MediocreMan

Like Stephen King · 21 May 2022

Stephen King
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by FlickreviewR
Licensed under CC BY 2.0

I am like Stephen King.

It is not really true, but I will still say it. I am a bit like Stephen King. That is, I write every day. Or at least I write six days a week. Which to me is every day. No. I can count. I just make sure that I take a day off from writing. I rest one day a week. Which is good for me.

But back to my thesis statement.

I am really only like Stephen King in that I write every day. Or what I consider every day. (We already went through that.) The difference is that he writes 2000 words a day, and I only write about half that. Sometimes a little less. Sometimes a little more. So maybe I am just like half of Stephen King.

At any rate.

I came to the conclusion that I am like Stephen King when I recently read a quick blurb about him in Parade. You know. That little magazine insert that comes with the Sunday newspaper. Or at least it comes with ours. At any rate. I read the little blurb about Stephen King and decided that we are alike. We both write. We both play guitar. And we both were teachers. (I still am a teacher.)

True. Stephen King has sold way more books that I have. Millions more. He has written way more books too. He writes novels. Some might even be called tomes. I write short stuff. Short books which are just short stories. He writes for the masses. I write for myself. And the couple people who might be called my fan base. He writes for adults. I write for kids. Middle grade kids. He writes with a fountain pen. I use a computer.

I know. There are way more things different about Stephen King and me than there are similar. But I still think the notion that we both write nearly (or well over) one-thousand words a day is a significant likeness. So much so that I thought I should comment on it. For I daresay that there are people who do not come close to that. Oh sure, there are many people who write a thousand words a day. But there are just two that I can name. Stephen King and me.

Now, you might think that this post was done on a dare. See how many times you can say Stephen King in a blog post. Stephen King. Stephen King. Stephen King. But there was no such dare. I did not even write it because I thought people might search for Stephen King and find my blog. I know there is no such luck. Unless, you looked on the one-hundredth page (or more) of your search. After all, there are not just Stephen King books out there. There are Stephen King movies made from Stephen King books. And there are even Stephen King books written by Richard Bachman (his pen name for several books). And surely there is Stephen King merchandise and Stephen King this and Stephen King that. No, you would surely never find my blog post just by searching for Stephen King.

I like Stephen King. Rather, I like Stephen King books and movies. No. I have not read or watched them all. I am actually not that much into horror. But I like the way Stephen King writes. His work is readable. And his book, On Writing, is one of my favorite books on writing.

Well, as you can see from the above spouting, I am very much like Stephen King. Well, at least I write every day. In that way, at least, I am a little (kinda sorta) like Stephen King.

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Still Writing · 14 May 2022

I apologize if it seems that the quality of my blog posts is going down. (As if it could sink any lower.) I have been busy working on other writing projects.

I wonder how I used to do it. It being blogging every week just writing one day a week. I suppose that I did not do it very well. Of course, I would not know since I rarely go back and read my old stuff. What is the point? It is already out there on the internet. Forever. Sure, I could fix things up after the fact, but it does not really matter. After all, those posts are water under the bridge. They are part of the past.

Still. I wonder how I did it. Writing one day a week and posting that same day seems so foreign to me now. I did not have the time to write every day. Or so I thought. But then something happened and I had to write every day. I knew I needed to do it, so I just did. And here I am years later, still writing in obscurity, but writing nonetheless. And writing every day.

Which is the whole point. I just write. It is up to others to do the reading. Oh sure. I am supposed to promote my writing so people will read, but that is not really why I started writing. Okay. It is. I started writing for the fame and fortune. The fame I thought I would have was the fame where everybody knows your name, but nobody knows your face. Just walk around like a normal person and hear every reader talk about you. How cool would that be!

I know. Fantasy world. But still. People can dream. Right?

At any rate.

I think back to those old days of writing and posting one day a week, and I wonder that I was able to do it. Survive that is. After all, writing is like breathing. How could I have survived breathing one day a week? Or maybe it was that I did not realize writing was like breathing until I was writing all but one day a week. Maybe that was when I understood that I had not been breathing.

Not that it really matters. What matters is that I am breathing. I am writing. Even if all my energy is not going into my blogging. Which makes sense. Writing six days a week to get one blog post does not seem very productive. Even for me.

