I wouldnât dare call myself an expert in creative writing. Although itâs something I do daily, it feels pretentious to apply a hierarchical model to the creation of art. Words like âexpertâ or âprofessionalâ seem silly when applied to something as arbitrary as creativity.
This is the classic writerâs cop-out, deputized at Thanksgiving when you return home from whichever metropolis you have chosen to sublet a closet-sized bedroom. Family and friends ask you how the âwriting thingâ is going and you regurgitate the prepared statement you concocted at the airport while scanning the never-ending parade of black luggage as it spills onto the conveyor belt at baggage claim.
Youâre a writer and you donât write for The New York Times, The Daily Show, or Two and a Half Men, so you will need an excuse for not achieving the non-writing publicâs apparent minimum requirement to be called a âreal writer.â
"You know what show I like? That show Breaking Bad!", your functionally illiterate uncle declares. "Thatâs a good show. You should write for them."
I don't have the heart to tell him that they don't make that show anymore. So I nod my head enthusiastically, "Yeah, totally!"
But I can tell you with no trepidation that I am in fact an expert in the field of masturbation. I mean that in the purest sense. I mean expert as in, if there were a masturbation related homicide, I could give expert testimony in the court of law. I mean expert as in Malcolm Gladwellâs 10,000 Hour Rule expert. Itâs not a paying gig but to friends and family, on the scale of professional achievement, itâs probably on par with writing.
"At least itâs physical," mom might say, "My son, the professional athlete."
When you consider it, the similarities between masturbation and writing are uncanny:Â
Both generally happen in front of a laptop with countless windows open on your desktop.
In both cases you become detached from reality while constructing complex narratives.
Both are difficult to do at Starbucks.
In both cases, itâs generally annoying to have someone peering over your shoulder looking at your work before itâs done.
Both emotionally and physically exhausting.
Both take way longer if youâre drunk.
Both are wildly dissatisfying if not finished.
Regardless of what your parents think, your friends think or the world thinks, you are going to do both until you are physically and mentally incapable of doing so any longer. Not because youâre stubborn and not because you are a fiend, but because your constitution will simply not permit you to stop. Itâs in your DNA and itâs as natural as breathing.
both are impossible to do with an iPad.
theartofmadeline
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
yousharknotpass
areudirty
prguitarman
discoholicmusic
stormborns
ellievsbear