Here’s to a Year of Writing: In Which a Person Who Used to Write for Fun Undertakes a Challenge to Write for Himself Again - A Justification for This Blog
Hello there, would-be reader, and welcome to this inaugural article to kick off what could be an ill-conceived vanity project to stoke what little creative flames still exist in this husk-like form I call my body. Or put more simply, how’s it going? I’m doing fine.
For those who do not know me, I am Henry Shepard, owner of this website and sometimes writer. I struggle with the last bit of that sentence - sometimes writer. There’s a saying that goes: there are two types of people, those who can extrapolate conclusions from incomplete data.
I’ve come to find from various conversations with other would-be writers, people who use the term without hesitation, various colleagues of various levels of achievement, and with complete total degenerates that there are also two types of writers out there in the wide world: Those who freely call themselves a writer and those who struggle with the term.
I fall into the latter category, if you couldn’t tell (you might be in that other group of people from the second paragraph). Writer is such a loaded term for those who haven’t really made it with their writing, you know? It feels like a trap to bring up that you’re a writer in conversations with people at casual party atmosphere type places. The conversation goes as such:
A Stranger: And what do you do?
Me: I am a writer.
A Stranger: Oh, and have you written anything I would have come across?
Me: Have you ever broken into my Google Drive and clicked on the folder entitled: Writings?
A Stranger: No.
Me: I wrote James Cameron’s Avatar.
Repeat ad nauseam, as the few publications I have achieved fall into the esoteric realm of literary fiction journals, poetry journals, and heaps of technical articles about manufacturing that I wouldn’t be eager to share with people.
Hence, a blog. Hence, something to point at for me to tell people that I do write. Here is the product. I have completed this many [holding up fingers] units of writing. They are on display for all to see on the website that has most of my name in the URL.
There is a lingering question though.
Why Now?
Ah, yes. Of course. The all important “Why?” A little known fact about my life, but I happen to work for an individual who has some very questionable opinions about how people’s visions should be communicated to those around him. From what I can put together from eight years of working with this individual, he must have read a book once that stated it was important to start with why you are doing something.
To this end, every single one of the multiple hundreds of publications I have written for him over the years starts with a section entitled START WITH THE WHY that explains exactly why it is important to start with why we are doing the thing we are doing. This section is boiler plate formatting that I have copied and pasted over and over for every new publication, always leaving a blank space to be filled in later to explain what the particular reason for this particular publication is. 90% of these blank sections are still blank.
So, in a move to continually improve and an opportunity to dunk on my boss who will certainly never see this, let me actually provide an answer to this question.
Because Everything is Horrible
Yeah, we’re going to be having fun with form vs function here. I love meta-narrative and intertextuality, so some of the headings are going to be like this.
But in a nutshell, yeah. Things feel bad right now. The world isn’t in a state where I feel like being at present, so I’m doing the one thing I can do (you know, besides all the activism I should be doing) and retreating into myself for reflection and, hopefully, betterment.
Writing is a self-serving action. Publishing that writing doubly so. There’s advice about writing fiction that is repeated often in classes where someone mentions trying to make money from their writing, usually in regard to what one should write about in order to maximize the chances of getting published. These discussions are the worst, but the advice is good.
Write for one person. You can google that sentence and find dozens of articles mirroring the same sentiment. Some of those articles will even go further like I’m about to do and define who that one person is. It should differ from person to person depending on the type of person you are. For some, it’s picturing a young person, or a very specific type of person. For others, like me, it’s themselves. Fun fact, for Jesse Eisenberg it’s apparently Emma Stone.
I am my favorite author. It’s silly, but I really just have something that I can relate to as a reader. It’s like I can see into my head and pluck out my very thoughts and put them to paper. I’m just so relatable to myself. So this blog will be in service to that. I am going to write things that I want to read. And hopefully, you might too. I don’t know. I am not you.
Wait, That’s a Journal
Oh, shoot. You’re right. Well, it’s not all going to be personal essays and reflections on the banalities of my life. I have plans for this blog to include writings on the various topic categories that interest me most. Namely, video games, movies, books, and well, any and everything that I feel like writing about. I’ve a few lined up to follow up this post with to make good on this, I promise.
The title of this piece ever so subtly calls attention to a year of writing. My aim is to try to write every day and publish whatever seems good enough to publish. There won’t be a new blog article every day. It hopefully might be at least one new article a week, but the goal is to write every day and publish the things that seem worth reading.
Minus this article, I suppose. This one feels mandatory to publish whether it’s good or not (it’s not good) since it outlines, like, the entire point of the blog.
So, Stay Tuned
One of the requirements for the Master of Arts in Fiction Writing from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi (To the Top!) was writing a thesis in the form of a short story collection. The collection required a preamble that was to serve the reader in preparation for the collection they were about to read.
I, being ever the performer during that period of my life, chose to end the borderline waxing philosophical reasoning behind the stories in that collection with an invitation for the reader to enjoy the stories. A move that was met with much dismay by my thesis defense committee.
“Too much showmanship.”
“Feels like you’re a ringleader at a circus.”
“You realize people have killed themselves over writing, right?” (More on him later)
Those were jokey recreations of what was actually said, but the sentence, “It might be best to put away your showman’s hat,” was said to me in one of the most nerve wracking settings of my life. My response at the time was, “Well there aren’t that many opportunities to wear it.” And I was quickly reminded that I shouldn’t be responding.
The funny thing about that hat is, it can’t be put away. It’s always on. I was born with it and it is a part of me. In some ways, yes, it does make me very similar to The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman. But in many other ways, it just allows me to say “Stay tuned,” without any sense of irony. Watch this space. Things are coming. I’d love for you to see them.