So what have I been writing? I am glad you asked.

I know that the quality of my blog posts has not always been that great. Even from day one. Still, I do like to get something out there that is halfway decent. At least every once in a while. So I put time and effort into blogging. I even try to write a few weeks ahead of time so I have a chance to edit. But in fact, many ideas never get to the surface. Many ideas never see daylight. They just have a title and a sentence or two. Or maybe a few paragraphs. Still. The bone yard of ideas grows each week. Well, maybe not each week, but you get the idea.

But back to what I have been writing. I have been putting most of my time and effort into two or three books. I actually put the finishing touches on one that has been done for about a year. Actually, I think it has been done for longer than that, but I had not put together the digital cover. But now that is done, and I have only one more book to finish in my series, Autobiography of a Sixth Grader. (That book just needs another read through and a cover and it will be done too.)

At any rate, I have been busy writing other stuff over the years. I even amazed myself when I realized that I have more than a dozen digital books on Amazon (seventeen at last count). Yes. I need to do better at promoting myself. But that is not the point. The point is that I have actual books for sale. I really am an author. Or maybe not. (Is a person a writer if nobody reads?)

Well. That is about it. I just wanted to say that regardless of the quality of my blog posts, I am still writing. So hopefully my readers (both real and imaginary) will keep reading. And maybe some of those real readers might like to read some of the other stuff I have been writing. (The last sentence is about the extent of my marketing campaign.)

I hope you keep reading. And regardless of whether you read my stuff or not, I will keep writing.

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Ideas Are Fleeting · 7 May 2022

I am sure I have written about it before, but I must say again that ideas are fleeting.

No matter what kind of creative person you are, ideas are fleeting. They are like fast butterflies. You need to have the net or the camera ready to capture them before they flit away at the speed of sound. Or maybe the speed of light. At any rate, ideas are certainly fleeting.

Many creative people carry notebooks or sketchbooks with them wherever they go. It is smart. Capture those ideas before they flit away. Some people even keep those notebooks near their beds so that they can jot down those ideas that come while they are sleeping or somewhere between sleeping and waking. I used to do that. But writing in the dark while half asleep does not often produce legible ideas. Sometimes it might spark a recollection, but usually, the note is just a scribble on a page.

I have ideas that I have captured on my phone and in notebooks and in an idea document on my computer and even in my document that holds my blogs. Some of those ideas have even turned into blog posts and books. Some just lie dormant. Some should be thrown onto the slag heap and thrown away. But that is the nature of ideas. Some are good ideas. Some are not.

Which is funny to think about. Those not so great ideas must be like moths. They are a bit slower and easier to catch than those speedy butterflies of the previous analogy. But we do not know that the bad ideas are just moths drawn to our creative flame. They look pretty, but when we catch them, we realize that they are not the great ideas we thought they were. But we cannot just let them go. We just put them in a jar and pin them to a board to show off how many of those ideas we have collected. And we might even believe they will turn into butterflies someday.

(Have you ever noticed how some people can take analogies too far? I have. It is a bit annoying. You might have a good one to start with, but then you go on and on and on until it is nothing like you envisioned. Ah well.)

But back to fleeting ideas.

I do believe that every idea has potential. Which is why I hate the thought of losing ideas. Unfortunately, I know that I lose ideas all the time. Ideas come and ideas go. And ideas get caught and used. Or ideas get caught and end up never being used. None of that really matters. What matters is that we take the time to catch our ideas and assess them. Then, we can either develop those ideas or save them for later or throw them away. But if ideas are like quick butterflies, we need to catch them before they flit away.

Well, it has been a long time since I have caught butterflies. Either with a net or with a camera. But I have caught lots of ideas. And I have lost a lot of ideas. But I do not fret over the lost ideas. Although sometimes I might dwell on one that I lost. But in the end, we need to work with what we have. And for those creative types, that means we just need to work with the ideas that we actually have and not worry about the ones that got away. (Which is quite another story.)

I am sure I will catch glimpses of great ideas and actually catch some bad ones in the future. And I will surely remember that when it comes down to it, ideas are fleeting.

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