Really, the title of the blog says it all.

  So as a way to get myself motivated to write more, I've goaded myself into starting a new blog, partly as a writer's journal, a place to put down ideas and as a place to bemoan my shitty writing. Currently, I have anywhere from 8 to 10 stories going all at once, one of them possibly spawning a sequel or two.

  A little background: I've been writing off and on since I learned how. One of my stories was entered into a contest when I was in first grade and I actually won and award. To be honest, the story wasn't that good; in fact, I doubt very much I could rewrite it now to make it any better, but for a five year old, it was pretty damn good. Since then, though, I haven't done much writing because I felt that I had no ideas. In reality, I just hadn't read enough.

  The most important thing, I believe, to being a writer, aside from a good grasp of your chosen language, is having read a good deal. Not necessarily in any one genre, although if you tend to prefer just one, that's OK. I tend to read omnivorously, from almost any genre from sci fi to fantasy, spy capers, westerns and horror of both psychological and supernatural. As such, I find myself writing just as omnivorously. Indeed, I have a story from almost every one of those genres in the works right now.

  I've read a couple of books on the craft of writing and they've inspired me to get going again on the novel that I've been chipping away on since March of 2012. I highly recommend the book Telling Lies for Fun and Profit if you're interested in the craft of writing. Everybody at work seems to think I'm crazy for writing, and they also think that I'll get published and get rich, etc...

  I won't lie, publication has been in the back of my mind since I finished roughing out the plot of my novel, but the more I think about it, the less I like the idea of publication simply for the sake of seeing my name on a book on shelves, although that would be absolutely orgasmic. I write for relaxation, for the enjoyment of creation, the same reason I like making armor and jewelry. What I write may not be good, but it's not about quality, it's about creation.

  Lawrence Block wonders in Telling Lies why amateur painters don't consider themselves failures because they're not in art expos or why amateur musicians aren't failures for not playing Carnegie Hall while amateur writers will invariably consider themselves failures for not being published. It's true; there is a certain pressure on the amateur writer to get published even though the real trial is getting the idea written and that's the crux of the situation. Writers should be satisfied simply by getting the words on the page, or in the word processor. Once that's accomplished, you can call yourself a writer, no matter what. You are a writer, you've written something. Sure it may be derivative, it may be boring, it may suck harder than a hooker on payday, but who cares, you've accomplished the hard part.

  My point is, publication doesn't really matter, unless you've quit your real job to attempt to write full time, in which case, more power to you. I personally don't have the cojones to do that, but whatever works for you. You should feel satisfied simply by getting words onto pages. And so, here I am, avoiding putting words into my word processor by putting other words on the internet. Is that ironic? And if it is, do I care?