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I can't tell people that I am a writer:
October 10, 2007
Because I don't think I am a writer. I don't write books. I have things that I have written, and I have written things that I work on sometimes, but I don't work on it that hard. It is easy. I do it because it is easy. I don't work on it like a job. I don't think I want to work on it like a job. I want to work on a job like it is a job.
If you are an actual writer, it is your profession. A writer gets paid to sell writing to people, and that is a challenge. It is difficult to be a writer who sells work. You have to put a lot of discipline and focus into what you do. It is an actual job, and I respect people who do that job, like I respect anyone else who does a job.
I get paid for a job that has very little to do with writing about how sad I am at times. I like doing other jobs that are not writing. I am lucky in that I have had the financial and emotional support from my parents and wife to develop a skill-set i like, and to stay in school so I can eventually get a job that makes money that is not writing.
Some people are good at video games and play a lot of video games. They do not bitch about not making any money off of playing video games. They get jobs to support their video game playing. A person may be an awesome video game player, but to the people they meet, they are primarily computer salesman or in marketing or whatever.
If you make money off of writing sentences, you are a writer. If you do not make a money off of it, you are, well, you are a writer too, but listen, no one tells people they are a video game player at parties.
If your primary interest in life is to make art, you are an artist. If your primary interest in life is to write, then sure, you are a writer. I am not going to shit on your tracks. But telling people this does not make your art or writing better. It is something that will disconnect you from nice non-artist people. It will disconnect you from people that you should have a real relationship with and not alienate because what you do is weird and self-important and "cool" and "unique".
The act of presenting yourself as an artist first and foremost to other people is one that has been ruined by people who are pieces of shit. I understand this. I have, at times, been this piece of shit and regret it now. The terms "artist" and "writer" have lost their weight and relevance because people who like to talk about themselves took these terms and rubbed their asses on them. Also, telling people you are a poet is like taking a shit in the park and getting caught mid-act by a stranger.
I am a lot of things, but I can't claim to be any of them. It's hard to call yourself anything, if you are an honest person. If you are an artist, it should be really hard to call yourself an artist, because the act of observing and interpreting things, unless you are a formalist or an asshole, requires transparency and uncertainty.
I'm not completely sure of what I'm trying to say. I am just trying to make something clear to myself, I guess, and I'm not even completely sure of what the something is. People should talk shit in the comment section. I am tired of working on this entry now.
comments
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that's because playing video games isn't actually making anything.
- rio / October 10, 2007 8:21 PM
truly talented people rarely toot their own horn
- mom / October 10, 2007 9:01 PM
i like this blog
- anna / October 10, 2007 11:06 PM
rio - i used to think the same thing, too.
but playing video games and making art are, at most, just passing time.
essentially, doing anything artistic is the same thing as reading a book or playing a video game, it's just that creative people add more weight to the artistic endeavor because they are making something that is reflective of their lives, and people have a hard time detaching themselves from something so personal. it's hard to be objective about art, especially when you make it all the time. you want to believe, like i want to believe, that what you are doing is special and important. it is, but it isn't more special and important than what other people pass their time with.
making something, on a personal level, is just as relevant and productive as enjoying something.
Video game players get high scores, and a reputation for themselves online. and it may not be intellectually on par with me writing a blog entry, but that doesn't make it any more or less a waste of time. it is the same thing i am doing.
people are all just trying to enjoy something they like to do while they are alive.
i've started to think that putting a value judgment on what other people waste their time on is just as subjective and arbitrary as making judgments on other people's morality.
- gene / October 11, 2007 8:53 AM
when i played a lot of video games i concentrated even more on the video games than i do today on writing. the people i hung out with when i played gemstone III in middle school all played gemstone III and all we talked about was gemstone III. people would ask me for advice on gemstone III, if they should buy a fishspine sword.
i like this post. writing to me also isn't more 'special' or 'worthwhile' than playing video games or building canoes or something.
- tao / October 11, 2007 4:40 PM
Writing can turn into an addiction like video games too. They seem similar also in the anxiety-of-wanting-to-compose-or-decipher-some-elemental-concept-worth-conquering-or-understanding kind of way. Puzzles.
I like to play words like music notes. Some things I write play a song for me when I read them back and make my mind feel easy in a 'I've been productive today kind of way,' which helps sleep, along with the venting aspects of it. Clutter is a pain to sift.
I did a few commisions, travel pieces for a paper once a few years ago, where they told me the key was to write as if to a 12 year-old were going to read it; to satisfy literacy levels for their consensus of average intelligence'd readers.
In that stupid feeling moment, my heart broke when I knew I could never have a career in something I love to do if I couldn't do it my way, which is, to the average person, undeciferable.
Once I realized how much a of serious writer I wasn't, and stopped obsessing over eventually becoming a 'writer,' writing became less for 'them,' more for me, and way more fun.
- Sabra / October 11, 2007 11:16 PM
Det är så riktig.
"It's hard to call yourself anything, if you are an honest person."
- Erin / October 16, 2007 4:09 PM
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