For all my years of living with the self-inflicted curse of a love of writing, I have always liked the term "hack" when it came to myself. Don't ask me why, but I have gone out of my way to avoid "going literary" or become a "Man of Words." This is probably because of a serious lack of talent, but hey that never stopped me from doing anything. Infact, I spent many years studying the more accomplished critically-acclaimed "hacks" of history. Hey I was into Clark Ashton Smith before I knew who H.P. Lovecraft exactly was. I'd rather read Last of the Mohicans than the Scarlet Letter any day. Gimme a Mack Bolan over James Bond. Forget the movie Conan when you can have Beastmaster or Deathstalker. Heck, I used to like Michael Critchon before he started taking himself too seriously, you know when he just stole from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and plastered the jungian-archtypes of Gilligan's Island with "satellite phones" and working for oil companies.
I suppose it was inevitable though. With such dedication comes, inadvertently, a modicum of respect from some the other would-be hacks of creative writing for the new millennium. And they always need help. My wife, Peryton, teases me about having apprentices. And I'm not chuckling back, because shouldn't these "apprentices" be writing my projects for me? Instead I have dedicated A LOT of time playing the "writing coach" with their projects. And as for manual labor, the guys all live too far away for me to have them fetch water from the well or something, of course that may be for the better. We all know what happened to Mickey Mouse when given domestic chores.
But I can't complain too much. While I haven't been able to stare loving at my own navel as I produce yet another of my typical stories, I have to read some guys with considerable talent tackle ideas that interest the both of us. And lordhed knows it has helped my writing techniques considerably... if not my quantity.
Tags: PerytonGamers TAG Writers TheWritingLife
