{"id":240,"date":"2008-10-10T09:46:49","date_gmt":"2008-10-10T14:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=240"},"modified":"2018-10-31T09:38:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T13:38:41","slug":"a-page-a-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=240","title":{"rendered":"A Page a Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years now, the writerly advice that I\u2019ve always received is \u201cjust write a page a day.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve been hearing that since high school.\u00a0 \u201cWithin a year, you\u2019ll have a finished book!\u201d<\/p>\n


\nOf course, in the publishing world, that\u2019s no good.\u00a0 You have to be nose to the grindstone 9-5 and churn out a book every nine months if you want to make money.\u00a0 And do that for 20 years if you really want to make money.\u00a0 And also not suck.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve never really considered myself a writer, though friends and colleagues often push me in that direction.\u00a0 Probably because I write the ongoing adventures of Jerry the Flying Club-like Penis here on the GS front page all the time.<\/p>\n

Really, folks, 90% of the stuff I post here is done so while under the influence of a crippling amount of alcohol.\u00a0 Or waffles.\u00a0 Or, right now, that 365 raspberry soda from Whole Foods which is made from pure cane sugar and proudly advertises that it \u201ccontains 0% juice\u201d.\u00a0 I think there should be huge ads screaming:\u00a0 \u201cGet 0% of what\u2019s good for you RIGHT HERE!\u201d<\/p>\n

I buy it on the rare occasion I have enough money to go into Whole Foods because I miss soda with sugar in it.\u00a0 There is a difference.\u00a0 Ask any of the goy who flock to the Jewish stores for Passover Coke.\u00a0 My grandmother used to cane Jews to load up with real sugar Coke at the local Jewish market in Wheaton.\u00a0 Then we\u2019d all gather around and worship the old Coke.\u00a0 Taste it the way it used to taste before 1985 and the high fructose boom.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll always associate Passover Coke \u2013 and shoving old Jewish women to the ground \u2013 with my grandmother.<\/p>\n

So, anyway, enough people have hounded me the last couple of months, ever since The Dreaded Article<\/a>, to write my life story.\u00a0 These people now hounding me are of the sort who can turn my writing into cash which, really, is what writing is about.\u00a0 You shouldn\u2019t write for the dream, or to answer the call of art, or anything high brow like that.\u00a0 You should write so you can quit your motherfucking job and stop dealing with idiot shitheads all fucking day.\u00a0 And, if writing is what you must do, then it\u2019s worth any sacrifice to get to the point where it pays off\u2026 Or else you should stop trying.<\/p>\n

Here in my mid-30\u2019s, I\u2019m approaching that sort of outlook on life.\u00a0 I don\u2019t really write anymore, except for idiot blog entries, because writing wasn\u2019t making me money.\u00a0 I don\u2019t deal with crazy women anymore because there\u2019s no payoff.\u00a0 I don\u2019t stay out till 2am because it\u2019s all pointless when you can get drunk in the afternoon and fuck before sunset.\u00a0 Or\u2026whatever.<\/p>\n

I now understand the esteemed advice of my great-grandfather:\u00a0 If you don\u2019t get any pussy by midnight, then kick her out and go to bed.
\nWhen my grandfather first passed that quote on, while I was partying hard in my first year of college, I was all, whatever, old man!\u00a0 But now, yes, god, it\u2019s absolutely true.\u00a0 Women aren\u2019t worth losing sleep over.<\/p>\n

So writing, despite making me a small amount of money in the heady internet boom days of the 90\u2019s, hasn\u2019t really been worth much to me in the old 21st.<\/p>\n

But this time, it\u2019s not friends telling me to write the story, it\u2019s those slimy agent types.\u00a0 The ones who say, hey, we can sell this shit.\u00a0 Like, really.\u00a0 Like, let\u2019s meet for dinner.\u00a0 So\u2026okay.\u00a0 Back to writing for cash.\u00a0 Because people are suckers for memoirs, right?\u00a0 Or something.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I\u2019ll throw in little sex-craved, bloodthirsty blue elves\u2026which is something my paternal grandfather constantly complained about.\u00a0 The blue elves showed up when he was 45 and stayed for the rest of his life.\u00a0 He even set up exotic homemade traps for them throughout the upstairs offices at our company business.<\/p>\n

That was probably one of the first signs that something was amiss in my family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years now, the writerly advice that I\u2019ve always received is \u201cjust write a page a day.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve been hearing that since high school.\u00a0 \u201cWithin a year, you\u2019ll have a finished book!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[127],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1036,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions\/1036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}