Thoughts About Writing I

Scribo ergo sum. (I write; therefore, I am.)

My late father used to talk about how we all write our own stories. Some of us choose happy endings and some of us choose sad endings. And some of us are at the mercy of an unsympathetic editor who continually rewrites our material.

All great writers have a bit of OCD in their makeup. And, I suspect, a bit of MPD as well.

Is it worse to be a supporting character in someone else's story and wind up with a happy ending or to play the lead in one's own story and wind up with a tragic ending? And what about those poor souls who don't get a choice?

Which is greater: the writer who uses a vocabulary that can be only understood by a thousand people or the writer who uses a vocabulary that can be understood by a million people?

Few writers experience as much danger or hardship on the job as the average factory worker. But one would never know that from the way many writers talk.

When you grow up among people who have worked in steel mills and automobile factories, it seems a bit obscene to go on and on about how "hard" it is to be a writer. Especially when the hardest part about being a writer is rarely the actual writing. It is finding something to write about that people are actually willing to pay you to write about.

Should I find it ironic that the most honest stuff I write is usually written under a pen name?

How come you hear so much about people writing short stories but never about anyone writing a long story?