To the aspiring creative writer or poet this may concern.
You know who you are. You’re a creative soul. You aspire to write something inspirational for heavens sake.
Chances are, you're likely reading this on a tiny phosphorous lit screen, or maybe not, because you are telepathic and have the ability to read minds. If the latter is true, you need to get in clairvoyant touch with me asap. I've got some silent questions for you.
Either way, for some odd reason the universe has drawn your eyes here to read this.
Maybe you’re a single mother. Maybe you're an up and coming astronaut. Maybe you’re a freshman in college. Maybe you're a retired firefighter. Maybe you’re a third grader with a cosmically robust vocabulary. Maybe you’re perusing through these words for a little piece of written advice. Lord have mercy help us all.
Either way, you're a writer even if you don't think so. You know you are because words are always wiggling around inside your beautiful mind.
I’m a half-assed writer. So I’m half-assed writing this, with the aspiration of writing something halfway wholesome.
Maybe you’re a bit confused, just like me. You haven’t a clue what to do with your life. What you want to be when you grow up. You’re withdrawn from talking about your creative passion to your friends, your family, strangers you don't even know because of reasons unbeknownst to anyone.
You’re lost in the fray of what to write today.
So be it. Write anyways.
It is unfortunate that creative writers and poets are, more or less, labeled as solitary outlaws and woke weirdos in this age of modern day American culture. It is with great regret when I mention that it is not like this everywhere upon this planet.
Across the pond, for example, if you mention to someone that you moonlight as a writer or poet, they get all love drunk on your star-dusted aura, and immediately start discussing with you, ole dusty-whats-his-name and his book, "Notes From The Underground," or even the lesser known works of some guy named Hemingway and his earnest way of writing.
But here in these somewhat United States of America, if you tell someone you want to be a writer or a poet when you grow up, they look at you like you just let out a couple tablespoons worth of wet fart in a jam-packed elevator.
To a lot of folks, telling them you want to write about magic and metaphors and stuff and things for a living, is like saying you want to be the first redneck to set foot on Mars.
“Whatever you do, just don’t quit your day job," they'll say.
Therefore, I feel it necessary to share with you a few thoughts from this here red Alabama clay Martian-like valley about creative writing.
Whether you see my way with words from a professional standpoint, or from a more amateur stance, matters not. There are no rules to writing as far as my mind is concerned today.
There are a couple things most every writer doesn’t want you to be aware of.
One is likely, how to come up with a complete sentence when rummaging through yesterday's trash of eleven hundred and eleven incomplete ones that made no sense.
A complete sentence only needs two things.
It needs a noun. It needs a verb. That's it.
Thoughts think. Ink dries. Words inspire. Magic sighs.
See, a noun and a verb is all you need.
But add one more sentence to it.
Ryan loves.
And voila, just like that this post carries some hefty poetic weight bearing lightly on your pretty mind.
You see, writers and poets alike, are nothing more than just verbal magicians.
It’s all just an act.
We're linguistic illusionists who are always pulling literary bouquets out of our top hats. Yet, instead of calling them bouquets, we often bemuse ourselves for long periods of time, over whether or not we should call them arrangements, garlands, or corsages. Then, from out of nowhere, we pull a whole pocket full of posies right out of our own ass.
Never mind that though.
The most important thing I can tell you about writers, is that none of us have a clue what the hell we’re doing. This is an actual fact for every living and breathing aspiring writer. Never believe a blossoming wordsmith when they tell you they know what they are doing. They are full of lexical shit.
Writers are not nuclear physicists. Writers are not heart surgeons. Well, maybe we are the latter in a metaphoric sense.
We write capricious words and contradictive phrases down on paper. We think up confusing situations in a haphazard sense. We then rethread them with a twisting narrative. We revise and rewrite. We amend what we mean again and again. We declutter entire paragraphs with more descriptive clutter, and redistribute the hidden message elsewhere in your heart and soul with spellbinding words.
Then we highlight and copy everything, and on the occasional accident we click the backspace button, only to paste a day's worth of work into the recycle bin of eternal nothingness.
Then we hop in the car to head on down to our regularly scheduled program of one-on-one mentally physical therapy.
There is another thing I want to tell you about writers.
We are featherbrained, stubborn-minded, knuckleheads.
This is meant to be taken in context with nothing but lightheartedness, and with all due respect to my fellow creative writers.
