Getting old sucks. There was a day and time in my life where I would like my wild opinions and venomous words run roughshod and the consequences be damned. As I’m lying awake last night, letting my anxiety use my waking hours as a playground, I come to realize that those days are over for me. Forever.
Last night I’m writing a blog and it is brutal. I felt like the young me again — my words were going to make take a huge swing at the elite, the modern proletariat were going to hail me as a champion of truth, and there would be quantifiable change! The man was going to feel the power of the typed word and it was going to be glorious. I went to bed practically patting myself on the back and that is what made me stop and think. How often did I let my mouth shoot me in the foot when I was younger? How much social pain could I have avoided if I had just kept my opinion to myself?
The truth is, I am actively working on my writing career — the writing business is just that, a business. Business thrives or dies on the relationships that you make. If I had published a blog about torching the retail industry, then who’s going to carry copies of my book? Certainly not any retail store because they could have taken offense to it. That’s maturity. That’s foresight. Stopping myself from doing something that is righteous at the moment may benefit me in the long run.
This blog isn’t as fun as the ones I normally like to write — as a writer, I like to entertain with my writing skills. Honestly, I get joy out of thinking about your chuckles and laughter as I’m writing. That’s why I wrote the scathing satire that was originally scheduled for today. Part of maturity is realizing that not everything can be fun and reckless. I think I’m writing this blog to confess that, acknowledge that the writing market is a business — an entertainment business, but business. So, while this blog might be dryer than Thanksgiving Turkey at the Clearfield County Jailhouse, I am hoping to reach aspiring writers, to help them avoid a painful lesson. Know that your presence has a direct affect on your consumability in the fiction (or non-fiction) markets. It’s exactly why James Gunn is no longer directing “Guardians of the Galaxy Volume Three.”
As I’m typing this admission of “thinking before I speak,” I can hear my Mom giving my teenage self the same lecture. It makes me happy that Mom’s words weren’t hollow or had fallen of deaf ears. Mom knew before she passed that she made a decent adult out of me, it’s never been so obvious than when I’m willing to hit the brakes on something damn near guaranteed to get a laugh for my own good.
Next week in the Millerverse, it’s going back to the fun and antics of a writer. Until then, thank you for your support and interaction — I love the energy and I love you.
-A.P.
A.P. Miller 