Once Upon A Time

I was a lousy freelancer.

At least in spirit.

I can really only write well when it comes from the gut, when I feel something for the words and what they represent. The rest always felt, at best, slightly whorish and, at worst, like donating blood that would never be transfused. No wonder I spent so much of 2010 sleepless.

It’s not that I am a Gen Y expert or envisioned a bright career as a youth culture talking head (what would happen when I found my first gray hair or wrinkle?), it was just what was on my mind at the time, so I wrote about it. And wrote about it some more. And kept writing about it until other stuff intruded and took over my thoughts until there was no room left for the Millennials.

I want to tell stories again. Not the stories I’ve been telling all along, but new ones. Ones I’m living or feeling or even pretend ones I’m thinking up on my morning commute while listening to Gillian Welch. Stories that don’t always have an object lesson, a point, a punchline. Stories that I’m working out on the page as I write. Those kind of stories. That’s what’s on the menu these days. It seems disingenuous to offer up anything else, really. And I am okay with this.