A Writer Writes… (Part 1)
So I’m writing this summer. I’m quickly learning there are two kinds of writing for someone like me.
The parallel I draw comes from the movie Rounders. In the movie, Matt Damon plays a poker player who puts it all on the line in the movie’s opening movie, and loses. The story then shifts to years later, where Damon’s character is in law school, working grungy jobs to get by. His former partner (played by Edward Norton) tries to push him back into big games. Meanwhile, there’s another character lurking around played by John Turturro. Turturro plays small games and keeps his winnings small, but can live just off his skills at the poker table. He grinds out a living with his skills, while Damon’s character winds up only utilizing his skills to win bigger games. But with the bigger games, comes bigger risk.
This summer, I’m much like Turturro’s character, grinding out a living from my writing skills. It isn’t pleasant, and it isn’t a flamboyant life, but it’s kept me from having to get a retail job (or worse). Each day I spend a couple of hours writing a few articles, usually on subject matter I know nothing about (which means I spend more time researching than writing). The desire behind my employers is for brevity, which has always been an issue for me. As a result, I’m flexing writing muscles I don’t usually hit upon. At the same time, I don’t feel very satisfied about it.
So, to help feel more satisfied, I try to do some writing that is more for me. It doesn’t make me money, but it does make me happy. It’s unfortunately taken a back seat, and so writing in that area hasn’t been as prolific as I’d like, but it does give me some “me time” at the keyboard. Projects in this area include stuff for my other site, a novel idea, and other little projects that strike my fancy.
One of these projects came from some blogs I follow, writer John Scalzi and writer/actor Wil Wheaton, who ran a contest via their blogs. Details on the contest are here, although I’ll write a little more about it as a whole in my next entry (for the lazy and to keep some sort of narrative history here). The end result (which I’ll also post later) is undoubtedly one of the silliest things I’ve ever written, but for some reason I’m very proud of it. I think it’s mostly just because I completed it. The satisfaction of submitting something that wasn’t for the grind, but more for my own pleasure (and if other people get any enjoyment out of it, bonus).
Tomorrow I’ll talk a little bit about the contest: what drew me to it, and what turned me away from it.