writing

i write.

okay, that seems obvious. this is a blog, yes? most of the content here is writing of some form or another.

all right, let me clarify: when i am not writing long rambling posts about life, the universe and everything, i sometimes write short stories. some of them are very short. some of them cross over into the weird stream of consciousness/experimental category. some of them lapse into poems. sometimes they are poetry outright.

you’ll find a little of all of that here under the categories fiction, poetry and writing. under “writing,” however, you’ll also find thoughts on writers or the writing process itself. it’s a broad category.

there are two short story projects i work at on and off. scene, somewhere is a larger story that takes place through snapshot-like glimpses into the lives of the two people it concerns. etymology is a slightly less well-progressed story that i expect to write more in the form of traditional chapters rather than stand-alone stories. but we’ll see what happens there.

this year i started publishing poetry directly on barefoot in pinstripes, but you can find four years’ worth of my poetry on thoughts ungathered as well … in case you care to wade through the poetical rambles of my college years (and a bit beyond).

i don’t like to call myself a writer. why? i don’t know. i don’t have anything against the term. maybe it’s because i don’t see it as a definition of who i am. it’s something i do. i am a lot of things; i am an editor.

i write.

i am a word-herder and a dream-chaser. because those two activities put a lot of thoughts in my brain, i write to get them out so they don’t stay in there making things more eccentric than they already are. i write because i don’t always talk well. i write fiction and poetry somewhat for my own amusement and the amusement of others, but also because there are some things in life that are just hard to state in normal terms. so sometimes i use lies to tell the truth — after all, isn’t that what the best fiction is and does?

whether poem, essay, song or story, however, this is the theme that i hope runs through it all:

“here i am only trying to describe the enormous emotions which cannot be described. and the strongest emotion was that life was as precious as it was puzzling. it was an ecstasy because it was an adventure; it was an adventure because it was an opportunity.” — g.k. chesterton