Tho I must admit, I'se taken back to days of yesteryear (no, not the intro to Lone Ranger from when I'se a kid) but to when I'd argue with dummies on MySpace (Lord of the Unpublished Book or some such shit) 'bout they being no rules to write. Okay, maybe they is some.
Or even an argument with my sister (as a continuance of same with my late father). So I was at State Prison ...no, that's another time. Okay, was boy's reform school (lovely horse-ranch place) where my goddaughter Rita & mum visiting their brother/son, and as it's a locked-in setting fer bad boys, lovely lil teenybopper Rita wearing yoga pants fer all the boys t'harden they fortitude, I guess.
Anyway, y'caint smoke on campus so I drives out to spring blooming sunshiny corn field dirt road to light up cigarette and call my sis who live down 'Sippi way. And as we speak of life, she says she always wanted to be a police detective. Solve mysteries, lock up villains, make streets safe fer decent folk. An' I tells her - easy 'nuff - just write stories or books with yersef as the clever detective/hero. But she resists - doesn't know how - to write like yer 'sposed to.
Whereupon I start to scream cuss and abuse - who the fock say what e're way you does it isn't the "right way" that everbuddy else too stupid to know til you show 'em? Then again, like I say, I'm in a slog here. My three books has stalled a bit. Slowed to a crawl, that is. So, p'raps we should look under the hood.
Think of it like eating, like nourishment. Like you's all day down in the coal mine in How Green Was My Valley an' finally drags yer ass home t'evening where mum say "I hired a French chef t'prepares yah dainty lil delights scattered about yer porcelain white plates...or...I got big bowls a hot beef stew. Take yer pick.
Y'see? Nourishment taint 'bout how the ferkin food look, is 'bout what it do. Fill yer gut would be the operative concept here. So let's go o'er the rules, such as they are. Books are wot y'eat when yahs hungry - not a taste testing competition fer Connie's sewers. Okay then.
Rule one - do hit taste good? Cuz y'aint gonna eat the shit if tastes like shit. (Correlative) don't gotta be no fancy-ass frills arranged like a Caravaggio canvas. Gimme the fokkin stew, Ma, I'se hungry.
Rule two - is filling? Like, how much this shit I gotta eat fer I feel like I dun et sumpin? Like I said - in a slog here - tha's why I'se writin' 'stead a readin'. A wise old... Fuck it, I once said: reading something writ, better be the best thing you could be doing right now...otherwise the author fokkin wasted yer time. So tha's rule one...two...ever goddamn rule they is.
But.......how can the author be so boldly God-like t'know that reading they writing is the one most important thing you could be doing with your time? Hah, see rule...whatev. If taint that, don't fokkin write. I kin waste my time watchin' the tv or fixin' up the house or million other thangs. Wastin' time aint a problem. Is "not wastin' time" wot we gotta figure on. Y'see?
Anyway, just picked up Thomas Chatterton Williams' book Self-Portrait in Black and White. And is tasty.
PS - that Anderson feller can write t'hell outta the spoken word, caint he?
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