Johnny Wraith Stories

To a few of you out there, perhaps very few, I am a good writer, and to even many more out there, perhaps I am a bad writer. I am a bad writer because I’m not published on paper, though a plethora of my shit is published on the World Wide Web for all readers to see without a fee. Yes indeed, if the test is whether some pompous ass sitting high in a skyscraper in a suit with a key to my being strewn across the shelves of Barnes and Noble has given my words approval, then I am a bad writer. After all, good writers appeal to the mass audiences that go to bookstores and spend money, lots of money. Hell, I know a great place down the street for Italian food that can’t be beat, but my wager is the local McDonald’s brings in a lot more cash and lots more folks know where McDonald’s is than they do the location of Tony’s Meatballs Café. I’m also a bad writer for lack of style, form, technique, and grammar, and a bunch of other things. I am an outcast from the fine club of artists and scholars that meet for coffee to discuss writing method, to gasp with delight over who has or hasn’t been published in this or that fine and distinguished magazine, and to here and there, between polite sips of espresso, throw in non-offensive jokes everyone knows must receive a proper giggle. Of course good writers are environmentalists, believe in gay marriage, are convinced it is always the man’s fault when relationships with women go sour, and that killing and fighting and yelling is wrong. I can go on and on about why I am a bad writer, but I’m only going to be convinced I am a bad writer, or a good writer, on a 1–reader-at-a-time basis. If 99 of 100 of my readers don’t like what I write for any reason, be it technical, spiritual, or otherwise, but 1 reader says,

“I liked your story Johnny. It made me laugh!”

then that is all it takes.

I don’t expect or require my 1 positive reader to be a professor or an acclaimed critic, and in fact I’m happier if he is an 8^th grade dropout working in a garage, an auto mechanic. After all, he is a human being of the purest form. He lives, breaths, eats, and shits in the real world and probably drinks a lot of booze, smokes cigarettes, cusses, and farts a lot. If he can look upon my words and be pulled in and finish reading what I’ve written to the bitter end, then I have communicated with a real person. Some people out there in the literary world, the ones with their noses really high in the air, will assume that any writing enjoyed by the base auto mechanic is not writing, or literature by any stretch of the imagination. It has to be pornography or something of the equivalent. However I fear I’m not what I claim to be, for would this example mechanic read what I’m writing now? The hypocrisy! And just to let you know, if you are one of those egotistical, high-nosed taste-testers of what is or isn’t fine literature, you’re probably saying to yourself,

“Johnny thinks he’s a good writer because he makes an auto mechanic laugh!”

Don’t make your conclusion yet. The auto mechanic also told me, after telling me my story made him laugh:

“Funny how you got me thinkin’ ‘bout religion, Jesus, and all that. Nobody ever said it to me that way before. Maybe it’s ‘cause you was easy readin’, like you was really talkin’ to people and not bein’ too confusin’ by tryin’ to be too smart.”

I am a good writer by my own standards, because a grease monkey has offered my words praise. So, my writing is good writing, though it is published on the World Wide Web free of charge and has never been subject to the scrutiny or the pain of the birth-into- paper-process. More specifically, via analysis of the elements of the grease monkey’s praise, I am a good writer if:

1. I get a few laughs
2. My writing is easy to read
3. I offer something profound to ponder

Yeah, yeah, you might say this is not an adequate test of whether I am a good writer.

This shit I write is by no means High Art, whatever that may mean. Maybe I’m an o.k. journalist, teller of anecdotes, or whatever, but hell, words are words, aren’t they? What really is the difference between a comic strip and War and Peace? I think one has pictures and words – not just words; and I’d bet there are comic strips out there that have affected certain readers more than War and Peace ever did. So, to put this argument to an end, I will admit that what I write may not be literature, or High Art. It is anecdote or journalism, or porn, a comic strip or whatever – anything but barrel-aged, fine literature destined for the Barnes and Noble shelves. However, this does not change my conclusion that I am a good writer. Writer OF WHAT does not matter to me. Whatever the words I write are called, defined, or labeled, I am a good writer because:

1. I get a few laughs
2. My writing is easy to read
3. I offer something profound to ponder

Now, with all this said, I will tell you how I became a good writer. Ok, just to avoid your continual nitpicking me, yes, I will admit my conclusion that 1 of 100 readers – the auto mechanic, the grease monkey who told me my writing satisfies the above 3-prong test – is anecdotal evidence of my good writing, or of my being a good writer, however we want to say it. In addition to this fellow’s praise, I can only rely on what my ears have heard plus the 23 emails I’ve received from various readers, plus my subjective opinion that this feedback supports the allegation I am a good writer, or whether this said praise satisfies the 3-prong test I have put forth. Is this circular reasoning, or can circular reasoning be reasonable whatever the fucking professors have to say?

Let me interject here that I am not writing these words for me. My writing is a process of giving, not receiving. Having my words read is the receiving part for me. Otherwise we’re not having real sex. I’m just masturbating. I’m writing these words for hopeful writers out there. Maybe 1 in 10,000 of you out there will learn something from me, whether it is from how ridiculous or empty my words are or because they are truly profound. In either event, I have offered something to my fellow woman or man of the pen or keyboard.

So, with all this said, I’ll tell you how I became a good writer.

First, I have taken the position that all marriage is bad, that it is always equally the man and the woman’s fault when relationships sour, that killing and fighting and yelling is good, and that crude, disgusting, politically-incorrect jokes are funny if they are truly funny, and that it is ok to smash a beer bottle on the curb when all the beer is gone from it, instead of making sure to put it in a trash can marked “Recycle.” I have loosened up.

Let’s see. What else? Now I’m tired and starting to think all I’ve written herein is actually worthless, so, I’m just going to end this with bullet points, proofread once, and post it all up on my damn site. In the end, all I’m saying is living a little, loosening up, daydreaming, listening to praise and criticism, and just sitting down and writing as much as we can as often as we can will make us good writers.

How I Became (how to become) a Good Writer:

• Writing every day. Practice makes me perfect
• Reading every day. Most ideas come from outside my mind
• Listening to criticism and praise. Feedback helps me do more or less of what does or doesn’t work
• Daydreaming. The imagination will write my stories for me
• Listening to conversations. I find stories in every conversation if I am watching for them
• Smoking a cigarette here and there. Smokers are the best storytellers
• Getting drunk. Intoxication will lead to wild, wacky adventures and new ideas
• Going lots of places. Seeing the world opens awareness to many different stage settings, concepts, stories, places, the way different people live
• Gambling. A slot machine will give you a taste of what it is to be human, as most good stories are filled with hope and end in despair, and only a few are able to pull off happy endings
• Sex. Nothing tunes you into the psyche of human beings like getting laid
• Get out there and do lots of things!
• Don’t work the same job too long!
• How can you write if you have nothing to write about? Experience, not words, creates words