Literary Exercise #10--A Writer's Life: Isolation

Okay, so I just got done talking to a friend on the phone, and an idea struck me. Most writers are lonely people. Take the comic strip writers, they publish their amusements weekly if not daily, but no one wants to invite them to their parties. They are notoriously bitter, whether from life experience or rejections from the A-list, who knows. I suppose they could be one in the same. But take other writers, take their mantra: to write about society you have to be disengaged with it. I don't know if I agree with that statement. Maybe it's because although I'm a writer at a heart, I'm also a human. I have always thought it important to live life...as stupid or abtruse as that sounds. So maybe that makes me a half-breed, a bastard of the art. I can't quite seem to keep myself pure...I always have to dirty my fingers in every interesting little nook and cranny.

Although there is something to be said for observation...I've always felt that the best writers are the introverts...those that notice obscure things most people pass by. It's definitely that way for me. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the poetry (in the broad sense) of a writer came to life in daily activities. They'd probably be regarded as one of the most beautiful people alive. It's so weird that some people can write so majestically and yet they have the hardest time carrying on a conversation. I mean, it makes sense. Writing is a conversation, but it's a staged one. As a writer, you have the capital to buy any prop you want, make any set you can imagine, and stage you characters wherever your fancy strikes. And you can draft their conversations...and redraft them until their perfect. It's more of a conversation with yourself. In fact, I think the best way to describe writing is the way that the world would be if nothing had gone amiss. I suppose, it's the paradise of that particular person. Some might call it their heaven, their nirvana. And I think, the more people write, the more they write well, the closer we'll all get to that place. If only it was real.

And I think it is.