On Writing, or, Nerdgasm Central

I'm a writer. There, I said it. It is somewhat liberating, declaring yourself something other than human. I'm other things, sure, an alchoholic for instance, but none of them are quite as profound or (in a grim, drug-addled sort of way) as romantic as being a writer. Or maybe all of those other things are part of what make me a writer. Alchoholism is certainly prevalent in our collective imaginations of writers. Anyway. The point is, I'm a writer. I didn't need to tell you that, because you probably know me. And if you don't know me, you'd assume I'm a writer because I have a blog and that blog uses clever pop-culture and nerdgasm-inducing literature references and an array of impressive words.  But I didn't say it because you needed to be told, I said it because I needed to be told.

See, I've strayed for some time and that's terrible. I forgot that in addition to all of the fancy poetic ideas like talent and ability, writing also requires more mundane things like work and dedication. I strayed. Then, like a space shuttle without enough fuel to escape the gravity well, I came hurtling back. All is well again. Kinda.

You must understand that I've relied on nicotine to help my process for more than twelve years. I've come to rely on it and, in a self-perpetuating cycle, used writing as an excuse not to give up smoking. As a bit of an aside, don't let that fool you. I genuinely enjoy smoking. However, recent circumstances have thrust it upon me and I've found myself without it. So I sat down to write and, for the first time, came up blank.

What the fuck?

I've used it for so long, smoking and writing fueling one another, that they became somewhat fused in my head. I couldn't do one without the other (this was a two-way street. If you've ever seen me smoke heavily, I was writing. Or drinking. Usually both, although one of them may have been just in my mind.). So I decided to sit down and piece my brain back together because, as I said before, I am a writer and that means I need to write. Its a fundemental function of my continued existence.

I decided to look at what drives me first. What makes me want to write? What fuels that creative muscle? What pushes me to sit for hours and lose myself in a story or a poem or a blog or hate mail? I set smoking aside. Honestly, that idea is old and its somewhat ridiculous. I understand the chemical benefits of nicotine, but that's not what makes me want to write. Once past that roadblock, I came up with some pretty awesome stuff. Shit. Sorry, I went two full paragraphs without inserting any vulgarity. I have a reputation to uphold here, guys. Anyway.

I love to read. I can easily get distracted by television or a movie, and become engrossed in what's happening, but that's a shallow sort of distraction as complete as it might seem. No, what really catches my attention and gets me going is a good novel. Now, I like the classics and I dig the epic poets and playwrights too, but if I want something to really blow me away, something I'll read over and over again just for the pure joy of reading it, I'm going with Fantasy.

There are some exceptions, of course. Of my top ten favorites of all time, only a handful are fantasy (that list is dominated by Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, David Wong's John Dies at the End, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Whitman's Leaves of Grass although I admit I strayed a little from the "novel" criteria there and that is by no means indicative of the rest of the top ten). However, of the hundreds of books I own an overwhelming majority of them are Fantasy. I'll dive into anything from shared worlds like Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms to the epic sagas like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time or Stephen King's Dark Tower (which I put on equal footing with some of the epic sagas we teach in English Literature classes worldwide) to the old sword-and-sorcerery paperbacks or the new, gritty subgenres filled out by guys like John Marco and Brandon Sanderson.

So it should come as little surprise, I suppose, that I write primarily Fantasy. Other writers, I find, give me that push needed to sit and write, among other things I'll get into later. In fact, I used to scoff at the idea that one could take inspiration to write fantasy from anything but other Fantasy writers. I was, clearly, wrong. Margaret Weiss, for instance, is one of the most successful novelists in the genre and she adamantly doesn't read Fantasy. Perhaps because she feels it would be too easy to lift ideas from other writers in the genre. That's sort of an issue with fantasy. Any review you read of a popular new novel will harp on how it defies the typical genre stereotypes. Fantasy writers have gotten such a bad rap for so long about their voices and their work all sounding the same that, in the last fifteen years or so, the genre has exploded with fresh ideas simply because the novelists are trying explicitly to be different from one another. Stephen King originally started thinking of his Dark Tower novels while reading Tolkien, but set them aside for years, literally, so he wouldn't simply regurgitate what he'd just read.

Alright, so some of it comes from reading but getting everything from reading, even reading a wide variety of things, is dangerous. So what else? What else brings me to that place?

Well, video games. See, games have become this really captivating medium for telling insane stories. They've taken on a breadth and depth that put them on par, I think, with films, plays, and novels. Not all of them, of course, and there are still those that try and fail, but games like Mass Effect or Elder Scrolls or Saints Row have set the stage for things to come. It doesn't matter, the story is what grips me and makes me want to write. That and some of the badass action sequences. My stories are always visceral, I think, filled with physical conflict, and I like to be somewhat cinematic in how I portray that violence. That visual aspect, I think, is lacking from a great deal of written media.

Okay, good, so you can throw films in there as well. Athough, honestly, mostly science fiction films. I'm not sure why, but they really get me moving. Now, as I was having these epiphanies I started wading through some of my writing, trying to focus on where I could start to try and organize things, put them on a track for success. I also read through Stephen King's On Writing. If you haven't, I strongly suggest you pick it up. Writer or not, its a fantastic read and it includes all manner of really awesome information. Such as some very useful tips on keeping yourself disciplined, organized, and how to come back to writing after you;ve been away (in King's case because of a nearly-fatal car crash and, years prior, kicking some insane drug addiction-in my case, lack of ciggarettes).

