Last Hopes and Complaints of 2004

Happy New Year, everyone. Going through the year, every year, I usually find that I’ve accomplished something, even if it felt like a snail’s pace throughout the year. This blog is actually pretty meaningful to me, and I started it in 2004. Connecting with people, getting my mind down, it’s a form of hope. Thanks everyone for reading and writing. The election was depressing, but it also got me energized in a certain way. Despite the world, I had a productive final week of 2004, which feels shameful to admit. No work was coming in from my job, so I got to spend all of my time working on fiction. I hadn’t been able to do that in over a year. I realized how hard it is for me to split half my time and my mind writing ad copy. I found out I can still write, which was a good final thought heading into the new year. I am going to try to sell this story. Here comes my last bit of self-absorption for this year: I still don’t know where I fit in as a writer. I’m not a "New Yorker" writer where the writing itself reads like a book review. I’m not an academic writer because I can’t willfully quote Homer or Keats. I’m not a mainstream writer because I can’t write that way, but not that I don’t need to. I can’t be an underground cult hero like Burroughs because my life isn’t interesting enough, and I’m too solitary to belong to a generation. I’m not a genre writer. I’m currently writing a science fiction novel which is probably a mistake because I am not a science fiction writer. Stanley Kubrick directed a science fiction movie, a horror movie, an 18th century period movie, etc. Not equating myself with him, but that’s how I look at fiction, which amply screws me with publishers. The most important one: I am not a literary writer, which is a genre in itself. I am just not wordy enough. Small press writing can be as tame as mainstream presses, and they have less money so they don’t publish as often, so that isn’t much of an option either. I haven’t published a novel in too long. It would energize me to have a new book sitting alongside those writers I love. It’s not vanity to think a book and new readers would help me feel welcomed. My New Year’s Resolution is to live in the world, to not always hide behind words and a computer screen. Trying to do something with my songwriting is part of this. I really want to start a rock band. Philip K. Dick and Jack Kerouac took speed. I’d like an upper for 2005. No doubt I am full of myself. The whole world needs an upper. If I was a better person, I’d wish selflessly for other people’s safety, and of course I do, but my thoughts inevitably come back to the person I’m closest to, myself. This either makes me an incredible prick, or human. Maybe my anxiety is tied in directly to the world at large. Maybe I’m not a prick after all. Here’s to hoping. See you next year.