‘Is it a masterpiece? Or just some guy with his pants down?’

 

So, I started writing when I was 12 or 13.  It’s okay to admit it - creating’s fun.

 

Several years passed, and I decided it was time to start sending my work out into the world and see if anyone felt like publishing it.  It was about this time that I stumbled upon the secret of creating art - no matter how amazing what you’ve just done is, you should NEVER overestimate its ultimate insignicance in the bigger picture.  Seriously.  We’ll all be dead sooner or later and then, beyond that, the assholes who think they run this world will either blow it up or finish the job of running it into the ground.

 

Prove me wrong.  I dare you.

 

So, to pass the time, I write.  Sometimes I paint.  I know it’s better than watching reality tv, and I hope it’s better than getting hooked on crystal meth.

 

And, occasionally, I wonder if my generally misanthropic outlook on the state of things isn’t some kind of mid-life crisis.  But then I look back through time and realize that, no, I’ve been a wise-cracking smartass caught in a tarpit of existential despair for as long as I can remember.  It’s entertaining, and the chicks dig it.

 

BUT WHAT’S THE POINT?!?! you ask.  WHY ALL OF THIS NAVEL-GAZING??!!

 

Shut up.  I’m getting there.

 

As I write, I periodically like to send out manuscripts for possible book publication.  Why not?  And I have found, to my initial surprise, that there are THREE responses I get from publishers.

 

The first, and most popular by far, is the tried-and-true flat-out rejection.  Oh well.

 

The second, of course, is the acceptance, and the people who have spent their time and money publishing my whining and ranting have my most sincere, deepest gratitude.

 

And then there’s the acceptance, that never quite pans out.  It’s an odd creature.  “Yes!” the publisher cries.  “I want to publish this!”  And there is the first flush of excitement as we start hammering out the details.

 

And then days pass, and then weeks and months and years.  Communication gets more infrequent.  Excuses are offered.  Occasionally, a press goes under.  These things happen.  More frequently though, is that the publisher has had a change of heart, but doesn’t want to A) hurt my feelings, or B)  spur me into an enraged killing spree.

 

I, of course, eventually get to the point where I say “Well, fuck it - I’m not gonna beg this asshole to publish my work”, and I move on.

 

And my record keeping sucks.

 

And I don’t delete files nearly as often as I should.

 

And so now I have quite a few unpublished manuscripts lying around, and a few that were published electronically for only a 24 hour window (and wtf is up with that?), and it’s time to get off my ass.  None of this shit is going to make me a millionaire.  There’s no real special occasion I’m saving it for, and I stand by all of it as quality work.  I’ll start posting links to the e-books here over the next however many weeks.  But, since my record keeping truly is atrocious, I can’t guarantee that some of these poems haven’t seen the light of day in a book or magazine somewhere.  My advance apologies to any editors or publishers who this might annoy.

 

On the bright side, it’ll only be annoying until we’re dead.