Let's get a few things straight...

These aren’t musings, I don’t “put pen to paper,” and my characters definitely don’t write me letters.

There’s no way around it—writers are pretentious. With Twitter tricking us into thinking we have an opinion and the NEED to grow a platform like an avocado pit impaled with toothpicks, being delusional has become part of the job description. I’m not calling out anyone specifically; it’s just something I’ve noticed. Our lives aren’t that interesting; our skill sets let us fake it convincingly.

But I get it. It’s a defense mechanism we use while we lock ourselves away for hundreds of hours for no rewards. Luckily, most of us are better at pretending to be egomaniacs than buying into our own legend. Writers are normal people and some blogs remind us of that. If you’re anything like me though, you have no interest in reading another post written with a thesaurus.

“So what?” some of you are probably saying. “Who gives a shit if I want to write a series of sonnets from the POV of my characters while I go on a picnic with them? You just don’t care enough.”

Actually it’s the opposite. The goal is to always get more people reading, writing, and excited for books. I’m not convinced pretending to be philosophers, sending words of wisdom down to the little people from our mountaintops, is the way to accomplish that. No one should ever feel like they aren’t smart enough to even try to write a short story.

Confession time: about seven years ago I had one of those blogs. The kind where I was dumb enough to think my personality alone could sustain internet fame and fortune. I’m a little disgusted to say it was reasonably popular. Regardless, this time I’m going to do things differently.

The plan is to write down-to-earth updates as I claw my way to a book deal. Hopefully I’ll be able to post once every week or two with writing advice, reviews of whatever I’m reading/playing, and episodes of “the writing life” (the latter translates to whatever crappy jobs I’m doing to keep my student loans from drowning me). I’ll only post if I have something worth sharing. I’m not in the business of shoving angsty rants down people’s throats.

No politics, no opinions on social issues—just writing and entertainment. I can’t guarantee zero self-importance, I am a writer after all, but the goal is to keep it to a minimum. At the very least I promise to never use the words “hitherto” and “compartmentalize,” and that should be worth something.

Check back sometime in the next week and I’ll have a no nonsense guide on how to get your short stories/poems published. Until then, you can follow me on Twitter (@StephenTBW), where I mostly complain about reading 50 Shades of Grey.

Thanks for reading to the end. You can leave your angry comments below.