Writing for Noobs like me

The maddening changes happening all around us in the world in these unusual times have lots of people deeply thinking about what they are doing with their life, “what makes you happy?” “What are you passionate about?” and so on…. cliched they may be, but persistent none the less. Perhaps we are just too comfortable in the modern world when we are not spending as much time in the age-old sport of survival of the fittest. I am certainly no exception to this trend having wasted many hours on these types of thoughts. “Writer!” says that little voice in my head “Maybe you could be a writer!”. I should be going to sleep right now. Instead (and certainly not for the first time) I am searching the internet about how you can make money as a writer. It’s a real shame that “it would have to be a viable source of income” is the second thought that comes to mind and probably not indicative of the required free spirt of a real author, but hay, needs must. I find the Vocal site and have a good browse around; some things are my cup of tea, some not so much, mostly impressive none the less. “Their command of language is a lot better than yours anyway” says the little voice “You would need a lot of practice to be any good” he continues “yes, yes let me dream of it a little, I’m supposed to be going to sleep and that’s the time for dreams” “I” reply. It just occurs to me now that the little hypocrite was the one that suggested the whole thing in the first place, the same one now admonishing itself/myself in some sort of maddening fractal double bind, “Probably make a good Koan, but you don’t know anything about them anyway” he interrupts, “Shh” I reply. I remember as a young boy on family holidays gazing off into the distant mountains, a sea scape, horizons, or lochside depending on our destination (never a palm tree beach and coconuts for us, all tartan and haggis and within driving distance of home) and thinking just how cool it would be to wander around thinking of stories and ideas and writing them down as an actual Job. My little dissenter continues his secretion “stop spending time on this, you should think about raising an invoice for that TCP/IP work on the client’s new system” “Shh! it won’t take that long I think it’s only supposed to be a few hundred words” I reply.

I was at a wedding once mostly consisting of fellow engineers (including the bride and groom) from my university days and there was an author there, he lived on a remote part of the island we were visiting, his work life consisted of wandering around all day and writing down stories and ideas and he got paid to do it “How fucking cool!” I thought, “now that’s a profession, no that’s a vocation, a purpose! good man!”. “How would you know what to write?” says my little buddy, followed by “your too old”. I ignore the too old part. They say write about what you know and that’s about as much about writing as I know, so he has a valid point. like most of us I suppose I am trapped in here the whole firkin day with one of these little voices traversing in circles, some big, some small like a series of demented feedback loops in an amplifier. I have significant experience of this topic at least “write down some of the crap in your head” I think, that and pondering starting my writing journey will have to do. One thing’s for sure, all you real accomplished writers out there have one of the coolest jobs in the world, so bloody well hats off to you folks! “The end, bedtime” he says, as he tires of the effort of thinking, then “eh that’s short, so how longs a story supposed to be anyway before you can submit it?”, “good point” I reply.

I have a look around for some sources of media. Based on not knowing what I am doing, I decide photos will be a lot easier than video. I land on an image stock site and as I half expected anyway, once into the site I see the images are not really “free” unless you get the ones covered in water marks. “You can’t go using images with watermarks all over them, how amateur” I am told. I decide to ignore this and go with it, “you will probably not be allowed due to some watermarking rule on Vocal” he pitches up. I would be tempted to listen to this, but I decide to throw caution to the wind, life is all about risks (if there are no water marks on the images you will see the little shit was right). As far as the amateur part well I’m about as amateur as it gets so; I can only hope questionable images adds something to the authenticity. “You are going to get pulled for swearing” comes next “meh” I reply. (If there is no swearing, I leave it to your inner detective to fill in the blanks there)

For better or worse “write about what you know” has helped me to bash out a bunch of words, so I guess that’s both the beginning and end of the lesson from me. I will however draw upon some grapes of wisdom from the ages and throw in a quote from Marcus Aurelius:

“If a thing is humanly possible consider it within your reach”

And I met a proper writer once! so there you go, give it a bash, and throw your Noob hat into the ring like me!