The writer who is not an author (a prologue)

If you have checked in on this blog more than once, then you know that I love writing, which is why this page even exists.

I wrote my first real tragedy when I was eighteen. It was a three page glimpse of a man whose wife dies in child birth. When I did it, I just wanted to get this little story out of my rattling cage and for years after, I only managed to squeak out a couple other shorts.

A few years back, I worked at a horribly dead-end job where I filled a little bit more with scraps of anger. Finally, I had to let my anger out and, rather than walk into work with a semi-automatic weapon, I put the pen to paper for a full length novel. I had a fun plot line developed with an equally irate co-worker so I ironed out some characters and let them loose. By the end of the book, my angry little characters had turned into mass-murderers, eliminating the injustices evident in our world by taking out hypocrites and degenerates, they were fictional purifiers that ended up battling the demons I was carrying inside my head.

Once that book was complete, all my little stories ran to the forefront of my brain and saw their big brother sitting on just shy of five hundred pages. A riot broke loose in my cranium, knocking over the establishment and shaking down ideas I shelved away to forget forever. What was I to do with that mess?

I got it out. Next thing I know, I can't stop the stream of ideas, characters, plots, villains, scenes, and general clutter banging around, waiting for their chance to get out. I tried to push it all back and dam it up by focusing on college but the constant rush broke my fortress and made a bigger, sloppier mess in my skull.

Finally, I let it go. For better or for worse, I let all of that disaster flow from my thick head, through my arms, and out onto the keyboard, spilling letters of profanity into the universe. Was it the right thing to do? Most likely not. Is it going to change the way man exists, I sincerely doubt it.

So, why do it then? Why punish the rest of humanity with the garbage inside my mind? Because it just feels good to let it out, to release this built up pressure against my brain plate. My happiness is other people's pain. Besides, one man's trash is another man's treasure and I hope that someone picks up something my mental diarrhea has dribbled out and finds great value in his findings.

With that said, I know writing is the easy part. I would have told you that was bullshit when I almost quit my first manuscript because I wrote myself straight into an inescapable corner (each time I did it). Even now, right now on my third manuscript, where I sit in another corner of no escape (thus the birth of this blog post). Writing is the easy part, at least, for a writer with no published credits to his name.

That's right, I have no cred in the publishing world and that's where the tough part is. Try breaking into the White House or, worse yet, Hugh Hefner's estate without the reputation needed to walk through the front gate. That's me, sitting outside the iron fence, watching the world on the inside. Hell, even the talentless pool-boy can get inside once a week. Thing is, that talentless pool-boy has some cred somewhere.

So, as I continue to write, as I continue to sit in corners, I will begin chronicling the steps I have taken to build up some street rep with the big dogs of an industry I don't yet belong to. Maybe you can journey with me; laugh while I fall on my face, cry at some of the treasure I try pushing, feel the rush of potential success, chug tediously through the 'behind the scenes' garbage I wade through.

We learn socially, so I am here to make mistakes to help you. Who knows, maybe I'll even stumble upon a little bit of success along the way.