Metaphors Are Like... Squirrels, Or Something To That Effect

It's probably a mistake, the way I approach writing. I don't mean that I think the way I write is a mistake, necessarily, although I certainly do make quite a few mistakes. Everyone does, though... I read somewhere that in order to master something, I mean, in order to really consider yourself an expert at something, it takes around 10,000 hours of practice. That's something in the order of practicing two hours, every single day, for something like fourteen years, which means I'm probably a master at sleeping, and not much else.

Anyway, my point isn't about the mistakes that I make when I write, because even though I like to think I'm pretty good at it, I realize I'm not an expert... I mean, hell, I need spell check to catch me when I do things like misspell "yourself," which I've done twice so far in this post.

I think that maybe the reason I write is a mistake. Now, isn't that a funny thing to say? I mean, why does it matter, the reason that I'm doing this? Haven't I ranted somewhere in these pages that I just like to tell stories, that I think the whole psychoanalyzing of the creative mind is mostly just intellectual masturbation? Well, yes, I did say that, and I do stand by that, but therein likes the hypocrisy of my opinions. On the one hand, I believe that the reason for writing is to tell stories, that when it's all said and done, the story is what matters. Storytelling is the soul of humanity, despite what all of my writing classes have told me. I like to that that's because you can't really teach storytelling, and you shouldn't try, because storytelling is, in my opinion, a lot like magic; impossible to quantify, and capable of creating fireballs. Wait, that metaphor might have gotten away from me.

Seriously, though, my point is that classes can teach craft, and that's a good thing, because you need craft; craft makes you polished and honed and is the difference between a professional and an amateur (I'm still humble enough to consider myself the latter, of course.)

I've said time and again that stories are what matter: I read, because I like stories and I write because I like to create stories. Except that now we're getting to the hypocrisy I mentioned. When I sit down, when I tell myself that I should be working on my novel, it's not because I feel the need to say something. Honestly, most days, I don't want to even bother... writing is work the vast majority of the time, and anybody who thinks otherwise is either a genius or a liar (and quite possibly both at the same time.) Sure, it's easy sometimes... but then, sometimes, you bowl a 200 when normally, a great game for you might be 150 (true story, I bowled a 200 once).

When I sit at my computer, when I look at the cursor on the blank line, very rarely is my motivation for doing so to tell stories, to create something that I know other people will enjoy. No, sadly, my motivations are usually far more selfish than that, just as my motivations for blogging at this point are completely and entirely selfish. I write because it makes me feel better when I do. I find that writing keeps me from getting locked inside my own mind, from getting too caught up in the maelstrom of my own thoughts. Writing is a way to pour all that thought out, to purify my mind and find something resembling a mental release.

I'll say it again, I write to make myself better. I write, because it's the only way I know how to improve my mood in such a drastic and profound way that I become the kind of person that I want to be. It's like my drug, or something... not my cocaine drug, but my Zoloft or my Lexapro or whatever. When I'm writing, I feel awesome. When I don't... when the days slip away from me and I glance at my word document and realize that I haven't written a single word in almost a month... well, that's when I slip back into myself. That's when days start passing in a strange blur that doesn't seem entirely real. That's when I start living the byline of my blog: "What did I do yesterday?"

I'm not sure why I'm admitting all of this. I'm quite certain it paints me as a special kind of crazy, although (fingers crossed!) it makes me the cool, mysterious, brooding artist kind of crazy, rather than like, "smelly wino, No, honey, don't give him eye contact, okay, fine, give him a dollar so he'll go away" kind of crazy.

It may have something to do with the fact that I've been feeling a little weird lately and that my reason for not writing regularly, because I've been busy with finals, has been both unjustified (I did NaNoWriMo during the busiest month of the year AND during a raging Dragon Age addiction) and about to evaporate since tomorrow's the very last day. It may have something to do with the fact that lately, even though I've been happy, I've been feeling... a little weird.

It may be because I really, really want to finish this damn novel, and I noticed that the more that I blog, the more than I novel-write. It's weird, I've read in other places that blogging is a great way for writers to distract themselves, so that they can equate blogging with "real writing" and thus never get around to actually writing. I find that, for me, it's more like blogging is more like a bit of oil squirted into the gears in my brain, it gets everything working smoothly and efficiently.

Even if my process has always been to novel-write first and then blog. So, really, that metaphor doesn't make a bit of sense, which seems to be a bit of a theme tonight. Goddamn squirrelly metaphors. Hey! Squirrelly metaphors is a good title... and according to spell check, "squirrelly" is totally a real word. Score.