Without Fear

I’m reading the back matter in the new CASANOVA Vol 2: GULA HC and it contains reprints of all the back matter from the original issues, as well as current annotations of that back matter – like someone doing a ten years later audio commentary over their audio commentary – it sounds insanely meta-navel but is kinda exactly the stuff I wanna read, hence me skipping straight to it and reading.

Therein, I find this perfect little bit, I had to share.

Back then, Fraction writes:

“Summer: lost in Robert Schneider’s pop symphonies, walking the dogs in blast furnace heat, thinking about baseball and CASANOVA. When I figured out the Big Secret in 14, the apples were on. It was Friday; me and Kel went out for sushi. I was distracted.”

Annotating Fraction now writes below:

“I RUINED A DINNER because I wouldn’t push pause on the idea. That was the end of my belief in the writer’s saw about the work just taking over. Bullshit. You’re being rude, antisocial, obnoxious, or receding from social obligations. Don’t talk about writing like your ideas are malevolent spirits. You just don’t want to do shit and like being alone, jackass.”

——-

I love this, because writing so often breeds an air of sensitivity, dare I say it — pretention. And everyone loves to be that writer – that lexicographical mystic who can’t even. And most people let that person get away with their shit because no one who is not a writer understands how we do this stuff. It’s alliterative algebra alchemy, and I think they know if they upset the routine, or the precious time, that the writer is no doubt petty and sore and goddamn unbearable. I know I can be. Fraction identifies and exemplifies that stereotype I think many even want to be, buuuut–

I love this, moreso, because then Fraction calls himself out on this bullshit. He speaks the truth of it. It is fun to write, it is fun to be in solitude playing with your mental toys. It’s the bee’s knees, and we’ll find any way to choose it we can.

But we should never let the apples burn.

Wife/kids > family > writing.

Don’t be a poser, don’t die for the deadline, don’t be ridiculous, manage your time, manage your mind, be realistic, be real, have fun, and allow others around you to share it with you.