All you have to do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
I don't know if Hemingway really said that. And it doesn't matter. I don't care who said it. What matters is that this sentiment absolutely defines me.
I tried to lurk. I always try to lurk and I forever fail. Lurkers are as praised as the theoretical cat in the box. But I never can, because, to put it simply, I am always bleeding. And to sit in front of a computer and bleed always ends like this.
Years ago I called myself a writer. Up until recently I called myself a novelist. Now I'm back to 'writer,' except I added a simple adjective before it. A gerundive actually-not that anyone cares (in fact this browser doesn't even think that's a word. It's a verb acting as an adjective. No one cares--) The word is 'failed!'
A failed writer.
That's what I call myself. My mother disagrees. My boyfriend disagrees. But after spending seven long years fighting people telling me I can't be a novelist--telling me not because they had ever read my writing or had any example to judge by, but telling me more as if I weren't allowed to be a novelist--after fighting all that, disagreeing now with only two is a much simpler task.
So it takes nothing to write--nothing but spilling your own blood for all to judge.
Then, what does it take to be a writer? That simple word that ought to be defined as "one who writes." That's what I argued for years. I worked hard. I wrote hard, and I created beautiful art.
Beautiful art that took seven years to perfect. Beautiful art that sold less than 100 copies. That brought me enough money to fill my tank. Once.
All that made me feel worthy of the title.
But it's not true. All that made me worthy of the title, but with the added descriptor. To be simply a writer, I have to be, "one who is read."
My friends will read My Little Pony fanfics, but not my book. I hear people rave about Harry Potter, Twilight, Game of Thrones, Fifty Shades of Gray. David Brin. Tolkein. Steven King. And I am here, in a corner, sheepishly avoiding eye contact and slipping Halo dust covers over Lovecraft, Sir James Frazer, Bram Stoker, Shakespeare, Virgil and Homer. I tell people my favorite poem is The Raven. Because no one knows Annabel Lee. And no one knows Catullus' Carmina 101.
Having traveled through many countries, and over many seas, I arrive here, brother, at this miserable funeral, So that I may give the final right bestowed upon the dead, And so I may uselessly speak to mute ashes....
Well, that is my personal translation at least. It was written in Latin.
It matters none that I bleed, and read the blood profussed so wondrously by these writers long dead. I've started to wonder if no place remains for me in this world of new literature.
I fear that when I write, I uselessly speak to mute ashes.