Writing

[chuckjaywalk]

The last week or so has really reignited my desire to write again. I used to write video game and tabletop RPG reviews. I also did some wrestling writing under a pseudonym. I am not particularly interested in writing about those subjects, these days. I tried my hand at guitar pedal reviews but since I am a fairly awful player and I do not have the equipment to properly record audio or video demos. Fiction is not my forte.

The best parts of writing, for me, is having an avenue for all of this enthusiasm and energy I have, an outlet for my desire to communicate, and my love of words. Maintaining a website, managing other writers, and shmoozing my way to free review copies of things are what I want to avoid. When I did gaming stuff, I got too much stuff to review by myself and a lot of stuff that I didn't want to play enough to review. I never even attempted to get reviewable pedals because I am not a demo guy.

Right now, what stands out as an option is a music review blog but I feel like there's something better that I am not thinking of. Anyone else writing? Where are you publishing it? Any ideas?

[Invisible Man]

I write a lot of dumb posts on ILF.

Also finishing my book (academic, not that fun) on the history of efficiency and its relationship to utopian/proletarian texts.

Probably for the best to keep writing as a side-piece. I do it for a living, and it is not particularly pleasurable for me. I can only speak to my experience, though.

It is rewarding to be a part of an intellectual community where it's possible to interact with smart people, and to work with students on their writing. I'm an English professor, so reading about writing, writing about reading, and all of the in-between bits are where I spend all of my time.

If you're interested in working it out, just do it for you, and keep plugging away at it. Maybe something will happen with it. Maybe not. But as least you'll have a record of it, and you'll probably have some fun or meet some interesting people. The barrier to entry is nonexistent....which is a good thing for people starting those careers, and a bad thing for sustaining them (i.e., anyone can do anything anywhere). Maybe try a new thing? Don't know what that might be. But I wouldn't try to carve out a spot in the existing and overcrowded media landscape if I were you. There are a shit-ton of music blogs out there, you know? If you're interested in pedals, games, music in general...maybe there's a way to synthesize those things in some new format. Maybe even to combine them with some kind of 'personal journey' narrative (I don't mean to minimize this in scare quotes), as you've posted about your struggles of late. 'A Path Through Fuzz and Pixels.' Nahmean?

A little off-topic, but I was just doing some analogic thinking today, and wondering how many 'gears' there are to intelligence...I have a long commute. I isolated seven 'gears' of intelligence--the higher levels are unsurprisingly abstract, and a lot of them have to do with 'mapping' our ideas onto stuff that we already understand. David Ausubel calls this 'subsumption theory,' and it's basically mid- to high-level comparativist thinking.

Mentioned this elsewhere, I'm pretty sure, but I got stuck in the middle of my dissertation because I wasn't sure what I was trying to communicate about my chosen field. I had a lot of enthusiasm and ideas, and a lot of material, but it was lacking cohesion and direction (like life). At pretty much exactly that moment, pedals entered my life, and (not joking at all) compromised my intellectual integrity. They were all I could think about.

A year into the pedal derail, my daughter was born. My wife befriended a woman who had a daughter that same week at some new moms playdate, and she invited us over. That woman's husband turned out to be a Sociology professor at the same university I was at in Buffalo, so we had a lot to talk about. Turns out he plays guitar, and he kind of understood my obsession. He said 'so you're into all that Ray Kurzweil stuff.' I didn't know who that was, but looked him up later, and discovered some crazy shit about his life, work, and writing on singularity. That was the 'white-hot euphoric' moment that writers love--eureka! Kurzweil was the key that I'd been looking for, and everything in the project aligned almost magically after that. And there's no mistaking that it was this tangentially-related obsession that mapped itself onto my work, and really kick-started my career. There was a connective tissue between my mania for pedals and my mania for obscure utopian novels. And finding that became not only a solution to a problem, but also the articulation of a much bigger idea that is still blowing my mind and driving me to do new and interesting things.

Now, I have freedom to write about whatever the fuck I want, and make a pretty damn nice living at it. Next project is cognitive musicology, and maybe the construction of online communities that engage with it (looking at you, ILF). Not bragging, just trying to be encouraging. I would not recommend spending eight years in graduate school to get there like I did. Most of that time was spent on getting credentials in order to contribute to my discipline. If all you want to do is write, you don't need a bunch of degrees. Just a laptop and a new idea.

None of this is meant to 'teach' you anything; just sharing a small slice of my own slog, and trying to demystify the process by which I 1) got to do what I want, and 2) make a reasonable living at it.

[Iommic Pope]

I'd love to start writing fiction and black comedy but I have zero confidence in my abilities.
I feel like I have some great ideas that I find entertaining but would appeal to zero other people on the planet.
Or my execution would just lambast them.

I think I'm going to have to do something soon, though. Not doing things with my life because I'm afraid to is just becoming physically painful.

Sorry. That belongs in the confessions thread.

Also, everyone that I talk to about writing leads a way more interesting life than I do, and is usually about 1000x as smart as I am (IMan, you are no exception to that rule).
One day I learn to bathe in my own mediocrity, but at the moment the stench of it oozing from my pores leaves me sickened and in a state of malaise from self-loathing.

[D.o.S.]

Stealing the applicable bits to as it relates to my own experience (as someone who also puts word on the internet for a living).

I write a lot of dumb posts on ILF.

Probably for the best to keep writing as a side-piece. I do it for a living, and it is not particularly pleasurable for me. I can only speak to my experience, though.

If you're interested in working it out, just do it for you, and keep plugging away at it. Maybe something will happen with it. Maybe not. But as least you'll have a record of it, and you'll probably have some fun or meet some interesting people. The barrier to entry is nonexistent....which is a good thing for people starting those careers, and a bad thing for sustaining them (i.e., anyone can do anything anywhere).

