So You Say You Want A Resolution

Writing a story with a viable beginning, middle, and end? If you are, kudos to you. If you've gotten stuck on the "good-idea-but-where-do-I-go-from-here-phase," well...

Okay, here's where I'll probably sound preachy, but I swear I'm really not. I DON'T think I'm a better writer than you. Heck, I don't even really know you, not on a name-to-name basis, anyway. But we DO have a lot in common. For one: a modicum of talent (and in your case, possibly much more). Also, and this next one is a doozy, so listen up: we're not famous for doing what we love (yet).

My sole intention here is to save you some trouble (in the hope the boost in my karma will work in my favor) by sharing my experiences thus far from the other side of wherever you are (and if you are in the midst of struggling with your craft, then these words are for you). I've been there, too (still am), just as, say Steven King, is looking back at some of us now (fondly, I hope). It's not that he's a better writer than you, necessarily. He's just luckier. We have the much more important thing in common with the Kings of the world: we love to tell a good story. As I've heard it put bluntly before: celebrities are just normal people with extraordinary jobs.

So please, don't despair. Just remember: do it for the love of it. No other reason will suffice.

Where Do We Go From Here?

During a romantic(esque) scene of my current project, one of the characters tells his date, "It doesn't matter if nobody's around in the forest to hear the tree fall." To which she replies, "It matters to the tree."

That's what I'm talking about: anonymity versus meaning. Why do I write, and more importantly, why do you? I do it because it matters to me. I don't know why it matters, but it does. Maybe it's because I have something relevant to say. Maybe it's because I love to hear (or is it see?) myself represented in such a way that posterity bears out. Maybe I'm just delusional (or is it dismissive? You pick). All I know is that win or lose, if I someday have a million readers or just a very lonely one, it matters. It matters to me...

Make it matter to you, too.

Mission Statement

Hey you...

Yeah, you.

If you're an amateur, albeit talented, writer, then this is the place for you.

Don't believe me? I can relate. When it comes to places on the Internet for writers, I've been there, done that (not to mention the numerous pratfalls I've undertaken submitting work, going on epic quests for the holy grail (i.e. trying to secure an agent) at writers' conferences, and my attempts to get anyone within earshot to read and honestly critique my work, all the while trying to seem cool and aloof as my heart beat at 100 m.p.h. that they'd like me, they'd really like me.

This is not to say I haven't found some gems among my experiences thus far (more on that later on), but I've done a LOT of wheel spinning, been around the writer's block, and wasted HUGE spans of time (that would've been better spent honing my craft) searching for a way to break into the publishing biz. I've been to the other side, and now, I'm... "content" ("happy" would be grossly overshooting the mark) to share my experiences, past, present, and future, with all of you (and by "you," I mean the "you" who's reading this right now. All the other "yous" can jump in front of a literary bus, for all I care... Okay, I do care, hence the blogging, but I want you to know that whoever you are, you're hands down my favorite).

Soooo... Now that I've got your attention, where do we go from here?

I'll start (and end) with this: if you are a writer, I mean, believe it with every beat of your artistic little heart, I'm going to help you, and by helping you, I'm going to help me. "How?" you ask. By being honest about everything I know as it pertains to writing.

NOT that I'm some guru on the mountaintop (one glance at my writing credits thus far should quell any notion of that), but I want to get us back to the place we started from--that place we used to be when it occurred to us that we knew how to put a string of words down on the page and make it howl at the moon.

The desire to get published, to be recognized for our sustained efforts, can ruin that for a lot of us. It's discouraging. I realize this. We know we're good enough, but the quest for fame and fortune for our artistic endeavours has gotten in the way of the joy.

You remember the joy, don't you? That rush you used to feel doing what you love?

Well, I got mine back, baby. After everything I've done (and every misstep I've taken while doing it): two self-published novels, a few short stories, oodles of poetry, I'm back...

With a vengeance.

See, I lost my way trying to be a talented writer (by way of rewriting, recasting, retooling, over-thinking, over-analyzing, over-wroughting, and just plain overdoing my work), but then something happened, something akin to an epiphany: I remembered that I was in the first place all along. And so are you. Hence, the poem, The Bright Side below (a.k.a. My Mission Statement and not so gentle reminder why we're here).

So let's get back to it, shall we?

K.M.M.

The Bright Side

A word to the Unwise:

What if we live in a world
where dreams go to die.

What if we have to face it and discover
that none of us are meant to be anybody.

That not one of us will
ever be president, a movie star, or a
famous person of any kind.

What if nobody like us wins,
much less earns, a million dollars.

What if that only happens to Them:
The Blessed.
The Lucky.
The Gifted with their perfect skin
and beautiful eyes.

There is still a bright side.

Even if I am a nobody, I am still kin
to the tireless Dreamers, in the eye
of a hurricane of heartbreak yet
to arrive.

I will not squander my unrequited destiny.

Better to perish in a
fool’s dream than to
live in armless reach
of paradise.