There's this meme going around, in which somebody gives you five "relevant" words and, in response, you have to write something about each one. Normally I don't go for "getting to know me" memes. Waste of time, mostly, but also, they tend to be dumb. This one is a little different. For one thing, Melissa Maples challenged me and she is anything but dumb. For another, it gives me something to write about and I work best with assignments. Of course, I'm not about to do it the way everybody else does. Rather than jot down a few words on each topic, one after the other, I think I'll weigh each one carefully, then write about it at length. One word at a time. One journal entry, as I find the time. That said, the first word is "writing." Here goes...

Asking me to write about writing is a bit like asking a hemophiliac to describe bleeding. Scratch me and it’s an almost certain fact that ink will flow from my veins. It’s both a blessing and a curse; a joyous compulsion and a cruel obsession. It is, in a word: life. Which makes it all the stranger that I find myself at a point in my life wherein writing plays such a small role. For over 25 years I’ve not gone a single month without having at least one article, essay, review, interview, poem or short story published in some publication, somewhere. All that ended three months ago when I took on the very taxing job of running the Rio Grande Theatre.

Why? Because there just hasn’t been any time. I know, that sounds like a lame excuse for a self-proclaimed write-a-holic. If there’s time to eat, to sleep, to shit, there’s always time to write. Therein lies the problem. I rarely find the time for any of those things, anymore. I eat on the run, I sleep sporadically and my digestive tract may never forgive me for the neglect and misuse. It just happens to be the way it is, these days. I still work ten to 12 hour days, six days a week. Ah, but it isn’t so dire as it sounds. I do write. I’m writing now. I’ve got folders filled with notes, reflections, private journal entries and lists. I’m big on lists. It’s the publishing part that’s fallen by the wayside. No big loss, really. The challenge of this new job far outweighs the need for validation as a writer. Maybe I’ve finally outgrown that selfish desire. Maybe…

So, yes, writing is a necessary part of my life. Like oxygen. Even when I was a young turk rebelling against the strict protocols of the Catholic Church and the evil nuns who kept us in lockdown at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School, I wrote. Short stories, mainly, about the ungodly and often grisly demise of Sister Alphonsine, my chief nemisis; she of the immobilizing halitosis and arthritic death pinch. I was seven or eight at the time. Later, in high school, I wrote my first play and took it to national playwriting competitions, despite vociferous condemnation from my stepfather, who believed all that "creative crap" I was doing was, not only a waste of time, but a sure sign that I was a sissy boy, unworthy of his hometown letterman reputation. Hell, even his despicable act of burning my journals and sketch pads, in the front yard when I was 16, didn’t deter me. I learned then that it wasn’t what had been written, but what was left still to write that mattered.

I wound up in college, just so I could escape the man, the church and the repression. Had to turn a lot of tricks to make it happen, but I’m not complaining. Coming from a small town, with no real prospects and a depressing lack of monetary worth, I happily sold my ass for the privilege of attending the University. And, lo, while there, I discovered a whole new world of possibility. There were people attending and teaching at the University who proudly proclaimed themselves writers and pursued careers in the field! I was smitten and I never looked back. Had my first short stories published in the local student lit journal. Joined the college newspaper and got my first taste of a byline. I guess I just never stopped after that.

Over the next 30 or so years, I wrote constantly. It became a driving force, no matter what job I held. Over the years, I wrote for, edited, managed and published a series of entertainment magazines. I had my own ridiculously successful literary website for a few years. I worked for Paramount Studios, which then parlayed into freelance work with every major Hollywood studio and a clutch of smaller, independent production and distribution houses. I was a columnist, staff writer, freelance publicist and writing consultant for whomever would have me. I wrote and had three plays produced. And I had enough short stories published to fill three anthologies. Not a bad run, when you think about it. In fact, I’m probably the most prolific writer nobody has ever heard of. I’m okay with that.

It’s odd to sum my career up like that, in such a short paragraph. There was so much more to it, obviously, but in the end, everything in this line of work can be summed up in a paragraph. I’ve done more than my fair share of reducing others to a synopsis of concise syllables. All’s fair in love and words. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. It wasn’t the details of the experiences that counted, it was the overall experience itself. I was, by gods, and still am, a writer. I always will be, until the day I die, crippling arthritis or dementia not-withstanding. I guess if I had to come up with an epitaph for myself, something to carve into the granite that will someday be my footnote, it would be, “I came, I wrote, I lived the impossible dream.”

‘Nuff said.