Tuesday, December 31, 2013

New Year's Eve Day

So, today is the last day of the year. Wouldn't this be the perfect day to reminisce about the past year, about the first year of this, my blog? We could maybe even have the top ten highlights of events in the blog from its inaugural year. There was that time that, the time where, I mean when, it was, well, maybe there wasn't. And it didn't. Maybe I just write, and sometimes you read. And maybe nothing ever happens. Not in a bad way. Not in a good way. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about this. I have been waiting for it to erupt into a really good blog post. But sometimes that doesn't happen. Sometimes it just gets in the way of blog posts that can't get around it and I just have to start talking.

The first blog posts I ever wrote were on an electric typewriter in the mid to late seventies. They were extremely short novels. I showed them to one of my older brothers who liked them very much. I liked them too. They were written in that voice I use here sometimes, where I am possessed of an overwhelming, detached from all evidence, confidence. Let me try and recreate one very roughly. I think I will find this falls very short of their original magic, as it will be a mere facsimile of an idea, but I was twelve or thirteen or something when I wrote them, so this might be up to speed.

The Greatest Novel Ever Written
by Me, the greatest novelist
who has written the greatest novel ever written. You can tell by the title.

Chapter One, or, chapter the first, or simply the beginning.
Boy, this novel is really so good my hands are shaking. I'll go have a rest, then move on to chapter two.

Chapter Two.
The great novel continues. Does it get even better in chapter two? I think it does. A person would have thought there was no room for improvement, and then chapter two came along.

Chapter Three.
The end.

I read very recently that Rex Stout wrote his Nero Wolfe books without planning or revision. I didn't know whether to believe it, but Stuart Kaminsky said Rex Stout wrote like a reader of his own books. Rex Stout said that he once wrote a line where Nero Wolfe's son walks into a room and he, Rex Stout, the author, was stunned. He had no idea that Nero Wolfe had a son. I am sort of writing this blog post like Rex Stout. I don't think we will find a murderer at the end. We may find something though. It's just, you jump.

Here I am falling, your blogger. 

When I wrote those short short novels I remember the joy. I remember the absolute sense of being able to create magic. They were the first things I ever wrote that were good. I still don't know what that means, "good" , but right in the middle, as long as I don't touch it, I know it exactly. I know exactly what it means. They were good. And almost as soon as I wrote them they got harder to write and it got harder and harder for me to breathe. Could the next one be any good? Would my brother still like it? Was I writing the right thing? What did they mean about me?

Earlier tonight I was starting another Nero Wolfe book. They are very, very good. I even have to add the best one I have read so far to my list of books I love. Anyway, this Nero Wolfe book I started had a forward by Dean Koontz. I disliked it very much. He was talking about what writers do. They do this, they do that. This is what we writers do. But I think writers are just different all over.

Here is me. Sometimes I write for awhile, until I find I am surrounded by glass, everywhere glass, and I cannot breathe, and I have to find a brick, and I have to throw it as hard as I can. 

This is the story of the first year of my blog.

1 comment:

If you were wondering, yes, you should comment. Not only does it remind me that I must write in intelligible English because someone is actually reading what I write, but it is also a pleasure for me since I am interested in anything you have to say.

I respond to pretty much every comment. It's like a free personalized blog post!

One last detail: If you are commenting on a post more than two weeks old I have to go in and approve it. It's sort of a spam protection device. Also, rarely, a comment will go to spam on its own. Give either of those a day or two and your comment will show up on the blog.