Writing: Don't Get Me Started...Continued from page 1

Not all of it, of course. I'm sure a lot of it is sincere and wonderful. I love what I've read of Stephen King's book on writing.

All that said, I have long intended to myself write a book on writing. Like the gay-bashing pastor who secretly dreams of calling 1-800-MAN HANDS, I've always wanted to go there. Because I stuff I'd really like to say about the whole "I want to be a writer" dynamic. I always thought I'd write that book at the end of my career, when anyone would have any reason whatsoever to really care what I think about writing.

And yet, here I am. Just on the strength of how many people read my last two blogs, I could now sell a book on writing. "The Last Writing Book You'll Need," might be a title. "Get Right With Writing." "Righting Your Writing." "Righteous Writing." (I'm now trained to think first about a book's title, since a book's title is about everything to a publisher. Serious business. I've had publishers tell me that if a book of mine they'd previously turned down had come to them bearing the same title under which it was ultimately published, they'd have published it themselves. You can sell a book with just a title. Watch: someone will come out with a book called "Righteous Writing.")

Anyway, just now I'm not going to write a book on writing. You know why? You know why I was always going to write that book at the end of my career? Because the reason people sell books about writing is because such books are grounded in the idea that the people buying and reading them really can become successful writers. (And just what "successful writer" actually means is of course all over the board.) Such books feed on that aspiration. But the terrible, undeniable truth is that almost no one is really good at writing.

Our culture has such a weird relationship with writers. On the one hand we revere our best writers: people get breathless just saying the name "Shakespeare" or "Hemingway." (I personally get breathless saying "Twain" or "Fitzgerald.") And yet at the same time, everyone thinks they're a writer. Our best writers spend their lives as absolute, abject slaves to the genuine art of writing -- yet every scarf-wearing, cappuccino-sipping doink you see writing in a journal at a coffee shop thinks the only thing standing between them and writing fame is luck.

Yikes. I see I'm bordering on the Crazed Harangue. Sorry.

And actually, of course, my heart is with the journaling doink. That j.d. is My Kind! I'm with anyone who ever attempts to put clear, compelling thought into words. I've spent my entire life learning how to do exactly nothing but that. It's so stupid. I'm 49, and the only thing I know how to do is construct a decent sentence. Should come in real handy next major earthquake, or whatever.

Anyway, this is what I'm saying: I know that if I really told that person journaling in the coffee shop what they were really going to have to do with their mind, life, heart, and soul in order to become a real writer, they'd slam their journal shut faster than they could say, "Yo, man, you're hurting my arm. "

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