Where and when do you write?
I am starting this piece on my morning commute and will publish whatever is done at the end of it.
So you know my where there’s also how? I’m starting and ending this piece from my phone, a surreal concept when you think of writers as those who solely sit in front of keyboards or typewriters.
I am starting from home and will continue on while on a car, a train, then a bus.
As I write, I wonder who will read? But also, what do I want to say? What do I want you to walk away with here? I want to be a masseuse for your brain, but sometimes massages hurt.
Why?
I write to put down ideas, to put down brainstorms, and self-reflect. I’ve written to make people laugh and think but never for money; that’s what I eventually wanted to do – To make a living waxing poetic, but that hasn’t been feasible for me. Something about starving artists is unappealing and romantic at the same time.
I’ve turned writing into a tool that also makes it a chore for me when there’s no paycheck involved; let me explain.
The internet has changed the job description. I could never settle on one story in my head to be a genre, so my ego decided I write from personal observation; in the end, I just wanted to write. To put down words to titillate others.
Let me explain when I said I turned writing into a tool. As a youth, my words moved people. I won a Mother’s Day writing contest in the local paper when I was 6, teachers loved my words, and some would come exceptionally close to me, which encouraged me there’s power through writing.
When I graduated High School, I left my mom and stepfather’s house to live independently. I worked, had an apartment, dealt drugs, and went to college until I had a car accident and couldn’t afford another car. Throughout this time, I would collect notes I’d written because there were no smartphones, and ideas hit me at inconvenient times.
As I moved from coast to coast to find myself, I realized I needed job skills. The only ones I had at the time were retail, which sucked. Retail is a superficial job where pretty nice people get the sales, and you’re reminded if you’re not.
Throughout this whole time, writing has always been a goal, but the question is, writing what? When I was 18, I thought my life was hard having a single mother who married a white guy in the Navy, not for love but as an escape. It was a mutually fucked relationship.
I would eventually join the United States Navy myself for job skills and possibly a story to write.
When I got out of the military, the internet was brand new. Bloggers were becoming famous, and bands were making a killing on MySpace. Here is when I started practicing writing more.
I joined writing groups on MySpace, where we did daily writing contests of various types, from poems to paragraphs- bragging rights were the prize.
I started my own website, but I am still not sure of the goal. It was TheLazyAmerican.com, a name that is a slight to how soft most Americans are but also, it was Americans I was trying to appeal to.
I found myself writing about cannabis prohibition a lot. From there, I made somewhat of a name for myself as a writer and activist, but none of this pays the bills if you work with nothing but startups that don’t take off.
One of my plans was to make a name for myself among American cannabis consumers and meet those willing to tell their stories. I wanted to drive a van across America and show how the average consumer is an average American, but that one obviously hasn’t worked out yet.
I would try and write articles for growing websites every day, all personal pieces. It was on my third endeavor that I realized the power of what I was endorsing through my words. Most of the time, I understand it, but there was this one time I questioned my writing integrity.
I support all Indie artists’ endeavors, perhaps a little too much. I did a positive review on my third media endeavor of a movie called Starleaf. The movie isn’t all bad, but it isn’t all good; I would equate it to the Traumaville series.
Anyways, in the comment section was Jorge Cervantes. If you don’t know him and love cannabis, I highly recommend you look him up and give him roses for championing the plant when he could’ve been locked up.
So Jorge Cervantes makes a comment to the effect of a great write-up, I need to check it out, and all I could think of is fuck, I just gave Jorge Cervante mids – since then, I’ve been more cautious of the art I promote or at least how. Plenty of people like Traumaville.
The End
Two more bus stops, and I’m almost there. When I get into my lab, ill proofread this one more time, then copy and paste it to my Substack and possibly Cannabis Legalization News, my fourth media endeavor.
If you like what I do, buy me a cup of coffee
