I've never actually met anyone who's said they wanted to be a writer. Maybe it's just where I live, or maybe it's just too broad a term for my generation. Want to be a writer? Ok, what you want to write about? You can say novelist or journalist, say you want to be a music critic or whatever you like, but those things are those things, not just being a "writer".
When I hear "writer" I think Jack Kerouac. Not even him writing, just him outside, with nature. In open farmer's fields with arms outstretched, searching for something. He wrote it all into a typewriter, each letter making a big jolt sound as the thoughts inked onto paper. You can only imagine big, weighty thoughts from such an image. Reading Kerouac isn't really about whatever he's writing about - I wouldn't call him an adventurer or jazz critic, I'd just call him a writer. All the things he saw in life filtered into that typewriter.
People don't write on typewriters anymore - I sure don't, I write on a computer in a spare room that houses gym equipment and unwatched DVDs or on a laptop in my living room in front of a TV. You ask most people my age what they do in their spare time and they'll say they spend all their time in their bedrooms. I do. All those people you thought had really busy lives too. It's my generations thing.
I think my biggest problem has always been writing like me - that whole thing about finding a "writer's voice". I'm gonna start writing about different things, about myself and the thoughts I have, and not doing as many reviews. I guess I'm a cliche: want to be a writer but don't know what to write about. So I'm just going to write about the world and filter it through the keys on my laptop.
Bedroom Confessional
Charlie
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