So what else? What other nuggets of wisdom did I glean?

Dr. David Bell, Novelist Extraordinaire, (one day I'm going to talk him into paying me for referring to him that way) taught me two very important things. Well, actually a series of very important things but a number of those had to do with re-enacting various 80s kung-fu montages and they're neither here nor there. What he taught me about writing, though, cannot be understated. I've heard it from a thousand places but for some reason when he said it, it stuck: Write what you know.

That doesn't mean don't branch out and learn. I'm constantly researching horses and sailing and sub-atomic physics for my writing. It means write what you know and expand upon it. The other extremely important thing he taught me, by the way (and this is in all seriousness, I still have the e-mails to prove it) was that if I could just "learn how to punctuate the fucking dialogue [I'd] have a career in writing"(I'm paraphrasing, and I'm not doing it using MLA format because I'm a grown-up and I don't have to). Sound advice, and something I look back on frequently to keep myself grounded.

So what do I know? What's the final thing that gets me writing?

Fucking metal.

Look, I love music. I'm a big fan of tons of genres, tons of styles. I keep an open mind on things, and if its really music I can at least respect what an artist is doing, even if I don't particularly enjoy it. That said, as much as I respect and enjoy, say, Eminem, I can't write it. Metal though, holy fuck.

I think metal and fantasy have this really amazing relationship, for one thing. Both are composed of literally dozens of fractured subgenres all trying to gain ground and stand on their own, while being simultaneously united by a common thread, or as critics are fond of calling them, tropes and stereotypes. Both metal and fantasy, first and foremost, owe their real genesis to aged (or dead) men from England decades ago, and fuck you if you don't think that's the truth.

Both have expanded dramatically in popularity in the last two decades, as well as broadening in scope. Both have distinct subgroups, and both have groups among them that are intensely dark (black/death/viking/blackened death metal vs. gritty, bloody fantasy like Brian Ruckley's Godless World Trilogy), while also retaining their lighter sides (Edguy, for example. Kender, for another).

Also, has anyone ever looked into how many metal bands have written songs about fantasy novels, characters, short stories, ideas, or wet dreams? Fucking all of them. Seriously. Look into it. Bands like Rhapsody (or Rhapsody of Fire, I guess, I'm not sure which one they go by now) have created their own fantasy universe specifically to write songs about it. Nightwish's entire brilliant career has been all about Tuomas Holopainen's fascination with Tolkien, Dragonlance, Disney, and hot scandanavian women (only poetically, of course).

I am the opposite. Rather than the fantasy obsesssed metal musician, I'm a metal-obsessed fantasy writer. In fact, every major piece of fiction I've written (and most of my poems that aren't influenced by either vaginas or alchohol, honestly) has been, to some degree or another, insipred directly by the lyrics, artwork, or general atmosphere of a metal song. I have playlists on my media player that I listen to while I write, organized by the type of scene I'm working on. Seriously. I'm writing an entire novel based on a handful of lyrics from Blind Guardian and Amon Amarth and a dream I had about my dear friend Courtney (who has, through her work and mine, taught me some incredible things about writing) where she totally killed the fuck out of a sea-monster. Fucking metal.

So what I'm saying is simply: I'm back from the dead, assholes. *laser sounds*

Serendipitously Yours,
-S.R.

P.S,- I thought of including lists of my favorite books, albums, and games here (both because I'm a narcicist and because I have this wierd compulsion to list things that my parents will absolutely vouche for) so if anyone would like to indulge me, go ahead and let me know. I'll add it in edits.

Break-up Letters Part 2

I can wax poetic and make you look pathetic. I'm not so sympathetic I can't still be diarrhetic. Cause I'll make you shit with my rhetoric and I'll make you sick to your stomach, bitch, and if you can't sit down and you can't spit then I'll split you straight through the guts with this.  I'll be pedantic, but predictable, all the while still irresistable, or miserable, dismissable, and yet, infinitely kissable. I'm cruel and foolish, leave you drooling, stupidly staring at the ceiling, feeling, reeling, bent on stealing breath and bet that I ain't missed yet, I'm caught in your throat and I'll break your neck. So sit the fuck down til you're next on deck.

I go from exotically erotic to neurotically despotic, despondent to resplendent, dependent to indispensable. Indefensible, ultimately reprehensible. I'll fetch you low and scratch your bones, burrow deep down in and find you home. I can spit you out like blood in my mouth, turn your insides out and make your women bow down.

You can come at me but I'll finish you, diminish you, replenish you just to get at you. You can leave or die, but its yours to choose. I have no appetite for destruction, I'm the epitome, so you're shitting me if you think running your lips means dick to me. Cause I'll tear your fucking head off and not even blink, I'll gut you like a trout, boy, so don't even think that you can come around, settle down, and flap off your gums, or I will shatter your teeth, just keep on sucking your thumb. I'm the stuff that makes your nightmares, and leaves you shitting your pants, so you can gamble on your life with me, but you don't have a chance.

Devastatingly Yours,
-S.R.