Struggling Writer On Display

Hello, my name is Josh Taylor and as you can see, I'm a struggling writer. We're just like struggling actors but we can fail to become published even if we're good looking. Anyway, several months ago I decided I would like to become a writer. So I quit a decent job and started waking up early every morning to write a book. A month and a half later, I had a final-ish draft of a manuscript. That, it turns out, is the easy part. After a long process (several months) of writing letters and mailing them to various agencies, I was turned down by everyone I got in contact with.

That's alright, failure is the key to success I think, so we persevere. That's where this blog comes in. It just so happens that reputable magazines and newspapers are reluctant to hand over weekly columns to unpublished 22 year olds who went to school for business, not writing. So today, as I was shoveling a big pile of dirt (long story), it occurred to me that perhaps I should take some initiative and start a blog. I figured I could throw the link on Myspace and Facebook and see what people thought of my ranting.

I did this because a very funny thing happens when you're unemployed: you get increasingly lazy. You see, laziness is just like anything else, the more you practice the better you get at it. And when you can wake up at any time you want to and do as much or as little as possible, you tend to choose the latter. When I had a job and I woke up on my days off I would get to work and just pound out the chores and errands. 6 or 7 in a day, no problem. And that was while I was relaxing and enjoying not being at work. It was me time. Now I make a list of 6 or 7 things at the beginning of the week and pick one to do each day. It goes like this: Today is Tuesday, I need to grocery shop and do laundry. Whoa, accidentally overscheduled there, need to calm things down a bit. Laundry doesn't require leaving the house, lets do that. Grocery shopping will fit nicely into my day tomorrow. It's sad and pathetic and I think that most people who are (semi)willingly unemployed can attest to the accuracy of that portrait.

So the reason behind this semi-pretentious, vaguely narcissistic tribute to myself is to keep me writing on a regular basis and to do it in a very public way. This, as many writers will tell you, is the hardest part of writing. Letting other people actually see what you've written and making yourself vulnerable to their feedback and criticisms. It doesn't make sense, because of course the writing is being done so it will be read, but insecurity rarely relies on reason for it's own existence. Anyway, I'll finish up by sharing my vision of this blog with you. I plan on writing here once or twice a week on absolutely any-damn-thing that tickles my fancy and gets me excited. Sports, cars, women, politics, drinking, bodily functions, who knows. This is me in the actual act of struggling as a struggling writer. I hope you enjoy the show, I look forward to it.