I REALLY WANT TO BE A WRITER

Hi John

First of all, you ARE a writer. This latest poem is wonderful.

As a loyal, long-time, endlessly suffering Red Sox fan, I especially love the line : "I must have pain".

Seriously, though, I sometimes wonder if it might not be more difficult to face the challenge of living without suffering than with it. I mean, when things are going well, the pressure is on to actually DO something with one's life. No easy task, if you know what I mean.

A reader at last!!!!
I was sorta making light of all the postings of sorrow, pain and the ilk that people post. Every once in a while there is some levity but by in large, it's all doom.

I've been a sox fan since childhood and played on a Littlt League team by that name. Pain is indeed a requirement.

Thanks for the note!

Morganwood, It distresses me that more people don't respond to original writing. I do wish each person at A2K would take a moment to read and either critique or just say something honest.

As for your writing, I am always caught up by it. One reminder; anyone who puts pen to paper is a writer. Some are good; some are touching; some are not so good; All, however, are worthy of reading.

I noticed today that oldandknew had written a very cryptic piece called "The Table". The title was intriguing as well as the rather arcane development of it, which leapt out at me.

Keep it up, Morganwood, for YOURSELF, especially.

Hi Letty, I'm not on as much as I used to be or as much as I would like. I try to respond to a lot of stuff. Especially the things that have few responses. I tend not to wade in on the topics that are well into page 41. I think I hurt a picece the other day by responding to quickly with a vision that instantly came to mind but I guess that's the chance you take when you ask others to respond.

In othwer venues, I've written some pretty heavy stuff. This piece and my trimmer piece I like a lot though. Not because they are particularly good but, because they are a change of pace. "A reader at last" was spoken with a tone of levity. Because I had fun writing this and the other piece, wheather or not they had an warm reception was not an issue. The words "sex, god and Bush" gets things read!

Thanks for the note!

See you haven't lost your sense of humor, Morganwood. Sex, God, and Bush..love it.

Salute..

(loved the entire poem, incidentally)

As I am not (to paraphrase Truman Capote) even a typist, never mind a writer, I tend not to comment on original writing because I am out of my league and the last thing a writer wants is an uninformed critic. But that said I think your poem is very good Morganwood.

Thank you very much.

I am one of those foolish persons who have opinions about things of which I know little or nothing. I hate Dali and Love Edward Hopper and can draw a straight line with the help of a ruler!

The pen failed me once more.
Mary came to me.
We lay alone in the field,
Caressing
Touching
Fondling
Consumed with the passion of the moment.
She was my all, the fiber of my being
She owned my soul.
No tome here.

I liked that stanza, it shows the frustration of writing well.

Acquiunk, your comment prompted/inspired me to post a little ditty called "WRITING" on this forum. I figure a lot of people think that they are not or can't be writers. The opposit is very often true. :-)

I think the poem is very evocative indeed. Morganwood, where are you on Edgar's spontaneous poems thread? It's good mental excercise. Letty, morganwood must join us...yes?

I'll check in tomorrow. Just playing with a lot of fanciful stuff at the moment!

Here's an artful poem from the depths of the Deep Doom Divide of Spooky Gothdom, or something scary like that:

Pain! And death! And some bad stuff!
And maybe one of the Olsen Twins in a tube top!
Ooooooh . . . scary.
Pain! And death! And some bad stuff!
My chorus is very negative and very not happy.
Pain! And death! And some bad stuff!
And . . . and maybe a kitten! With evil feline necro-powers!

I'm a published author, believe me the wondrous feeling wears off once you realize it'll be a good 18-24 months before you see any royalties. "Manzikert" comes out Oct. 11th, although it's already available from PublishAmerica.com, just not any of the other online retailers and local bookstores and stuff. (they know what they're doing, giving themselves a good month of exclusivity before they release it to stores everywhere, )

Anyways, my point is, if I can write crap that sucks as bad as that bit of claptrap up there, literally anything can catch some wayward publisher's eye. (note: lines kinda similar like that might actually appear in a future book I'm writing, as sad as THAT sounds) The first, initial problem is getting your name out, which I'd say I have yet to do, really, but I'd like to think that I might someday be able to do things like demand royalty advances up front and make more than a buck off of each copy sold, y'know, actually make money writing instead of being a drone in the fast food industry who hates his job and wishes he could do pretty much anything but live in Podunk and make cheap food that's bad for you at a low, low price. Send anything and everything to everywhere, and know the audience you're sending it to. Different manuscripts will call for different magazines/anthologies, etc., and there's nothing worse than losing the world's greatest crime novel because you sent it in to Harlequin Books without a love scene in it. If, in the end, you find nobody will take your work, but you believe it would sell well given the chance, you can actually pay 1stbooks.com 600 bucks to publish and advertise your book for you, although keep in mind they won't do any editing on it. There are some real biases on what people think will "entertain" a certain target audience, (which is the reason conformist cookie-cutter genre novels are now the norm and innovative genre-defying pieces are often ignored) but in the end, it's like the music industry: you will often find your voice does not become popular until many, many people hear it. Whether of not my book winds up a success, my real hope is that at the very least it will afford me the reserve cash to pull up the tent poles and move on to better things.

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morganwood i thought your poem was quite good because it flows like the stream does.