Sum-ah-tiiime

I've been asked to write about the day and night like writing is something you do upon command. Like all we ever need is a prompt and a deadline and writing happens.

I'd like to say that writing is green, and by that I mean organic. That it's renewable and vegan and vegetarian and fair trade and that it retains it's soul (albeit a phlegmatic one) even when mass produced in hot new paperbacks on the stands of the local CVS.

I'd like to contend that a book called the Art of Writing fails miserably at stimulating creativity of the sort that yields lengthy stories about a fictional cathedral in middle earth surrounded by aliens. It falls short of teaching its pupils the value of the elements of style and though it hints at their importance, immediately forgets that a good piece is like a carelessly thought out piece of jazz - impulsive and presumptuous.

Think of a lazy trumpet with a clear sound making it's way across the fiendish trails of cigarette smoke in a dimly lit room with a green glow from the Tiffany oil lamps.

I write like a child throws a tantrum. I try to break what few grammatical rules I know: I start paragraphs with the word because, ignore the Oxford comma, sometimes, and enjoy the gushing feeling that a run-on sentence gives me. Like I'm out of shape and short of breath and I'm trying to get to the very top of the hill with the tiny little church.

Think of writing as that thing you enjoy having as your personal little pleasure. For me it was sneaking candy as a little kid and telling raunchy sex jokes when I was still too young to understand them. The men would chortle and laugh (my jokes were good) and the ladies would balance - rather appropriately - their expression between faux disgust and amusement.

It's like enjoying the raspy, throaty dulcet tones of Louis Armstrong. Like dancing on a boat with a city lit up in the background. Like sitting, waiting, wishing on a Friday afternoon with a large glass of ice tea - the glass all sweaty like - and musing.

Writing is...