The Writer's Blockparty

For as long as I could, I've always wanted to keep on writing. In my mid-late teens, it became an ambition - I enrolled in a feature-writing journalism course through the London School of Journalism. I wrote book reviews for a comparatively large regional newspaper. I volunteered my skills at a small, community newspaper. I critiqued amateur poets' work. I even got positive feedback based on my samples from large, national magazines when pitching myself as a potential, student freelancer. Needless to say I read fervently - important news, classical literature, vintage and modern beat-poet tomes like Cuckoo's Nest and The Beach, and some classics like Shakespeare and Nietzsche.

• It was fun - I received free books to review, and on-sold them or donated them to the local library. 
• It was important - for the first time in my life, I believed I had some real talent in something other than sports, or "being the nice, quiet guy"
• It was naive, but innocent nonetheless

Breaking into print is really not that hard; anyone with a half-decent vocabulary, who can string comprehensible sentences together to form a cohesive story together, can do it. After all, "creative writing" and "journalism" are offered as school-level courses. This isn't astrophysics. 

Finding a voice is pretty easy too, once you understand your market, and your audience. It's easy to whore yourself out to anyone who would be willing to pay you bottom-dollar rates in an intensely competitive industry, with a byline for your efforts. You write. They pay. You get the credit. For some writers this is like free crack on christmas day; they buy into it, and give it their all. Some become alcoholic, egotistical, print journalists. And don't we love them for it. 

Developing and honing a unique voice within a distinct market is an altogether different story. In fiction or non-fiction. It's not easy. I think people forget that, just like any other career, professional writing has its substantial fair share of dropouts - people very capable on paper, but not the paper that mattered - their "customers" (readers), in other words. It takes practice - years of practice - which most never master. 

In 2013, I'm going to try and write a novel. I don't care if it doesn't get published. I won't blame myself. I won't blame my friends or family who will support me through this arduous, lengthy process. No. If nothing comes of it, I'll blame you. Wish me luck. Now leave. 

Adaptation

The other day I read an article which explained that children who lie, deceive, manipulate, are more intelligent than their peers, and are more likely to succeed in later life. They do this not because they have inherited a dishonest or corrupt set of genes, but because they realize that by doing so, they are more able to influence the outcome of their individual situations. In other words, a tool used to personally benefit from a circumstantial situation.

Many long years back, I read a quote by someone (I think it was Einstein), which said that a true mark of intelligence is the ability to adapt to any given situation. The ability to be cast into unfamiliar surrounds, mould your behavior and attitude to its demands, its challenges, and emerge with newfound wisdom which you can take with you.

In light of the recent shootings in Newtown, CT, I think it's equally important to recognize that these poor, encumbered, mass-murdering individuals are, most likely, not intelligent (in the crucial essence of the definition). They could not:

• Adapt: to changing circumstances around them - many were simply angry at what the world had "given" them
• Adjust: their behaviors - they had no faculty to, no support; they most likely always felt like outsiders
• Accept: their own misgivings, and find alternative outlets to express their "creativity"

Contrast these attributes against those of highly successful psychopathic murderers - the Chikatilo's, the Bundy's, the Dahmer's - who of course are, by nature, highly manipulative, more calculated, well-adjusted and undoubtedly more intelligent, and you come to a chilling conclusion: 

1. There's been a veritable drought of evasive psychopathic murderers over the last 15-20 years
2. Despite all the surveillance around us, we wouldn't recognize them in the adjacent cubicle