The Joys & Pains of Being a Writer

This writing thing isn't as easy as it looks.

I know what you're thinking - if a half-wit like me can make a go of it, a set of trained chimps hammering on a bunch of typewriters should be able to churn out something mildly entertaining in no time. Sadly, no one has gotten that to work for them as of yet, so I still come off looking somewhat talented.

Anyway...

Yesterday was one of those good day / bad day dichotomies that occasionally pop up in my writing life where a whole truckload of things go really well, but one thing goes piss-poor and spoils it all. Ironically, it's that the one thing didn't go at all that put a damper on an otherwise outstanding afternoon.

First of all, a day without Blockbuster is automatically great. Nothing personal to those of you from The Block who happened to work yesterday, but I love my time away from there more than almost everything in life. I'm sure you all understand.

Second, I smashed out two posts yesterday - the soundtrack piece below and a little fun piece about an idiot on the San Diego Chargers who should have kept his mouth shut over at Epic Carnival. Any time I can manage to actually put together two well received pieces in one day is pretty sweet.

Adding to the sweetness, I did an interview with a guy I went you university with who is trying to change the world one t-shirt at a time.

His name is Jeff Woodrow and he runs his own t-shirt company. I'm not going to go into great detail - (1) so you'll buy the issue of Passion a couple months from now that features the interview and (2) because I want you all to go to his site and find out about it for yourself. As with most things here, you'll thank me for doing so...

Long story short, I hadn't talked to Woody in a long time and it was wicked to reconnect and talk to someone of like mind who has given up everything to chase his dreams and try to make a difference.

But of course, since everything was going so wonderfully smooth and I was in such a great mood, something had to come up and ruin it. As I said before, it's actually that it didn't come up that made me mad.

Yesterday marked a full month since I hurriedly put the finishing touches on my next article for Passion, a feature (2000 words!) on Celebrity Comebacks for the January/February edition. This is the piece that I had to put together and submit while we were home on vacation, you know, when I was supposed to be relaxing and enjoying my time off.

So, d'you know how many emails and pieces of correspondence I have gotten since being told I needed to have the piece in pre-Christmas as the next issue was going to be put together before New Years? I'm pretty sure you can make a good guess...

ZERO

As my man Smitty said to me back last month when I bitched to him about the suddenly sprung deadline, it is quite amazing how someone or a collection of someones needs a month or more to layout my words. I know it is a much harder task than I actually think it is, but here's the rub:

I haven't even got back a "Article looks great, here are the corrections / edits we need you to make" email as of yet. Either I wrote a perfect article (Not effing Likely) or we're still not at the editing stage which makes me wonder why the hell I needed to get that piece in so goddamn early in the first place?! I could have spent another week easy doing more in-depth research than I did and would have had an even better article. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's great and you're going to love it, but I know it could have been even better.

ARGH!

The one silver lining to all this is that the one email I have gotten from Passion Magazine in the last month was a request for a photo and professional bio for the next issue's Contributors section.

That's right - a picture of me and my mohawk all up in the next issue - plus a shout out to B&C and a mention of a little blog project too...

I'm done whining... thanks for listening.