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Writing Well: How to Achieve Adequacy |
"Writing is easy, all you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." Gene Fowler. For me, writing is the easy part, the thinking of ideas, rather…therein lies the rub. I have this problem with creativity and originality: I don't have any, and it comes to plague me every time I must apply fingers to keyboard (or in this case, pen to paper, because that filthy expletive deleted of a computer has once again decided not to work…but that is a tale for another day.) If I was just supplied with ideas, I believe I could form coherent sentences until hell won't have it (which is a very stupid phrase. Why would hell have my coherent sentences?)
Writing essays for English is kind of like pulling your wisdom teeth or getting a tetanus shot every single minute of every single hour of every single day until you die of the sheer pain. What was I talking about again? Essays are only good when they are not written; if written, they, as a rule, suck. The best way to write an essay is to not write it, but the second best way would be to write it and then burn it, because the only good essay is a dead essay (or something to that effect.)
Writing poetry is kind of like jumping into a burning pit of fire with a Dixie cup full of water hoping to put the flames out. The only good poetry is written by old men with braided hair, living in caves. Shakespeare is not an exception. If forced to write poetry by anyone, say no, and if pressed, say that you are fulfilling your duty to the human race by not writing any. Less poetry can only make the world a better place.
Writing articles for this paper is about as fun as doing any number of things involving horrible deaths. It is difficult for me to write articles because I have trouble thinking of ideas that are stupid enough to pass for one of my articles. Once you have an idea, it is pretty easy to string together a bunch of stupid sentences that make very little sense in or out of context. At least if you write articles in my genre of stupid crap. Any other genre requires at least a modicum of actual thought to write.
"Being a newspaper columnist is like being married to a nymphomaniac. It's great for the first two weeks." Lewis Grizzard. To those of you crying, "When will you make an end?" I say, "When I am finished." And the end is nigh, so never fear. I have merely left to say that if writing were easier, more people would try it, and we know what that leads to. Communism, that's what.