{"id":4016,"date":"2012-07-23T06:00:54","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T11:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=4016"},"modified":"2012-07-23T06:00:54","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T11:00:54","slug":"sharks-have-to-swim-writers-have-to-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=4016","title":{"rendered":"Sharks Have to Swim; Writers Have to Write"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
From Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During elementary school, I drew comic books in class. My first character was Outback Jack, a whip-toting bad-ass inspired by Crocodile Dundee and Indiana Jones. By the time I reached high school, I spent a lot of time writing and drawing comics. I came up with the brand name Power Comics when I was in sixth grade, and made business cards on printer paper. I even had a logo.<\/p>\n

With the exception of Outback Jack and a couple of other characters, I didn\u2019t have interest in continuing their adventures. I loved coming up with characters and writing their origin stories. I\u2019ve always loved a good comic book origin story, even to this day. All told, I invented around fifty title characters. Many of them shared powers with published super heroes, but that has never stopped DC or Marvel from ripping each other off.<\/p>\n

Looking, back, that is how I began writing. I felt a rush and kept seeking it. I used to think I started writing in college. I wrote a scene for video production my sophomore year and attended a screenwriter\u2019s boot camp as a junior. But when I really look at my life, writing has always been there.<\/p>\n

My parents used to make me write essays when I got into trouble. I enjoyed writing papers and essays for school, once writing eight pages on the definition of a bottle for a philosophy class. I spent all my time daydreaming about scenarios, fantasy and realistic. I read till four in the morning, until long after everyone thought I was asleep and the clip-on lamp on my headboard was so hot that I could not touch the off switch. I had to yank the cord from the wall.<\/p>\n

We all need our ways to express ourselves. A writer writes because he can\u2019t shut it off. I can\u2019t sit in silence with any comfort. I have to have a book, a computer, a television, a radio, a conversation. I have to be thinking, doing, and creating.<\/p>\n

A shark cannot stop swimming or risk suffocation. I can\u2019t stop imagining for risk of the same. Writing is my outlet, the something constructive my dad always pressed upon me. Writing is my crutch when I am sad, my jubilation when I am happy. Countless words have been written during countless frustrations, and then deleted, their emotions purged.<\/p>\n

In many ways, writing is a curse, an addiction. We can\u2019t stop, even though we know we are likely doomed to constant failure and rejection with little chance of reward. If a baseball player succeeds in getting a hit only two out of ten times, he is cut. If a writer succeeds in getting published two out of ten times, he is a professional.<\/p>\n

I used to write because I thought I had talent. I wrote because I had ideas. I re-wrote in hopes that those ideas would outlive me. Now, I write because I don\u2019t know what else to do. I write because when I don\u2019t, I feel lost. I write to find myself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During elementary school, I drew comic books in class. My first character was Outback Jack, a whip-toting bad-ass inspired by Crocodile Dundee and Indiana Jones. By the time I reached high school, I spent a lot of time writing and drawing comics. I came up with the brand name Power Comics when I was in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[207,361,1251],"class_list":["post-4016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers-life","tag-comics","tag-essays","tag-why-i-write"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}