’t writing. Stylistically, it’s more of a one-sided conversation. Haven’t you noticed? It’s just me talking about whatever I feel like at the moment. Or giving background on my music.
Last Thursday’s post was about my first album release, which completed the series. What comes next? Probably works-in-progress, which will probably be either more — or less — interesting.
I don’t know what business model Substack is using, but they’re certainly not making any money from my stuff. I feel bad, but I won’t charge for these. If you want me to make some money, go ahead and go to Bandcamp and buy some of my music.
See how disjointed this is? Just random thoughts, jumping hither and yon. If you want to read things of substance, check out some of the people I’ve subscribed to like John Ringo, who is putting out a serialized novel, or Sarah Hoyt, who is doing the same, or Ted Gioia who writes well-researched articles about music and other things. Or Monalisa Foster who writes about writing when she’s not herself writing. It’s easy to find them; just go to my About page and check the recommendations in the lower right.
Or go exploring yourself. There are a zillion worthwhile writers on here, writing about so many different subjects. (I should probably plug Curiosity Stream here, too, for those of you who like visuals: “Choose from thousands of documentaries on history, technology, nature, and much more.”)
Why go to places which are being curated by folks who think they know what you should know, when you can go right to the sources?
Anyway, there’s a good chance I won’t be doing any Sunday posts for a while. For sure there won’t be one next Sunday, since I’ll be touring Christmas Markets in this part of Europe. After that, unless I get a brainstorm (which is not at all like a brain cloud), I’ll put the Sunday ramblings aside for now.
There will be a Thursday post, even though I’ll be on the road then. Magic! or some sort of scheduling thing, I forget which.