Remember playing in the playground as a kid? Because what else are you going to do in a playground, right? Those older kids sold drugs - and when you got older you probably bought them. But for now I want you to imagine what it was like to just be a kid, cavorting about the playground - specifically the slides, because they relate to the metaphor I'm about to hit you with.
Remember how the slides used to take so long to climb? They seriously built them wrong. All those steps up the back end? They seemed to take forever. You may as well just not bother and go play with something else. The swings were pretty cool and they didn't take nearly as long to start.
Some people managed to persevere. Some people said 'to hell with the climb' (or they didn't, because you're not allowed to say hell when you're a kid, not if you want to get into heaven) 'I'm going up, the slides look fun!' Those steps up are pure torture on your little, not-out-of-short-pants-yet legs.
But once those kids got up there they were flying freer than any five year old child can fly.
This laborous metaphor sort of sums up how I feel about writing. Or it would be, if I wasn't legally prohibited from remembering my own childhood. It's a hard slog up those first steps. But once you're over them the rest is magic. The hardest part is starting, folks, every journey, a single step and all that.
Actually, it seems like it would be much easier to just straight up say that in the beginning. But I've already worked on the metaphor now, no point in going back to change it.
My name is Matt Holland. For the purposes of this (blessedly one way) conversation, you may refer to me as 'Writerman' because that's the only name that I could think of that blogger hasn't already given to someone else.
What's all this about?
I'm glad you asked, me-but-in-bold-type, because that's exactly what I wanted to say next after my sliding metaphor.
I am a writer. Why do I write? You may as well ask why a dog spins around in circles before he goes to sleep, why do monkeys throw their poo around, why do elephants look like happy old people? The point is that they do. Those animals do all that. I write.
It goes beyond a simple hobby for me. It's not my job either (at least not yet). But I do it because it's who I am. It's what I love to do. While the rest of the people I know are looking forward to getting home to a loving family, or going down to the pub with their mates, or waiting the car park for their next victim (whatever they do to relax) I'm looking forward to writing. I can never wait for that sweet thrill of kicking off my shoes, making a massive cup of coffee and hammering words into haphazard sentances.
Am I good at it? No. Or at least I'm not good enough. One of the sad things about this creative medium is that you'll never be as good as you should be. A musician might hear a beautiful melody in their head and then produce that, note for note with their instrument. They may not get it precisely right, but they can get a good approximation. Good enough that you know what they're going for. A tune is a tune, the audience hears it and the musician hears it and you can mostly assume that they're listening to the same thing.
All a writer has at his disposal are words. Clumsy words that have a brutish tendancy to misspell themselves whenever you're mid-flow. You can imagine a scene - but then you need to express that scene with nothing but your vocabulary.
"It was a lake, but had those thingies in it."
"There were some trees there too."
"The dog was brown."
All of these examples represent bits of terrible writing that I have produced. Except for the first one - unless you want to get all meta-quantum on me (please don't). It doesn't exactly make your heart leap in the same way that a photograph or a painting can. Those mediums let you see things exactly as the artist does. Writing leaves a lot of room for interpretation - especially if you can't stretch your vocabulary far enough.
But that's also why I love it.
Okay, genius. If you're a good enough writer to have an online journal. Why aren't you published?
Over the line, me-but-in-bold-type. I do my best. I actually have a book doing the rounds at the moment. There could be literary agents out there, right now, at this second, preparing a rejection slip for me. Isn't that exciting?
The point is - I have written two and a half full length novels and a multitude of short stories.
I look through forums and comment posts and myspace pages and I see people everywhere claiming the mantle of writer. Although these people claim to be working on their novel, they will give some excuse like 'I never get time' or 'I can't get any good ideas' or 'stop following me home, seriously, I'm beginning to regret adding you to my friends list'. They claim to be writers, but all they offer you are misspelled journal entries and badly lit photographs.
I think writers, even terrible ones like me, always find time to write. They rearrange their lives so that the craft comes first, they spend all day thinking about it and then all night getting it done. Or they do it in the morning and think about it at night - however it works for them. They don't claim to be working on a book and then spend their time watchin telly.
You can see these people in the real world. The sort of person that carries a notebook everywhere they go but will only take it out when people are watching. They like the mystery and creative aloofness that comes with being a writer, but they put no work into becoming one.
