One of the main reasons I need to call myself a writer is because there are too many thoughts and emotions that I need to sort and express, and I am just not a speaker.  When I speak I avoid anything too personal.  It may be something that I am knowledgeable, and usually therefore slightly passionate about, but that does not mean that I am tearing my soul out, hanging it out on the rack so I stare and explore it, rearrange and replace it with something fresh, as I am doing when I write.  Our thoughts, our ideas, are like children born estranged to us and we must sort out the details and give them a place to flourish.  Some of these ideas are standing barefoot, faces marred with dust, mud, the mixture of sweat, dirt, air, and sugar, or sweetener I suppose, that a child can build upon its youthful face and then stand proud and hopeful that there is finally a spotlight on them, and it will not simply pass by and then ramp up the earth and wind behind them in circles before fading out, and moving on.  These are the faces only a parent can love and the light we shine on them must stay focused on these childlike dreams until they illicit an attention so fixed that it stays until everything they must say to us, scream at us, and demonstrate for us, are gone from the heart and placed on the white background of the page.

And of course some of these ideas are more fortunate than others, spoiled by the amount of attention they get.  They are the popular thoughts and ideas that may, or may not, lead to something tangible and or worthwhile.  The short story that cannot be walked away from until its rough draft is smashed out in full, and the writer is left drunk and exhausted.  Often I experience episodes I call the “creative hangover,” a period when my circuits are fried and my thoughts and emotions have spun themselves into a feeding frenzy, ghost sharks ripping and thrashing apart the cortex of my mind.  A dark quiet room and sleep is often the only cure, other times the cure is a trip to the park with my kids and a good book.  I have no problems in identifying my addiction to writing when nursing a “creative hangover,” than a drunk has in identifying his dependence during what alcoholics call “a moment of clarity.”  Perhaps in matters of the self, consumption and depletion should not be identified as opposites when all resources have been exhausted.

Today, after finishing Black Boy, I started Richard Wright’s Native Son, and by the time I finished the 1^st chapter I had listed out three new things that I wanted to focus on developing and toy with in my writing.  I have posted a more concise rendition of this list at my desk so that I will not get too sidetracked and will stay focused on these ideas (ideals) for at least the next two weeks.  This brings me to my most self clarifying justification of the title writer.  I am a writer because I spend an insurmountable amount of my time reading, studying, and inculcating the prose of those that have come before me, and then inspired and fueled with excitement, I work on my own.

            Most of my journal entries were short and fetid documentations of how my perverted and sprawling little mind worked.  I wrote of how I would jump from my seat and sprint to my favorite spot on the rug in the book nook every afternoon at 1 o’clock, story time.  My spot was directly in the center and second row, because from this vantage point I could spy up Mrs., we’ll call her Soap for the fact that this is a public blog, Soap’s skirt and view the thin cleft between her thighs and see her panties.  At the end of the day I would document the different colors, designs, and patterns that her brilliant cottony undergarments were ordained with.  A few times I shared my findings with friends.  In this journal I also documented my first ever, probably not wet but, moist dream.  I don’t think that any young men who came of age in the late 70’s or early 80’s, as I did, will be surprised to read that it was of Princess Leia.

            Since then my prose and content have improved diminutively while expanding my education and world experience.  While serving in Iraq I kept a journal that has really served as a safety line between me and my experiences there.  There are times when I need to remember the order and dates that certain events had taken place, and when I do I simply take grasp of that safety line and pull the memories back on board for a few hours for research.  In adjusting to life since getting off active duty I have continued to journal my thoughts and daily experiences.  Some of that will now be devoted to this blog I hope.

            No worries, this blog will not read like a private journal nor will it be filled with any sexual exploitations or voyeur smut.  The purpose of this blog is really just an exercise for me as a writer.  I write a lot.  Well, I write a minimum of 3000 words daily and sometimes start two or more projects in one day, and sometimes, if I’m on it, can complete one or two projects a day.  More than 90% of my writing; however, is never seen by anyone other than myself, or the viewing mass is a very limited mass at that.  So this blog will hopefully serve as a means for me to write when I have something, or nothing really at all, to say, and then share it online. 

Most of what I will write will most likely be to review literature, current events, and discuss writing, much of the prose will be an expression of my taste, or distaste for daily life.  Being a writer I certainly hope that they will be worth reading for some.  Being a human I certainly hope that they will have the humanistic quality I feel any good literature must have. 

            My goal has been set to post a minimum of one blog a week.  This probably does not sound like a colossal task, but considering that I hope to keep the quality somewhere near my ceiling of “total shit,” and I have opted to get a public speaking and statistics class, required for my major and minor, out of the way this summer, and I am still working a few shifts at the bar, it could prove to be strenuous at times.  So here is to a new endeavor and, wait hold your drink up, higher, ok, to a new blog.  I will hence forth begin to plop my tiny meaningless opinions and observations into the vast and turmoil sea that is the internet, but who knows, perhaps if I plop enough of them and they group together for like of commonness they will begin to wash upon the shores of some place nice, and soil this nice place and stick to the feet of those who walk its beaches!