I bought a bunch of Poets & Writers, discarded, at the library.
It made me ask myself why I wanted to become a writer.
Was it so I could be swallowed by the corporate maw?
No, it was so I could oppose it. Stand in opposition to
marketing. Advertising. These are quixotic notions an amateur
is soon disabused of. In fact, whether or not you become
professional is the defining question. Do you master the business end
or do you keep doing art for art’s sake, like a true believer?
I read an agent who said she doesn’t like whiners.
People should be grateful. I wanted to ask her
if she liked asskissers. What she’d say
if nobody answered her letters.
Why does everything have to be so phony?
Bud Eagle asked. I am not the phony,
you’re the phony, Jackson Pollock said.
I wanted to write about the relation between
rejection and authenticity. Rejection and
street cred. I had a chip on my shoulder.
The Cow Chip of Doom. I felt doomed.
Star-crossed. Fucked by the Fickle Finger
of Fate. Off the scale. No tits and no veteran’s preference.
The lone writer, writing alone. Writing is a lonely occupation.
It will break your spirit. Break your mind.
You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.
I broke myself and recorded the explosion.
Imagine a book about being caught in the death throes of
the dot-com boom. Being surplused. Superannuated.
A first-person account. From inside the brain of the monster.
A pinworm in the brain of the monster. Not interested, GI.
Pretty soon payday. Lotsa luck placing it elsewhere.
Nobody wants to read about pot liquor.
