The Writer

When I was at work one day I mentioned I liked to write and this other guy was talking to me about it. Basically the way that things went we were talking about writing and the like, he kept telling me about the "Great American Novel". How he wanted to write a coming of age story, and something about the "human condition" he went on to be more ambiguous than that. I realized that we couldn't talk about writing right then because he was more or less trying to show off.

Plenty of people who are artists have probably experienced this...you meet someone and you try to talk to them about art or your craft and you realize that they're just fighting to impress you. There is a difference between someone who is really good sharing their achievements and someone who is just trying to show off. He was the latter. He would write at work, urge everyone to read it. I never actually did at first.

One day one of the girls at the desk behind me asked me what I had done the night before. I told her I had been writing and what I had been working on. I went on to say I had finished up this car chase scene I was particularly proud of. Of course he had some comment to make on this, "I used to write stuff like that..." he paused here I am sure for dramatic effect, "...but then I grew up."

He was completely serious, there was no joke there and I had to ask him how that mentality made any kind of sense. I don't know why I entertained the idea of talking about it with him. This guy had shown himself to be pretty ignorant already. Actually he'd shown himself to be pretty immature in his writing too. When I finally read the story I was shocked to see that there was no description, no anything, the grammar was horrid. And more than anything the story was little more than sex talk and ambiguous conversation about people's emotions.

More notable than anything was when he asked me to read this page or so where this hobo told his main character how he makes money by sleeping with rich women. The hobo went on to say that the rich women were "dirty" and liked to say things like "spank me you dirty bum." I don't think I have to tell you that I almost had laugh in his face. It was hard not to. Someone who writes something that ridiculously shitty should castrate them self just out of fear that they could have a kid who might inherit their horrible skill.