I wouldn't try to carve out a spot in the existing and overcrowded media landscape if I were you. There are a shit-ton of music blogs out there, you know? If you're interested in pedals, games, music in general...maybe there's a way to synthesize those things in some new format. Maybe even to combine them with some kind of 'personal journey' narrative (I don't mean to minimize this in scare quotes), as you've posted about your struggles of late. 'A Path Through Fuzz and Pixels.' Nahmean?


Now, I have freedom to write about whatever the fuck I want, and make a pretty damn nice living at it.

If all you want to do is write, you don't need a bunch of degrees. Just a laptop and a new idea.

None of this is meant to 'teach' you anything; just sharing a small slice of my own slog, and trying to demystify the process by which I 1) got to do what I want, and 2) make a reasonable living at it.

To add: I have a degree in writing (although not a terminal degree in writing), but I also have an aptitude for it, which is something sorely lacking among many people who want to play at being a writer because they're terrified that, deep down, they're boring, and they have this notion that 'creative types' are, by definition, not that. This is, of course, straight up bullshit: writers are generally boring and self-absorbed, because you have to be to write anything that approaches any degree of quality beyond "bad". This is also true for musicians, artists, etc, but people tend to divorce realistic evaluations from their own work, which is why I have to slog through freelancer content that is, to be nice, remedial.

There are a couple of avenues you can take: there's the Traditional/Iowa/terrifically worn coat trope, where you submit stories to anthologies and things. This does not sound what you want to be doing, and it doesn't pay very well (read: at all) unless you're interested in being a writer for the literary/academic set and need what amounts to a portfolio to teach fiction to adorable undergrads who don't realize they're not very good at writing yet, but perhaps (some of them) could be.

You can do the blogging thing, which can pay well but is extraordinarily competitive unless you're working within an existing brand or really get the odds in your favor. Especially for things that are sort of 'passion projects', like sports/movies/pedals... there is a metric ton of it online because people use it to escape their 'real jobs', so my suspicion is that IM's approach is the best: wind it all together and figure out an angle that works for you.

[Jwar]

Chuck,

I love writing. I have since I was little. I started writing poetry when I was very little and continued into my adult years. Sadly I haven't written a poem in years. I have written two novels (unpublished and an editing nightmare LOL) and many short stories.

For me, it sucks because I always want to right but I progress into something and lose the passion for it. Also my writing get pretty fucking dark pretty fast.

For the last few months though I've been writing a fitness blog. I find it kind of like having a window to my soul open for all to see. I write about more than fitness. Motivation for others, I've talked about my alcohol problems and many other things. But it's been a good release to say the least.

So I'd say, whatever you do, just start writing. You'll find what you really want to write about after you get started. I never go in with a plan, it just comes to me.

[D.o.S.]

that typo tho.

[Jwar]

HAH! Which one? I tend to write so fast I don't even notice. LOL

[D.o.S.]

Chuck,

I love writing. I have since I was little. I started writing poetry when I was very little and continued into my adult years. Sadly I haven't written a poem in years. I have written two novels (unpublished and an editing nightmare LOL) and many short stories.

For me, it sucks because I always want to right but I progress into something and lose the passion for it. Also my writing get pretty fucking dark pretty fast.

For the last few months though I've been writing a fitness blog. I find it kind of like having a window to my soul open for all to see. I write about more than fitness. Motivation for others, I've talked about my alcohol problems and many other things. But it's been a good release to say the least.

So I'd say, whatever you do, just start writing. You'll find what you really want to write about after you get started. I never go in with a plan, it just comes to me.

[Jwar]

ahahahahahaha

[PeteeBee]

I think the best bet would be to do a blog with a prime focus, say music, but with freedom to branch out. Do the occasional game review, write about a restaraunt or trend you see on menus, but make these off topic items shorter and lighter than the other content. People want real looks into the creators of the content they consume. I say just go for it. Consistent flow of content is king.

[chuckjaywalk]

I will say, I'm not really interested in making a living off of writing. I'm more concerned with finding a platform and a subject. I cannot imagine myself writing about video games again. They don't inspire any feelings in me.

[neonblack]

I want to start a music blog but my music taste is shit.

I really enjoy writing. I really want to write sci-fi/horror stories, but I always come up with a beginning and some of the middle but never make it to the end.

Mostly I just can't commit to anything. Adult ADD+Bipolar disorder means that my interests change from minute to minute.

I have a really great idea for a music-centric horror movie though.

[Invisible Man]

Also, everyone that I talk to about writing leads a way more interesting life than I do, and is usually about 1000x as smart as I am.

Demonstrably untrue. Don't mistake an active interior life for an exciting exterior one. You only need the first one.

I can't argue about intelligence with you. I am 1000x smarter than you. Sorry.

But writers don't even have to be smart, so that's no excuse.

Basically, I'm just trying to provoke you. What little credit I can take for meager success, I attribute to rage and spite.

[Eivind August]

D.o.S and Invisible Man pretty much nailed it.

I also write for a living, doing fairly ok. Writing, like anything else, is a skill, and skills need practice. So, just find a notepad and start writing whatever comes into your mind. Then cut away half of it while still keeping the essence. Repeat. Since you've already done some writing, this might seem unnecessary, but I would still recommend doing it now and again. Hone thy skill. Yeah.

(I also try to write some sci-fi on my free time. Written a couple of books, none of which have been released. Still trying though. Every crappy attempt leads me closer to a less crappy one.)

[Jwar]

What kind of books? I wrote extremely graphic horror. LOL