I love writing. I get to do quite a bit of it at work (the day time job thing I do) but certainly not enough and not the “right” kind, the kind that gets me excited, that brings out the best thoughts, that tickles the funny bone and squeezes the tear glands. At work I write a lot of reports, proposals, memos, and e-mails. Yeah, yuk is right. But once in a while I’m able to carve out some time to pen a nice short story about a beetle I saw and photographed; or about a researcher that I just met and spent a few precious hours in the field with. I pay dearly for those hours, because they awake the little bio-monster that lives in me that remembers field work as my main job, oh so long ago. I also love to write those stories because they give me the opportunity to have conversations with people about things I care about, one-sided conversations most of the time, but heck, that’s what writers do. They talk to audiences of strangers that they’ll never meet, although once in a blue moon, someone writes back and tells them how their story made a difference to them, and that is very cool.
Most of my writing has been directed at individuals (letters), small audiences (newsletter pieces), or a selected incredibly few individuals that like to read what I write, although it puzzles me sometimes why they like this stuff. I puzzle because I’m an inconsistent writer. I don’t write enough, often enough, or well enough to deserve the title, but at least I’m making the effort to write as often as I can.
I want my writing to change lives, and if that’s too ambitious, at least to change their present, like the moment when they read something and cry, or laugh, or feel outraged or scared or amazed. Anything but bored or indifferent. And to get to that point, I need to write more, write better and more consistently. That’s where the daytime job gets in the way, but then, it pays the bills and provides lots of “content” for my writing.
So I dream of the day when I can leave the old job behind and start the new job as a writer. I’m really working on that dream as we speak, reading about platforms and marketing, blogs and websites, editors and agents, and all of those elements that form the frame of the life of a writer. I feel I’m studying as I write, trying different things, short fiction, novels, scripts, short stories, biographical novellas, youth books and pieces, thought and opinion, humor, kids stories and cat stories, non-fiction of all kinds, from to-do pieces to scientific papers, newspaper articles, photo books. Scatterbrained? Perhaps, but how else would I discover what I’m good at if I don’t try it?
So here’s the deal. I’ll post my writings and projects here, and you read them and comment on them, or ignore them if you find yourself nodding off after the third sentence. But if what you read makes you laugh, cry, sad, angry, concerned about my mental health, amused, or simply makes you shrug your shoulders or lift your eyebrows and say “what the heck was that?” let me know. Use these pages as your own small platform to voice your opinion and your thoughts. Let’s create a conversation, one that can be joined by others into a community of thought, a tribe of readers and lovers of the written word. Are you in?
Carlos
Recent Comments