12/06/2004

Forced Writing

Every once in a while I force myself to write. I usually preach against it because the day I realized I am a better writer when I don't force it was the day I became better or at least it was more fun. Because of this I can sometimes go through very long stretches without writing anything new or I'll find myself in a stretch where I'm on a "hot streak" of writing tiny stand-up jokes and not anything of a longer substance and or vice versa. I've been busy lately playing the producing game and have not had much time to write. I have some new stuff that I haven't put on my site yet because I want to read them at some upcoming readings first --but other than that it's been pretty dry over the past month. So, I forced myself to write something. I forced myself to write a new letter. I've been having trouble writing new letters. When I first wrote them no one else had seen them. Now when I try to write them I can't shake the feeling that I'm imitating myself....anyhoo, with all that in mind I tried to write a new one with both forcing myself and this bad feeling of trying to "please" and it came out like this....(Oh yeah, my rule for writing these letters is that I can't go back and edit)

Dear Lost and Found,

I lost a brown leather coat. It is brown and made out of leather. I wear jeans a lot. Do you know who I am? I’m usually wearing jeans. You may have seen me in jeans and a brown leather coat when I came in but not in that when I left. I have to admit something to you. I didn’t lose a brown leather coat. I lost a blue nylon coaches jacket. I figured that since I lost my jacket I might as well try to upgrade to another type of jacket. One that is more expensive and that could make me look both cooler and more jovial. Is jovial used correctly there? It’s not. I looked it up and the definition had a word in it that I didn’t know the meaning of. That word was "conviviality," which means full of feasting, drinking, good company and sociable. That’s what I am. I’m that already without the brown leather coat. Jovial means full of joy. When I used the word jovial I was trying to express that it would make me look more successful in a business sense. What I’ve learned from this is that I don’t need a brown leather coat to make me happy. I’m already happy with the kind of coat I have and it took losing it and trying to swindle my way into getting a better one to realize this. I didn’t even lose my coaches jacket. I just left it at home and didn’t realize I walked out without it. Is there even a lost and found at the post office? How’s your father?

Sincerely,
Jon

So what does that mean? Why did that come out? Sometimes I go back and read and I can see parallels to more serious events in my life. Who knew? Oh wait, I did.






<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?