Joshua Alan Doetsch's Blog, page 7

The Weapon Was a Pen, But We Need Motive to Make a Case

Why I Write: George Orwell on an Author’s 4 Main Motives

An excerpt listing one of those motives:

(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen—in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all—and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of December…

Remember, remember the fifth of December

Repeal the spirit ban blight

The way I hear it: thirteen years, no spirits

So have a drink tonight

Who Did Whom?

My proper use of “whom” brings all the grammar nazis to the yard.

And they’re like, “You know ‘you’re’ and ‘your!’”

Damn right, I know “you’re” and “your.”

I could teach you, but I’d have to charge.

Calling a Lovecraft a Spade

See that empty space between the Maltese Falcon and the Cthulhu idol? That’s where I want to live.

Regret or Not To Regret?

Recently, there was a conversation amongst friends regarding two different philosophies on regret.

Let’s call the first philosophy “No Regrets!” This is the desperate defiance toward regrets in life, grabbing each moment by its invisible genitals till it submits and allow no regret to creep in. And should you suffer some hard memories and defeats, you then realize you needed those low blows to become who you are.

Let’s call the second philosophy “Shit Happens.” No matter how you spin it, you will experience things that you will later wish you had done differently. This is alright. This is an important realization. You will have bittersweet sadness. Regret will form as barnacles on the hull during your journey. This is inevitable.

I find both philosophies useful (if the brain can compartmentalize them). In repose, one should realize the latter. But in the moment, in motion, one should live the former. If one just follows the second philosophy, accepts regret a little too fully, it becomes all too easy to let go of the things we really want to accomplish (when the going gets tough and we have to stray away from comfort zones and expectations) by preemptively labeling and packaging those things as the future regrets that…well…are just a part of life.

Better to accept no compromise to regret in the present. There’s plenty of time, after the fact, to pick up the shards and label them. We can store the bittersweet in the back of the brain, while letting the Quixotic gallop out of the front of our skull.

Geronimo!

Harlan Ellison on writing…

Ode To a One-Eyed Cat

Give me the misfits.

Give me the malfunctions.

Give me the broken toys.

Give me these charming scars.

These pretty deviations from symmetry.

Thoughts From a Level 33 Scrivnomancer

Sir, I disagree.

I think my age

should act like me.

What’s Going On

Mostly, I’m pissed off at the “beautiful sadness” people seem to think they are required to achieve in life.

In other news: Halloween is coming!

I Am A Nasty Abstract

My dad is a magician, and I sometimes write routines and dialogue for his shows. This is a bit I wrote for a show he did recently in St. Louise. I also did the voice work, playing the part of a haunted card. The camera work is not great…but enjoy!