The experiment

Fact of Life for Writers (One): You just want to write. It’s nice if somebody actually reads it, but the writing is the thing. Notes, emails, really pithy shopping lists. I have actually written, in the past year, a legitimate letter, with a pen on paper and mailed to a recipient via the post office. It had a stamp and everything.

Fact of Life for Writers (Two): Nobody reads anymore, at least nothing on paper. As a result, nothing gets published. So being a proper writer is harder than ever. I have written speeches, PR fluff, news releases, brochures, video scripts, and snarky columns, not to mention this very blog. None of that qualifies me as a proper writer. A proper writer writes stories, with characters and plots.

Fact of Life for Writers (Three): Okay, I lied in Fact (One). Writers want people to read their stuff. It’s natural. Did you expect anything different?

Over on the right side of this blog, under “Maka’s Pages,” you will find “Bernoulli at Play.” It’s a short story I wrote a litte while ago that some people have liked. Referring to Fact (Two), we now know that you’re not going to find it at your local bookstore, so you’ll have to read it here.

I’m posting it in parts to keep from driving all of you blind. Click on the main title for a little intro, and the Parts for the, well, parts. I originally planned to parcel it out over a few days, but it seems people want to get it all at once.

Fact of Life for Writers (Last): Give the readers what they want.

Filed under: Writing

A new leaf

I was a political pundit. That can be a hard thing to admit, like ‘fessing up to a new girl about that DUI, or explaining those nasty black marks on your credit report. But I once earned what your grandma used to call ‘pin money’ by writing snarky things about politicians. Two or three people remember it, so I won’t deny it.

Punditry is either very easy or very hard. The easy way is to skim a few newspapers, glean a handful of salient facts, and craft a bunch of simplistic punchlines about how politicians are oafish greedheads looking for an easy mark in a perpetually rigged system. Even if they’re not.

The hard way is to immerse yourself in the workings of government and pull forth deep abiding pearls of wisdom about how policy is actually made. Of course, you never get to actually be in the room when anything important happens, because to do so you’d either have to be a decision-maker or a worm eating spy. So instead you study every move and try to extract some meaning based on experience and insight.

Naturally, I took the easy way. I needed to feed the beast 600 words a week. It was no time to be prissy.

I recently went through my old columns with my friend and sometimes-sidekick Ketta B., who somehow managed to live her whole life without encountering my political ramblings. Ket was kind enough to laugh but has a way of looking at me that tells me when I have in some way gone wrong. We’ll see whether I get more laughs or looks now.

So maybe I’m not so much a former pundit as a reformed pundit. There are plenty of keen observers out there, especially Boylan, Borreca and Burris, but also the bloggers and MyFacers and Twitterers or whatever you call them. Add to that recent warnings that any attempt on my part to offer political observations will be met by stony-faced men wielding large knives with sharp black blades, and I am ready to move on.

Instead, I have prepared myself to offer my take on a variety of other subjects, including but not limited to good food, good books, and how things would almost certainly be better if I just had my way.

Can I still be funny if I’m not writing about politics? Who knows? But everybody has to learn sometime.

Filed under: General, Ketta B., Writing