life done write

She went to the Dagda and begged him, if he did not wish to see his son die of unrequited love, a disease that all Diancecht’s medicine and Goibniu’s magic could not heal, to find the dream maiden. -Celtic Myth and Legend

“The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis, and we’d have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads.”

-William Styron

or

Why The Rules of Economics Dictate a Suboptimal Result for the Human Male Dating in Denver
Guest Post by Guy Roommate, alternately known, apparently, as Relatively Dashing Roommate

What’s my roommate identity on this blog? I forget, so I’m anointing myself Relatively Dashing Roommate.

So about a month ago I, Relatively Dashing Roommate, accompanied Gigi to the Bitter Ball. I’ve never been a big singles event sort, but Gigi’s marketing prowess eventually won the day.

I enjoyed myself. Somehow. Despite a growing body of evidence that the Denver dating scene is the saddest place in the world. And I’m talking really sad. Like, litter-of-newborn-puppies-being-thrown-from-the-roof-of-the-Pepsi-Center sad.

The dynamic in this city is possibly the worst I’ve ever seen from the male point of view. There’s just too much competition for too little reward.

So first off you’ve got said competition. A lot of the guys that live out here are outdoorsy, physically fit, and into all that “clean living” nonsense. The best way I can describe men in Denver is that they’re like Mormons if Mormons had balls and didn’t suck. Having lived in New York, I want to grab them by their stupid wide shoulders and scream “Pack your bags and move eastward son!” These guys would be knee deep in (unmentionable lady parts deleted) if they lived in New York or Boston.

Out here in Menver, they’re stuck settling for the type of girl that moves to a mecca of shit that girls don’t like. This is, of course, an extreme generalization. But to be extremely general, Mountain Man sounds like something a girl wants to bed. Mountain Woman sounds like bad lesbian porn.

Now there are some cute girls that manage to find themselves in our neck of the woods. For example, there’s always the homegrown talent. A certain number of attractive women are almost guaranteed to be born somewhere and lack the motivation to leave. Though I tend to believe the type that stays attached to their roots probably marries their high school or college sweetheart, thus removing themselves from the dating pool before they turn 22.

I did run into a few good looking girls at the Bitter Ball. Talking to them was like talking to a particularly dim-witted wall that wanted free booze. I may seem picky, even a bit sexist at times, but when I’m trying to be all poetical I say this: love is a conversation. If you can’t have a conversation with a person, you won’t ever find love with them. And while love isn’t always the objective, I don’t feel like I have the time for a relationship where it isn’t at least a far off possibility.

So the moral of this story is FML and don’t move to Denver if you’re a guy. The good ones are taken young, there are 10 cool lumberjacks for every hottie that slips through the cracks, and these rare gems that are available have been fawned over so much that they couldn’t be bothered to learn how to form mouth words of intelligibility. Good night and good luck Menverites.

I had a chuckle when this appeared in my inbox. Perhaps you will as well.

Things I am very excited about, in Gigi format:

Thing 1: BIGGEST LOSER. THANK GOD IT IS BACK.

Thing 2: HEARING ABOUT YOUR NON-HORRIFIC DATE

Thing 3: CAPS LOCK. APPARENTLY.

Thing 4: DOING THINGS THAT ARE NOT PAPERS. LIKE WRITING THIS EMAIL. IN CAPS LOCK. YES.

Love,
Brief Roommate, or someone who looks a lot like her but uses Caps Lock with much greater frequency

Book. Query letters. Blog posts. Social media campaigns. Serious, technical print pieces. Software manuals. Website copy. And, of course, reading a few Very Lovely books (Graceling, Celtic Myth and Legend).

It’s not surprising that I have writing on the brain.

And, so, with said writing on the brain, I’ve been thinking about the tenants, truths about writing that have brought me to this place (as a copywriter and hard-working aspiring book author) and the ones I think will carry me through. As much as a reminder to myself as something for you to ponder, I plan to list what I believe to be the core truths about good writing. Some learned, some borrowed from those much wiser and more published than myself.

1. Write every day. One of my favorite professors (and one of the reasons that I will defend community colleges with all my heart, though I’ve done both the community and the University thing), who also happened to be one of my earliest professors, made this statement. Now, I’d already been doing this–for the most part–for years. It was one of the perks of being homeschooled: all that extra time, spent filling notebook after notebook and then cyberspace page after cyberspace page (I miss that time, that freedom, now). Now, with less time for myself, I am very purposeful about writing every day (though the need for being purposeful does lessen as my copywriting responsibilities grow at work and my other (strategy, website maintenance, technical manuals/training/assistance) wane a bit.

2. Write what you know. Another of my exceedingly bright community college professors spent a good deal of his time lecturing us on this truth. There’s no reason to be a jack of all books, unless, of course, you know everything, in which case I defer to your judgment. So, he said, write what you know. If what you know is family, write family. If what you know is heartbreak, write heartbreak. If what you know is daydreams, write daydreams. Even fantasy writers–the good ones–write something they know.

3. Experience life. You could be the best and most brilliant and most gramatically correct writer in the world, but if you have nothing to say, your way with words is lost. Personally, I think the best way to experience life–and to surface with a story or two– is to travel, to put yourself out there, to read and to take chances.

4. Don’t take yourself (or anybody else, for that matter) too seriously. I don’t mean that all of us should have a propensity for humor (though we all know that I’m terribly funny all the time). What I do mean is that writing is equal to rejection. It’s rejection letters. It’s hard work. It’s unpaid practicing. It’s hate mail (I know it’s hard to believe, since my blog is so darling, but I do get hate mail). It’s stalkers. So you have to be able to take yourself, your work and other people’s opinions with a grain or two or ten of salt.