Because writers aren't aloof, or mysterious, or magical. They're just people, like you and me, that are spending a lot of time making an easy job look difficult.
Well, I'm making it look difficult in this first entry. Just to prove my point though.
Starting up this journal is my way of slapping the stupid out of you - assuming you are one of these cafe writing liars, and my way of trying to encourage you if you are on of the people that actually works at their craft every day.
Plus it won't hurt to make my presence known to the internet. Especially with my novel getting shopped around to the agencies. If they ask for another sample of my work I can just point to this online journal and get my rejection slips that much faster.
So what can we expect out of you?
Bad comedy. Tasteless jokes. Blaming the government for all my problems. Lengthy metaphors. Just the usual, boring, journal-y stuff that people stick in these things.
What you won't be getting out of me is the word 'blog' or at least if I use it, it won't be in reference to my little corner of the internet (here and some parts of The Escapist forum). Because I believe that the word has been co-opted by the corporations. I'll probably go into why I hate the word in later entries. But trust me, I have good reasons.
Basically, I have a secret but I'm not going to tell you. How does that feel?
I bet it feels awful.
But seriously, me-but-in-bold-type. I've had the idea for an online writing journal of writing for some time. It's a subject that I'm passionate about. It's all I know how to do, really. So I'm going to write about writing - hopefully get some dialogue going with the people who read this (may I just take this opportunity to say, 'Hi Mum!'). Maybe I'll make us all better writers, maybe I'll just scribble away in this thing like a blind prisoner scribbling on the walls of an empty cell. That is to say I'll scribble on here until I go insane.
More so.
Why do you write?
Because of spite and caffeine and the voices in my head. Next.
What do you write about?
Right now I'm working on a full length novel about a private detective who is also a wizard. Earlier in the year I wrote a short novel about a sexless loser learning how to play guitar to impress a girl. The novel that's being stamped for rejection by every literary agent in the country right now is an oversized thriller set in a modern day fantasy world. Think a D & D world but with cars and you're part way there.
I'm eclectic. I tend to try and fuse three or four ideas together into one story and sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes it does and I'm rewarded with a book that's sort of readable.
I like to read a lot. My favourite authers (off the top of my head) are Steven King, Charles Bukowski, Sergei Lukyaneko, R.A Salvatore, Anne Rice, Edgar Allen Poe, Phillip K Dick, Elmore Leonard, George Orwell, PJ Tracy, HP Lovecraft,, Terry Pratchett and Lawrence Block. Those just represent the authors whose books I can reach from my chair - I have three stacks of books piled up in one corner of the room. If I compiled all these books into one stack it'd be taller than I am, it'd be architecturally unsound and I'd still have plenty of books to spare. I love reading.
This eclectic reading of sci-fi, pulp and fantasy has translated into eclective writing within the genre of sci-fi, pulp and fantasy. Sometimes trying to combine all three. It's what I like to read ergo it's what I like to write. It may not be high literature but that's a subject for a future journal entry.
What's your update schedule?
Basically I'll update this journal every time I update your Mum's vagina with my dick. That is to say, a lot.
See? I'm neither gentle nor kind. Just ask your mother.
But to say it in a less insulting way - I'll try to update when I can. I make no promises that I'll have new, entertaining content on here every day, but I reckon it'll be pretty often. I have a lot of ideas for future entries all bubbling up in the mad science pot that is my brain. I'm sure to discover more things to say as I go.
So you just spent the past hour writing this? What about these supposed novels that you write?
When do you work on them? Huh? Do you ever work on your novels?
You're just a hypocrite is all!
Stop ganging up on me!
I actually did do some writing today. I dumped 1,000 words into my P.I story. Mostly it's just flavour stuff, nothing plot related yet. But there's a plot there and it's moving around. I reckon I'll be done in a month and I don't reckon I'll be posting it here.
Most days I'll be doing my actual, novel writing before I come here.
So there is it. Matt 'Writerman' Holland now has his writing journal of writing.
I've taken up enough of your time, I'll let you get back to your porn and wikipedia research (into porn) now.
Peas!
(Which is something I've always said every time I finish writing something for the internet. Been doing it since I was eighteen or so. Y'see it sort of sounds like the word 'peace' when you say it out loud - I thought it was the height of wit when I was in my late teens. It's just what I say to remind me of the gutter I crawled out of.)
- Writerman
