I am NOT a writer!

As a kid growing up in Taftville, I hoped that one day I would be a writer. I must have begun writing short stories to entertain myself back in junior high and later to share with friends when I was in high school. I think my very first Creative Writing class in senior year proved that I was not cut out for the writing life. It was at that point I decided that I would stick to being a reader of people who did have talent. In the mid-1970s, while attending college I once more deceived myself into believing that I had some kind of skill and again my professors reminded me that I did not have what it would take to be taken seriously.

Oddly enough one of the few positive comments I had up to that point was from the poet Robert Bly (he of IRON JOHN and “beating a drum in the forest to get in touch with your manhood” fame), who had been invited to speak at the college by my English teacher. She then invited him to read through some of the submissions from the class. Our assignment had been to write a book review in the style of the author we were reviewing. I had just finished reading a book by Hunter Thompson. Of the more than two dozen students in the class he picked out my review for praise and said that I had potential if I learned to “write from (my) gut.” Have I told you that I have never liked Bly? I took this as yet another sign that I was not talented enough and put everything aside once again.

Since 1980 I have been writing for various Amateur Press Associations (APAs), a few fanzines and actually sold one article to a magazine aimed at librarians. For the past four years I have been doing book reviews for the Joe Bob Briggs Report, along with posting to both my blogs several times a week. I am not, as I have tried to tell everyone, a writer.

All of this is just by way of explaining why I decided not to accept an invitation to write a column for a new website. I’ll not embarrass the editor for being nice enough to invite me to take part, but it just wouldn’t be fair to him or his readers.

I’m not a writer.