I Don't Trust Writer's Blogs

I tend to take the Alice Cooper view of things when it comes to this. He was talking about political rock stars. His advice? "Shut up and play". I get that. I don't go to concerts--or didn't; haven't been to one in three years--to hear political manifestos. Play "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and shut the fuck up.

When it comes to writers...all we have are words. The worlds we make up. Do I really care about the fights they pick online (I'm thinking of two writers in particular here)? No and, half the time, get mildly irritated at the idea.

But...

But I always liked reading the notes writers put with each short story in their collections. Stephen King once compared it to audience members finding out how the magician does his tricks. I like reading essays of process and style. I always kind of viewed it as a mechanic admiring the workmanship put into an engine block by a peer.

But I've always been a loud mouth. My first paid writing work (I've never NOT been paid and have never had much truck with "for the love" markets, even supposedly prestigious ones; even if it's only contrib copies, you pay me) was as an editorial columnist where I spent 500 words a week--I always argued for more--talking about whatever the fuck it was that came into my head fifteen minutes before my deadline. I was good at it. Good enough to garnish fans hundreds of miles away, receive hate/fan mail, get invitations to backwoodsy churches where my editors begged me not to go (I didn't; kinda regret it now), and, in one memorable instance, get out of a speeding ticket where the State Trooper had me dead-to-rights.

But I daily read Joe Hill's Tumblr website. I DO peruse writers' blogs (even the two that, more often than not, irritate the ever-loving shit out of me).

So where does that leave me?

Here. With you.

And I've often thought of writing a series of nonfiction articles--my friend and Derringer Award nominee Joseph Benedetto was, briefly, an editor-at-large for MENSA's national magazine, writing articles about writing. More of that mechanics-viewing. I wanted to do that, but often after the first burst of creation, where I'd write anything from a paragraph to eight manuscript pages, I often got bored.

So why not give it a test-drive here? If I get bored, all I have to do is delete.

God help us all.