Thursday, August 2, 2007

What no one knows

Is that the actual reason I'm quitting my drudgerous paralegal job is not because I want to do 60 hours a week at my internship towords the 3000 I must accrue towards MFT licensure. No, you motherfuckers--you my parents, you my classmates, you, George, my boss, you my chess students, you my coffee house baristas, in Marin County we shall burn together in hell like group therapy--it's because if I do 60 hours a week, and continue to cost George thousands in court sanctions due to my incompetence (or lack thereof. what?), my writing bone will be sucked to a dry crisp and I will start turning in laundry lists and prescription labels for critique.

I'm not being a hero for my writing, I just know when I'm about to dry up and crumple out of existence. This is the thing: writing is not, any longer, at least it better not be, some measure of my need to express myself. Expression is yucky. My ability to write things has to do with how much of me actually exists. Every month I pay a tithe to God, or 2,000 words of a 10,000 word document. If I'm not writing anything, the ten percent goes anyway and soon I get used up and I'm mister dry crisp (hi there). This month, for example, I'm up by about twenty pages. And since I wasn't writing for months before that, I am currently eighteen pages out of the whole, for those of you who feel like doing that math. I am eighteen pages. Unfornately it compounds, so next month is ten percent of eighteen, not twenty. ouch. And screenplays don't count for some reason. I tried working that in but got laughed out of the office.

This is a big fat thank you in disguise. Groop rocks. You really do. I can't express (ew) how much it means to me that a bunch of people actually get together to read my stuff and read each other's stuff and just have a good time and know that writing is a good thing and not a waste of time like Marin County. I exist when we hang out. I don't feel like I have to pay my tithe and I always sleep well when I go home.

*kiss*

2 comments:

Nick said...

Wait, did you not file some paperwork that led to some chickenhawk getting fried in the Q?

This is why you should devote your life to us - we'll never fine you for not turning in. We might harass you, mercilessly, but never fine you.

Jen said...

Yay for groop. and yay for ben quitting the paralegal job. less clear on how ben will pay rent. but however you do it, bank robbery included, we support you.