I love writing. I love reading. Few things make me happier than realizing that I can be clever on paper. The perfect sentence is a thing of joy to read. It’s something else entirely to actually produce such words.

I love writing. Poems, short stories, letters, site comments, etc. I don’t think I’ve gone a day in quite some time without doing some form of writing. There are aspects of writing I dislike. It can be tedious. It has rules. Often it is difficult and feels like work. Some writing just isn’t that rewarding. Or, more accurately some writing is more rewarding. Even a poorly crafted poem is something you’ll show others. A short story is a fun investment of time (telling yourself stories is fun if you’ve never tried). But Stories and poems take time, and it’s also frustrating when these don’t go well. Sometimes you need to hide the results and pretend you never wrote them. The stakes can be high even if you’re like me and only do it for fun.

Elevate this into a job or —gasp— a career and you’ve sucked the joy right out of it. To some degree, and I have no first hand knowledge, this is like someone who likes sex trying to make a living in porn.

So I noodle (with writing!). I satisfy this urge by arguing with idiots on the internet, spouting stupid shit on twitter, and writing a few letters a week.

I think a lot of the writing I do is totally masturbatory. It’s just a toss off meant to satisfy the urge to string letters together. I wish I did more substantive writing. In 10 years I’ve rather have 50 short stories to look back on. They are always a fun moment in time. Even when they read as dated fiction I can still see the way I thought about something or remember what was going on in my head (in a way you can’t reproduce with a journal).

Anyway, this is just a dumb way to write that I think I am planning on changing the focus of what I write. This will probably mean I spend less time on certain sites, and for sure means less time writing letters. I hope to keep my letters site to a letter a week, but honestly, I won’t cry if it falls to a level lower than that. Like I said, some writing inherently has more value. Sure, I like entertaining people, and I know people like jackassletters, but I would like to do some other things. Would like to spend time writing things I could show to strangers without having to give some long weird explanation, “Well, I write people and companies and say stupid shit and hope they respond in kind. It’s an expensive hobby. No, not all of it’s funny. Why? Fuck if I know. It’s just what I do.”

For a while I think I am going to try to do some other things as well. I might even read a book!