But it is slightly true, we are—most everyone of us—about as bright as a burnt out lightbulb in an abandoned attic. I’m not insinuating that we are the most unintelligent group of individuals to have ever walked the face of the earth. But I am telling you that we are not necessarily the sharpest tools in the upstairs shed.
I only mention this because the great American downfall of literary misconception is, of course, that well-established writers are viewed as intellectual powerhouses. This is absolute mularkey. We are brilliantly unstable, borderline crazy, and stark raving mad in our own polite, charming, and well-versed way.
I happen to know a semi well-versed writer on a personal level who was rather revered in a small literary circle. He was viewed by his esteemed colleagues as a maestro of written words. Though, he could not change a burnt out light bulb in his own haunted attic without having to track down a handyman on Angie's List.
On the rare occasion though, a writer will write some smart aleck poignant piece of wisdom, and the publishing powers that be will bind its pages to the spine of a thinly sliced tree. But this is all part of the bigger act, the grandiose illusion of illegitimate greatness.
Whenever a writer writes something poignant, it’s either because, first of all, he or she pilfered it from some poetic playwright that tragically died decades ago. Or secondly, because the aspiring writer nodded off with a pen in hand, and woke up from a dream to some magical work of literary chicken scratch.
I’m not saying that writers don’t ever come up with original ideas.
They do.
I’m just saying don’t get too carried away by what they have to say. In other words, don't buy into the self-deprecating myth that the literary greats you respect are that far ahead of you.
They are not.
I have yet another thing to say if I may.
Do something else extraordinary with your life, instead of just writing.
Don’t quit your day job.
Don't misunderstand me either. I’m not telling you not to write. Just don't strive to be a full time writer. Because eventually you’ll run out of stuff to write about if all you do is think about what things to write about.
Instead, go do those things. Use the word about three times in one sentence. Get outside of your mind. Climb a mountain. Start a revolution in your heart. Raise a little hell. Raise it higher. Participate in the reality of all that is mundane and turn it into magic.
A good writer does not lounge around all day with their legs criss-crossed upon some sacred throne of dead trees propped up by Pulitzer Prize after Pulitzer Prize. Good writers get out and experience the romantic safari that life has to offer them. They are satisfied with their existence behind the scenes of the content of their words.
Therefore, go do something irresponsibly amazing. Get a different job that requires less of your professional capacity and more of your creative capability. Learn how to play the ukulele. Start an inspirational poetry page on social media. Take the scenic route and soak up the view from your third eye level. Meet new, weird, and wonderful people. Eat too much mushy spaghetti. Live outside your comfort zone. Forget the goddamn narrative. Fall in love with your experience on this exhausting planet.
Because the harsh reality is, you’re likely not going to write anything worth a what in this lifetime. And if you do, there's a good chance your closely guarded words won’t make the rounds around the cerebral playground of humanity until long after you've gone onto the next divine lesson that the great beyond above has in store for us.
More importantly, don’t worry too much about trying to be great. You’ll never be great, but you can be good enough. Good enough writers only make an everlasting impression on others when they least expect to.
And even if you do, on the off chance of a God given miracle, write the next great masterpiece of good old fashioned timeless literature, or win that aforementioned Pulitzer Prize, or get your name printed in a bunch of fancy magazines, or win a few poet laureate awards, there is yet another bitter truth writers don't won't tell you.
It's that nobody really cares.
That’s upsetting to hear. I know.
But nobody will care how much professional praise you receive, or how many achievements and accolades you win to wipe your butt with.
In fact, most people would rather watch you fail than succeed.
Yes indeed, the proof is in the mustard seed, or maybe I'm supposed to say pudding there, either way, as cliche as it sounds, people really don't care much at all about what you say or do.
So believe you me, when I say, that your experience upon this place will be much more pleasant, and writing "good" will be that much easier if you don’t either, and instead, just write for the sheer (insert cuss word here) fun of it.
For now though, it's time to wrap this post up with nothing but a little love.
I thank you from the bottom of my stubborn heart for scrolling up, down, and all around my rambling mind. But it's time to get off your damn phone, pick up that pen and your journal, and start writing your masterpiece.
It is just a story after all.
Because this world will be a much better place if there were a lot more writers and poets sharing their stories in it.
And one last thing before I forget.
To the aspiring creative writer or poet this may concern,
Do not go quietly unto your grave.
Cordially,
Ryan Love
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