Imagine my surprise today to learn that the The Writer magazine is going on hiatus. Thanks, Donna, for keeping us informed.
Now I must find something else to stack to great heights on my lamp table, piled askew like a wayward column in a less-than-sober game of Jenga, a leaning literary tower of Pisa-like engineering.
I don't mean to put on airs. Get all highfalutin. But I sometimes think of myself as TheWriter. You know. Like Christopher Walken is The Continenal on SNL. Except that I don't have a pencil-thin mustache, wear a smoking jacket, or offer guests champagne as I try to lure them behind closed doors.
No, I am no Continental. I am TheWriter. Which is not to say that I am all thin and glossy and uniformly shaped, full of helpful information on writing. Nor do I slap a label near my bottom, curl up around Victoria's Secret and the cable bill, and wait for you to squeeze me out of your mailbox, stash me in your armpit, then spread me across your lap.
I try to put entertainment on a page. Like caviar on a toast point. An hors d'oeuvre for the mind. I've tried to steep my gray matter in the work of TheWriters who preceded me. "What fresh not-heaven is this?" I ask, upon hearing someone tap tap tapping at my chamber door. "Shall I invite him in, risking a slow, wasting death from blood loss after two odd punctures on my neck? Perhaps it is only my buddy Huck, eager to swing a dead cat in a graveyard to make my warts disappear. Or maybe Hester, here with my sewing."
So I sit. TheWriter. Not writing, but daydreaming about writing. I can always write tomorrow. After all...tomorrow is another day.
That last line is really great. You should consider using it...and changing your name to Scarlett. As for writing, I've heard it said and I agree: No one wants to write, but everyone wants to have written.
ReplyDeleteIf Hick would sell some of his treasures in the BARn, you might have enough money to buy the magazine. Then, you'd be in complete control of the publication.
ReplyDeleteNow I wonder...what kind of columns would you add if you were in charge?
I think you should start your own magazine and call it Wise Cracks. Sioux could be your editor.
ReplyDeleteNow, BIC PIH (Butt in chair, pen in hand)
Stephen,
ReplyDeleteOooh! So true. And while I'm at it, I want to have been an Olympic figure-skating champion! As far as renaming myself Scarlett...I had another scathingly brilliant idea the other day. I even wrote it down in my little notebook of ideas. There I was, chugging a 44 oz. Diet Coke, wiping gas station chicken grease from my chin, when the thought hit me. I swore that I would never be hungry again. Can't prove it, though. No witness.
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Sioux,
Hick is a buyer, not a seller. Except for free-range chicken eggs, which he lets go for a paltry dollar a dozen.
Obviously, the first column I would add to my new magazine would be: Putting More Seinfeld References into Your Writing.
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Linda,
There's an idea! But before I hire Sioux, I will have to retrofit all of the bathroom sinks with those sneeze guard thingies to keep her from washing her hair (allegedly) and monopolizing the local firemen with her rescue calls.
I've got the first part of the BIC PIH mastered. But that pen keeps slipping out of my gas-station-chicken-greased hand, stabbing a hole into my 44 oz. Diet Coke.