I've Got Nothing

Today, I've got nothing for you.

I didn't even try to write a blog post yesterday. Did you notice? Today I have to write one, because I can't miss two days in a row. It's not good for me.

But I've spend the entire day either grading papers or working on my Folkroots column, which is due tomorrow. At the moment I have 2500 words, so if I write about another 1000, I'll be done. I'm already written an introduction, and a section on monsters in myth and legend. Now I'm working on another section, monsters in the age of science. I need to describe the most important literary monsters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Then, I'll write a final theoretical section on why we're so interested in monsters, what they mean to us.

That's what I'm working on.

But because I have nothing, you're going to get two pictures of me, doing what I did today. Here you go:

That's what I looked like for most of the day, although at the moment I'm sitting in front of my computer, typing this post. (You can see, in closeups like this, why I wrote an entire essay for the Weird Tales "Uncanny Beauty" issue on what a strange face I have.)

Is it all right for me to post something so inconsequential? I mean, it's my blog and I can post what I want to, but you know me. I want to entertain, to inform, to enlighten. I don't think this post does any of those things.

Except in this way: I'm a writer, and if you're an aspiring writer, there is a lesson here. This is what some days will look like. You will be working on whatever it is you do to earn a living, and then you will turn to writing, and that means you will be working all day long. Looking rather the way I look here – pale, tired. The opposite of glamorous. But if you are a writer, a true dyed-in-the-wool writer, you will think it's worthwhile.