Back on the Street Corner

Please excuse me while I rant. Again. Today’s topic is people who expect others to solve the world’s problems for them.

Again, as most of you know, I’m a long-term moderator over at Absolute Write. Recently, I decided to develop a crit circle over there. After polling those interested, I selected a day and a time. Unsurprisingly, especially given that AW is truly a global community, the time I chose did not work for everyone. Not much I could do about that. No single time I chose would have worked for everyone. That’s just an impossibility when you’re dealing with as many individuals scattered across so many time zones. At one point I received an e-mail asking me what I was going to do about those in the European time zones. My response: Nothing. I challenged that individual, and a couple of others, to step up to the plate and create their own crit group that might work for others. Much to my delight, they did.

Now, for me, this is just the world in a microcosm. Too often, people identify a problem – the vacant lot on the corner is filled with trash, the food pantry isn’t open at hours that accommodate people who have jobs but don’t earn enough to pay the bills, there’s been an increase in crime in the neighborhood – and then complain because the government, the church leadership, the police, whoever –aren’t solving the situation. That’s bullshit. It really is. If you want a problem solved, you need to be willing to roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty. You need to be willing to take responsibility for helping to make the world a better place.

The government’s job is not to solve all the world’s problems. The church’s responsibility is not to fulfill all of our society’s needs. The police only have so many officers and can only be so many places at once. The government, the church, the police, what have you, are resources for us to use, not for us to depend on. Sitting on the sidelines and complaining – whining – because no one else is taking responsibility for solving a situation we’ve identified accomplishes nothing.

So, if the vacant lot is filled with trash, grab a garbage bag, organize the neighbors, and go clean it up. If the food pantry needs extra help, volunteer. If there’s crime in your neighborhood, form a neighborhood watch.

When we, as individuals, abdicate our responsibility for the world around us to those in positions of authority, we are also abdicating our freedom to make our own decisions. We surrender our autonomy to individuals who do not have the same goals and objectives as we do. If you want to live in a free society, then you must also live as a free individual, and that means taking responsibility not only for your own actions but for the world around you. It means getting dirty, it means standing up, it means occasionally missing an episode of 24, because, really, what’s more important? Jack’s latest mission or making the world a place we want to live in through our own actions? There’s pride in ownership. There really is.

Guess what?

I was interviewed.

Writing Rituals

On writing forums, some questions are evergreen. They’re always recurring. Actually, when you’ve hung out at writing forums for as many years as I have, all the questions are recurring. It’s more about the frequency a particular question gets asked and the number of ways it can be spun. One particular question with a moderate recurrence has to do with a writer’s rituals. What does a writer have to do before they sit down to write? What habits or routines do they engage in to get in the mood to write?

What I found interesting this time was that a clear division seemed to be drawn between what I will term aspiring writers and working writers. Aspiring writers may be writing frequently, they may have even been published once or twice, but at this point, they’re still getting their feet wet, if you’ll forgive the cliché. They have yet to produce for publication on a regular, on-going basis. Writing is not yet a part of their livelihood. They are under no obligation to write.

By comparison, the working writers are often under contract or dealing with deadlines. The income from writing has become a regular part of their household budget. People are waiting on their words and if they don’t produce, it’s more than just the writer who is affected.

What’s interesting about these two different groups is their responses to the question: “What are your writing rituals?”

The aspiring writers will often say things like, “I have to be inspired before I can write,” “I have to go for a walk,” “I need to play three games of Bejeweled Blitz and earn an average score of 100,000 per game,” or “I have to have a cup of hot tea – Lapsang Souchong works best – and use a fountain pen with blue ink on an unlined mole skinned notebook in order to feel creative enough to write.”

Whereas the working writers will say things like, “I just sit down, open the file, and write,” or “I go into my office, shut the door so the rest of the household knows not to bother me, open the file, and start writing.”

In other words, working writers don’t have to have rituals or routines. They don’t wait for inspiration. They just sit down and write.

It’s something to think about.