On My Writing

Time for a self reflexive piece. I'm a nerd by nature; if you've read anything else at this site, you already know that. History, politics, philosophy, literature, and the like are not merely important but actual sources of entertainment for me. When I'm not reading such things, I'm thinking about them, and on occasion I even write my thoughts down. The problem is, I do not stay focused on any particular subject long enough to write down everything in as much detail as I would like to go into.

Last night, for reasons that elude me, I dug through random notebooks and boxes of crap I've kept in storage since college. Among various letters from Cortland and letters/notes/cards from various old flames (including one I forgot about), I found a surprising amount of handwritten notes on subjects of all sorts, stories, the occasional junk poem (and the even less often good one), and other treasures.

Right now, there are a thousand ideas I would like to put to paper or computer screen, but I don't. The main reason tends to be me wanting to write a book on each subject and not being happy unless I've covered every conceivable aspect in research and in my writing. It then drives me nuts that I don't put any of these thoughts down.

Anyway, this is my half hearted attempt to convince myself to just write down whatever it is I'm thinking about every day concerning those fun subjects I love so much. The corpus of the best writers in the world is still 90% junk; creating anything of value in writing is worth the great amount of trash that is also produced. We'll see how long this actually sticks in my mind before the semi-perfectionist in me returns.