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Resolute

for

January 2, 2005

See, here's the thing: asking a blogger to write more often is a difficult thing. More often than not, the blogger in question wants to write more, more often, and better. Although the requests are directly in line with what they want to do, other things, other responsibilities, other distractions often intervene. Particularly if the blogger in question doesn't consider themselves writers. I would love to consider myself a writer. But I don't. I don't think that it's my calling anymore than going to the gym is a calling. I go to the gym regularly because I know that it's crucial to my mental and physical health. Yet while I believe that writing is a good form of catharsis, a good way of flexing my literary ability, and a way of keeping some people I care deeply about happy--including myself--I don't think that I need the writing the way I need the gym. And since I don't call myself a fitness enthusiast, I can't very likely call myself a writer. In fact, I don't call myself a lawyer. Not simply because I haven't yet been admitted to the bar, a qualification that drives everyone, including S, absolutely batty. Actually, it's because that's what I do, and in some ways, it will undoubtedly be who I become, I know that I've got aspirations beyond being a lawyer. Maybe it will come when I get married, or when I have a child--then maybe the first words of self-description will be: I'm a husband; I'm a father. The closest I can come to something resembling such a thing is to say that I'm a New Yorker, but even that is something I've wrestled with. My heart has always been here, but my body spent a good bit of time in Texas, and sometimes it's advantageous to tell people I'm from there.#[jimmy] But the truth is that I am from here, I percieve my career to be here, and my family homes in on this city like boomerangs. [jimmy]: Like when I go to Brother Jimmy's here in the City, and they have discounts for Southerners, or where it helps in rapport with someone else. Sometimes a day burns in my head, forces me out of bed and over to the computer; sometimes I am walking on the street, swearing I'll remember some jaunty little piece for later and don't; sometimes I find myself wanting to write so desperately that it burns a bit in my mind, but I can't find the time. Sadly, these days, sleep is too precious a commodity, work too strong a whip, and my desire to see S too powerful a compulsion to sit in front of the computer and pontificate on something meaningful or meaningless. But what that all means is that to call myself a writer would be a step beyond what would be politely described as stretching the definition. I am a blogger, and a hardly-prodigious one at that. That said, I do enjoy writing, and I do enjoy getting readers, and I know that for better or worse, this is a hobby I don't intend to lose soon. Maybe I'll carve out an hour each weekend day, maybe I'll start keeping a scrapbook of ideas for rough publication, maybe I'll just start emailing tidbits each day, but this is my new resolution: I will do whatever I can to keep writing regularly. No promises on quality or quantity, but I recognize that I need this outlet every little once in a while, and I do so enjoy it.

This was Wordplay , and it appeared on January 2, 2005 7:37 PM.

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Posted by: PLD at January 14, 2005 4:33 PM

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