BE WRITING TO BE A WRITER

Be writing is the advice from Mississippi?

Coming from Faulkner it must be good advice.

But it’s more than writing advice, more like advice for life, you know, life advice.

Either way, I’ll take it. So should you and here’s why:

Writing makes you think more than usual.

If the usual is get up, go to work, come home, go to sleep, and put it on repeat for the next thirty years, you might be missing a few important things.

No husband or wife, no partner, no one to think about throughout the day?

No dog to walk?

No kids to hustle for?

What are you missing?

There’s a chance you might find someone who can’t resist telling you what to do, and when you do what they ask they say you’re doing it wrong.

That’s not the problem. The problem is you can’t resist them.

You can take everything that comes with them because they’re with you and that’s all that matters.

Before making a big commitment first ask yourself, ‘How long can I keep this up?’

Clean your act up?

“That’s not the part I was talking about and besides what you did clean up needs more work.”

Get new friends?

“Do you think hanging out with those people is good for our relationship. My friends are good for our relationship, not that pack of losers.”

Their friends?

“Yes, we used to date. Is that a big deal? Okay, we lived together. Does that bother you? People can still be friends, just not your friends.”

 

No dog to walk means no dog poo to pick up because you need to do that if your dog drops massive doodle dumps.

Measure your tolerance, your loneliness, and your general health.

You might be better with a bossy partner telling you what to do because the dog is basically doing the same thing with a few extras.

No kids means no school, no playgrounds, no play dates, not meeting other parents, and not hiring an attorney when your kid doesn’t get enough playing time in every sports season.

If a coach won’t listen and play your kid, accuse them of harassment and get them fired.

A local teacher and coach had his name smeared across the front-page news for what turned out to be lack of playing time for a girl on his basketball team.

Once the retraction was given, the story landed on the back pages, but it was after he lost everything he’d built up, community trust, great rapport.

And his teaching job.

Around the same time another coach at the same school was flying under the legal radar.

One was innocent of charges, the other did prison time.

You might be better off with a dog.

If you want to be a writer, but you’re not writing, these examples could be seen as writing prompts.

But only if you need that sort of thing.

Call it interpersonal writing.

 

Add Travel Writing

Go someplace, take a few pictures, write a thousand words.

It’s that easy.

Two pictures = two thousand words.

 

Wife: I want to go to Tuscany.

Me: Sure, let’s go to Tucson.

Wife: I mean Italy, Lake Como, George Clooney.

Me: What do you want to do there?

Wife: Take cooking classes.

Me: And we could drive around the countryside.

Wife: No driving.

Me: I’m the best driver you’ve ever been in a car with. Four thousand miles through the desert Southwest. One thousand miles in England top to bottom.

Wife: No driving.

Me: Honey, look at the rolling hills, the estates. We’re getting a car and driving Italy like an F1 track.

Wife: Maybe not Italy, then. What’s that tied around your neck?

Me: My racing colors.

 

Time Tested Topics For Writers

Take something old and make it new, give it a makeover, and stop looking at the other people in the room.

It’s not the husband, not the wife, not the dog. Let’s get that straight.

But if they are irresistible subjects, and they ought to be, change a few things for their sake.

Write about how much the world has changed, and they haven’t.

Start with the progress of science and education and why they matter more now than ever.

Lay an unassailable foundation from the start.

Why? Because the Manosphere demands it.

That’s the place where tender, yet manly, men pound their chests when told what to do.

They don’t like it, so here’s a hack to the manosphere.

If you have a question about anything, post the most ridiculous answer you can think of on the social media of your choice for a quick answer.

Don’t ask for help, just be assertively ignorant and some over-pumped expert will straighten you out like that’s their job.

And they won’t stop until they’ve emptied the tank.

Call it ‘correctile dysfunction.’

This is where you get to be a writer, where you start sorting things out, what to keep, what to toss.

Be writing for the best outcome.

Starting . . . now.