Moron writing – An Occasional Story or Magazine

New Beginnings, Blank Pages

New Beginnings with A New Name for a New Day

JAM (Justin had decided on the pen name JAM. JAM would be his new name). The truth was that some very kindly and considerate people he had met on the airplane had told him that Justin Mustardseed, or was it Jason Mustardseed? whatever, was not a cool name for an author. “OK, Let it be JAM,” said Justin decisively and boldly.

JAM had two mechanical pencils and a Bic pen in his backpack. Ah! to write! Justin, …er…JAM sat with a Pike’s blend coffee in the Starbucks’. He had a cushioned seat and a large table along the back wall. A long rectangular table – onto which he now placed his pencils and pens. His notebook – a packet of 8 ½ x 11’s folded cross-wise – lay silently before him.

Jam picked up a mechanical pencil. Justin, er JAM, was of the opinion that mechanical pencils wrote more pleasantly than the old wooden ones. (Please see earlier post where Justin’s obsession with writing instruments is discussed in greater detail)

JAM began to write. It would be a Quadrille.

Moron Writing and Other Compulsions

This is the excerpt for your very first post.

Advice: Don’t talk to yourself so much!

Jason Mustardseed, the aspiring writer, had his favorite pens. Jason especially liked old pens. Fountain pens. Calligraphy pens. Old ball points he had re-filled with those re-fills that you had to buy at a stationery store downtown. Jason loved pens. And Jason had his favorite pencils too. Jason reached across his cluttered desk and carefully selected a pen with which to start his new novel.

“Oh no. Not this one! I can’t write with this one.”

He slid the Papermate back across the desk. “Maybe the green Scripto. No, wait. Let me think about this” Jason just knew that the choice of writing implement was central to the writing process, crucial to his success as a writer. With the right pen in his hand the words would flow….

“Never mind,” said Jason to himself. “If I really was a writer, these sorts of problems wouldn’t arise at all. Pencils! Shmencils! What’s the difference?” he chided himself. Jason suddenly paused, as he noticed that he was talking to himself again. Jason took a prescribed deep breath. “I have to stop talking to myself!” he told himself. A troubling question remained, though: If he himself was doing the talking, who was he talking to? And which one of them was the real Jason? “Yikes!” Jason said to himself. Jason again took a deep breath.

“Ah, but what to write?”

Jason flipped the green Scripto into the air and caught it deftly. He carefully laid it back down on the desk. “Whatever,” he said to himself.

Moron writing: On Writer’s Block

On Writer’s Block

Jason Mustardseed, aspiring writer, wondered about this so-called “writer’s block” thing. You see, Jason hadn’t been able to write anything for weeks. “Writer’s block” was certainly a serious issue! And many writers suffered from the malady, Jason researched the subject of writer’s block on-line, and read something about writer’s block on the Bumbastories EveryDayAnotherStory blog called Moron Writing, or was it More on Writing? It wasn’t very interesting, though. However, there was another blog called the WRITER’SBLOCKBLOG, which Jason thought was a terrific word juxtaposition, especially for a blog about writer’s block. Block/blog, get it?

Jason considered the matter of writer’s block at length and in depth. He finally decided that it wasn’t writer’s block that he had, but “something else”. Now, if only he could identify and understand what that “something else” was…Well, Jason was up for the task.

Now, which pen should he use to write with today? Wait, he needed a pencil. Not a pen. Now where’s that silver mechanical pencil that… no a regular pencil….

Ecclesiastes On Writing

This is the excerpt for your very first post.

“Against them, my son, be warned! The making of many books is without limit.”

I came across that quote from Ecclesiastes in my travels. I am fully aware that its message might rain on the parade of the aspiring writers out there, perhaps dampen their spirits, discourage them. Well, too bad.

It’s from the book of Ecclesiastes, written in the second or third century B.C., as seen here in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which I had the pleasure to see a few years ago. Not very encouraging words for the writers – as it comes from a period of history when books were on written on parchment scrolls and tablets, and I mean real stone tablets. Already there were too many books! This fact of life, this over-abundance of books, definitely has to temper one’s literary ambitions, or at least put them into perspective!

Nevertheless and all the same, everbody (well, an awful lot of people) wants to write and everyone (well a lot ’em) wants to be a writer. They want to tell their story so much. Of course, every now and then a Henry Miller comes along. But usually not. Most of us are not geniuses, or even know how to spell geniuses, or is it genii? But we try. We write. We want so to be heard. Personally, I’ve written three short novels, and you can obtain them at Bumba Books or Amazon at very low prices. However, I have no plans to start another. For sure I’m not going to write it on parchment. Not again! Perhaps I’ll try an epub book. Or maybe I’ll just go down to the pub. Yeah, that sounds better.