Everyday Is Punch A Social Media Expert In The Mouth Day should be amended to read that we should slap, kick, bite and gouge out the eyes of all the experts who keep telling us about the rules of writing and blogging.
I am not writing this because I am an angry white guy or because at 45 I am better, stronger, smarter, faster and humbler than the yahoos who keep pumping out the tripe that tells people how to become a successful blogger or writer.
In the interest of full disclosure some of those people have more readers, more subscribers, more pageviews and more book sales than I do. In short they have more of most of the things that people use to identify success.
That might mean they know something. That might mean you can listen to their advice. Hell I tell my children there is no reason to reinvent the wheel unless you need to.
Work smarter, not harder.
You Are Sucking The Wrong Thing
“If you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.”
— Stephen King (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft)
Some of you are sucking in such a way that you are removing the joy of writing from all this. I don’t understand why you insist on using your teeth. I don’t understand why you take something that should put a smile on the face of those who practice it and turn it into work.
Yeah, I know that writing is damn hard and that sometimes it makes you want to tear your hair out. There are moments where it is as enjoyable as having a colonoscopy without any anesthesia and that makes me sad.
But it doesn’t have to be like that.
It can also be viewed as being like a great workout. You can look at it as a marathon and you can look at the feeling you get when you click publish as being similar to that adrenaline rush you get when you finish the race/workout.
Climbing that hill can be painful and there are moments where you want to punch the person who signed you up for it in the mouth. There are moments where you wonder who is dumber– you or them.
But if you keep pushing and you come to the crest of the hill and see the ocean just in the distance it is hard not to be inspired. It is so damn easy to picture yourself lying on a beach or enjoying the water on a sailboat so you keep pushing and discover that running down hill can be hard too.
Gravity pulls you and you have to fight to avoid moving at breakneck speed but the end result is the same.
One big adrenaline rush and a sense of satisfaction.
About Castles
If you want first hand knowledge about what I can do to a castle you can ask Jericho. She’ll tell you that I do my research and that I’ll find the blueprints and study them, because there is always a weakness.
She’ll tell you I’ll try going through open doors and windows and that if I can’t get in that way I will go over or under the walls. If need be I’ll lay siege to the damn thing and tear it down stone by stone.
Old Jack wasn’t built for grace, but demolition is something I know a little bit about. The gift of having a handshake a gorilla fears can be used in many different ways and castles are perfect for exploring those.
But let’s remember sometimes the reason you tear something down is so that you can rebuild it. Sometimes you pull down the walls and lay a foundation upon the old one that allows you to build something that is more meaningful, more significant and ultimately more beautiful.
It is not always easy to edit a story you have written and edited multiple times. After a while you begin to lose your perspective but once you step back and catch your breath you sometimes notice things you didn’t see before.
The kids have heard me talk about this more than once. They know that sometimes I will hang upside down with one eye covered in plastic wrap just to get a different look at something.
Yeah it sounds goofy, but I am a writer and I know things. I am a writer and I see things. I am not always limited to conventional thought or approaches.
Sometimes I catch a flicker of something from the corner of my eye and I have to chase after that. It reminds me of being a sculptor.
All I have is a large slap of stone and I have no clue what it wants to be until I start chipping away at it. My characters are like that too. I have a basic understanding about who they are and what motivates them but I don’t know the details until I see how they behave in certain situations.
Hell if I know what they will do or how they will respond. They are people and people are often illogical, irrational and unpredictable.
But that is what makes us love them. Or maybe it is more accurate to say true love is when you accept them for who they are and not who you wish they would be.
Everyday Is Punch A Social Media Expert In The Mouth Day
And now if you will excuse me there are chumps to punch, bums to roll and stories to write. Don’t ask me what any of that means or if you do, do it in the comments.
You have been writing about writing with some frequency recently. It makes me suspect something is up with you. A big project perhaps or contemplation of one?
I am thinking about revisiting a couple of big pieces I have blogged about before. But FWIW, I blog about writing about as often as anything else. It interesting to me to think about and discuss with others.
I was precisely going to ask you what it all means!! Tyrion!
Social Media and SEO experts are interesting. Stuff changes so quickly, how can anyone be an “expert”
Tyrion is one of my favorite characters. The HBO version is a bit different from the book, but solid nonetheless.
And hit them again for me.
A double dose!
You tell em!
I’ll try.