Life As A Writer

life as a writer

0 - 13 years old: You are exploding with ideas. You have so many ideas that all or most of them will disappear into the aether by the time you grow up. You won’t remember even a quarter of them but you do remember being high on imagination. You acted out entire stories with your action figures. You went on “adventures” with your friends. The entire world was a playground. 13-18 years old: You start developing original ideas. You may go on fan fiction sites and write your own twist on your favorite character. You have goals so big that you don’t realize they are too unrealistic, because in your mind anything is still possible.

18 - 23 years old: Crisis time. You’re not sure if you’re good at this. You still have many ideas but also there’s this little thing called college, or at the very least you need to find a job and figure out what you’re seriously going to do with your life. You may be neurotic about your work in some form or another, or may get frustrated never finding the time to write. You may think you suck and might quit. You may be paranoid that people will take your ideas because you want to be recognized as original. Whatever happens, you start becoming neurotic and anxious and frustrated. You will start dropping old ideas and old goals that you had. 23 - 28 years old: You either mature old ideas or drop all your childhood dreams and focus on something new. You have a day job but any free time you have to yourself is spent fleshing out your writing. Your day job could be something you’re into, if you’re lucky, but either way it’s not your main goal in life. The writing you do in those intervals of free time are what you really want to be known for. 28 years old to pretty much the end: If you have continued writing this far, then you know exactly what you want to do in life. You’re becoming set in your ways and the ball is finally rolling. You have the amazing ability to not pay attention while people are talking because you are writing about something in your head. Someone’s mad at you and you don’t know why. It’s probably because they were spouting about their emotional breakup over the phone and you were saying “Uh-huh” and “Yeah” while you were plotting out an entire three-act play in your head, or had the phone on speaker while you got warped into editing your podcast episode. Any neurotic insecurity you had when you were younger is a thing of the past, because all you do is think and make it happen.

Asking for directions

the impossible return

Le chiffon rouge

. C’est facile de gagner en politique. Il suffit que les autres perdent.

D’abord ils perdent leur sang-froid.

Ensuite ils perdent leur crédibilité.

Et enfin ils perdent leurs électeurs.

Simple. Basique.

Le truc est de trouver le chiffon rouge, ce qui va permettre à coup sûr de faire sortir l’autre de ses gonds. Un truc qui lui tient tellement à cœur qu’il (ou elle, mais regardons les choses en face, souvent il) va péter un câble à la seule idée qu’on va y toucher avec nos sales pattes. Il faut être un minimum subtil, bien sûr. Prétendre défendre le sujet, alors qu’on le tord, on le détourne, on le salit. Commencer l’instillation du poison par « je suis bien d’accord avec vous, d’ailleurs… » est la cerise sur le gâteau.

Avec les plus jeunes, c’est facile. Ils se lancent en politique parce qu’ils sont tout feu tout flamme, acquis à leur cause et à leurs idées. Plus ils vieillissent, plus c’est dur. Ils sont restés en politique parce qu’ils aiment le pouvoir. Mais il reste souvent au fond même des plus vieilles carcasses un peu de la flamme du début, du temps béni où ils y croyaient encore. Il faut juste fouiller, et bien viser.

A la fin il ne reste que les gagnants, ceux qui ne perdent jamais. Ceux qui n’ont plus rien en eux qu’ils pourraient encore perdre. Les meilleurs des meilleurs.

Les gens comme moi.

.

The Need to Stay

(Thought I’d upload my recent comics to Tumblr! I totally forgot it only lets you upload 10 pics at a time, and this is 11, but fingers crossed it works!)