More Loser Writer Navel Gazing

"Sure you got drunk. You have the best excuse in the world for losing; no trouble losing when you got a good excuse. Winning... that can be heavy on your back, too, like a monkey. You'll drop that load too when you got an excuse. All you gotta do is learn to feel sorry for yourself. One of the best indoor sports, feeling sorry for yourself. A sport enjoyed by all, especially the born losers."

- The Hustler

Writing without money is pointless. Money without writing is pointless. Those who can solve that riddle reach the heaven of the good life. Those who can't live in a literal hopeless hell, tortured for eternity.

Naturally, many writers get very angry about this. So they write what sells even if it's dishonest. That is another form of prison to be a liar-writer. The praise you receive in reality condemns you to a cell. Life in the cell makes you sick then everyone lauds you for dying for your craft. It's a plan.

Many writers become professional victims, using our corrupt world as a crutch. The amount of injustices done to creative types is beyond measure. For this the world will one day pay more horribly than it ever imagined. It will be a beautiful, beautiful justice. But that is not now. And those who cannot overcome are condemned to half-lives, to be forever looking in the candy store but never tasting.

Or suppose you simply want to fancy yourself as a writer. You can be like a golfer who practices but never enters the tournament. That way, you can go undefeated! You can make magnificent arguments on how wonderful you'd be that no one can refute. You can take golf lessons, espouse your philosophy on how hard work (or whatever) is needed to win, and create a glorious career in your head of which you can boast about at the country club bar. Then when you leave the room everyone shakes their head and laughs.

Or maybe you have talent you don't what to share. Talent is like love: there's a million reasons not to share it, only one good one to share. You're on the putting green and in an expression of your pure self you make a long wondrous putt that cannot be done by accident. Someone sees this and runs over excitedly to congratulate on your talent. You immediately curse yourself for carelessly exposing yourself, dismissing all accomplishments as simply luck. If you win, people will know everything about you. Who wants that? But your talent perpetually drives you back to the course, the only place where you're home.

So most writers end up as miserable losers; perverting, stifling, or running away. As with anything, your honesty determines your true success. Though writing is a lonely profession, some need help, a partner in crime if not always in deed. Where is Lennon without McCartney or Laurel without Hardy? No two paths to success are exactly the same. One must find one's own way.

Or to put all this another way: I am nothing without her.