[Aside: Would we call a string of linguistic bits a linguine?]

[Aside Followup Fact: The word “linguine” literally means “little tongues” in Italian.]

I have on occasion been accused of the crime of pedantry in the sphere of language. I will confess to bouts of nitpickiness bordering on pedantry, but as to full-on pedantry, I don’t think I have the qualifications for that. One thing’s for sure. I need to loosen up a bit. While I’m not prone to fits of letter-writing when I read or see something that is grammatically, punctuatively, or orthographically incorrect, I do often cringe, and I do often complain about it.

The English language is going to evolve and grow whether I like it or not. It doesn’t need, or even know anything about, my permission. I might just as well try and stop the tides from going in and out or ask the moon not to change its phase quite so often. That would be sheer lunacy. Pun intended.

I do, in a rather informal yet wildly egotistical manner, consider myself a defender of the tongue. A staunch defender of the tongue, to be ridiculously specific about it. I don’t like lazy language, particularly in written form, and my hackles near scrape the ceiling when I encounter obvious carelessness in wording and phrasing.

But there’s medication for that.

My uptightness was brought home to me in no uncertain terms two days ago, when my friend Asheyna (who often comments here) sent me a link to a YouTube video in which no lesser a literary luminary than Stephen Fry takes the pedants of the world to task for their pedantry. I’m embedding the video at the bottom of this post. Go and watch it now if you want. I’ll wait.

Uptightness aside, I do care about the written word and language in general, and I would no more discourage someone from learning the craft of writing than I would discourage them from blinking at appropriate intervals. Communication is the essence of our humanness, and the better and more clearly we can communicate, the better off and happier we’ll all be.

So, for the aspiring writers out there, I’d like to submit a little list I recently put up on Protagonize, a site I’ve mentioned many times in my blog posts, and one to which I have recently returned. Coincidentally, it’s also the site where I first met Asheyna, who may well be now blushing as she reads a second mention in a single post.

Another Protagonize user started an exercise called “Ten Things You’d Tell Yourself Re: Writing”. I added a page called “Ten Fucking Things I Keep Fucking Trying to Learn About Fucking Writing”. Except I used “@#$#%&” instead of the expletive, as the exercise was not flagged “mature”. For some reason I feel compelled to use the actual jarring word here on the blog, perhaps simply because I can. And get away with it. Maybe.

Anyway, here’s my list as posted on that exercise:

1. Keep writing.
2. Don’t stop writing.
3. See # 1 and 2 above.
4. Do not stop to edit. Editing is a separate undertaking. Stop worrying. In other words, see # 1, 2, and 3 above.
5. Learn the rules. I’m talking spelling, punctuation, and grammar here. If you don’t know the rules, you can’t break them intelligently when the story calls for it. There’s a big difference between breaking the rules for a reason and breaking the rules because you’ve been too fucking lazy to learn them.
6. Don’t let anyone tell you what to write or not write about. It’s your writing.
7. Let the humor come naturally. Don’t force it. If you force it, it will be lame. There is no way around this.
8. Let the muse speak through you. You are a vessel for the creative forces of the universe. Don’t edit the fucking muse. In other words, see # 1, 2, 3, and 4 above.
9. Contrary to what others have said here [in the exercise], there is nothing wrong with fan fiction. It can be done well. It isn’t often done well, but it can be done well. And playing in someone else’s sandbox can be a lot of fun. Go ahead. Prove ‘em wrong. Write a really good fanfic. Just deal with the fact that you can never publish it for money.
10. Don’t be verbose. Don’t use more words when less will do. I mean it. Seriously. For reals.
11. (Bonus point) Have fun, for cryin’ out loud!

And so we rumble towards the end of the single most expletive-ridden blog post I’ve heretofore written. If you’re cringing at my cavalier use of “bad language”, understand that I do it with intent and for effect rather than gratuitously, and please, whatever you do, do not go to YouTube and search for Samuel L. Jackson’s reading of the recently published Go the Fuck to Sleep.

Just sayin’.

Here’s the video I mentioned above. It’s mildly mind-blowing.

You know, sometimes I think I take myself way too seriously. I mean, I do have a pretty decent sense of humor, and I can definitely poke fun at myself, but I also spend an awful lot of time inside my own head, dwelling on my own problems and trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong.

I’ve also shared a lot of this with the blog-reading public. I’ve written about my personal journey and challenges, and I’ve been most gratified by the fact that readers have commented on these posts and actually encouraged me. That’s part of the reason I write these things. I want to connect with others, and I hope to somehow make a difference in someone else’s experience.

But at what point does public journaling cross the line and become public posturing and whining? At what point does “This is me” turn into “Poor me”?

I hope I haven’t crossed that line, but something way in the back of my head tells me that I’ve come perilously close.

I need to face the fact that I’m a very self-indulgent person. I’m an approval-seeker of the first order, and all those comments I mentioned have been very nice ego strokes. I mean, yes, I know everyone wants approval; everbody needs validation once in a while. But seriously, when you refresh your Facebook page umpteen times to see if anyone has commented on your status update, you know you’re in serious trouble.

So, it’s time for me to—as they say—get on with it. Instead of doing tiny little things and looking to see if anyone noticed, it’s high time I took some of those big things I’ve been thinking about, mulling over, talking about, tweeting about, and blogging about and actually start doing them.

I mean, how many times have I mentioned this documentary I “need” to make about my dad and music? How long does it take to get through another draft of my novel? When am I going to continue the Voices of Reason project and get another interview up on my blog? When am I going to stop sulking about my precious pantomine script and get back to my involvement with community theatre? There are so many things I want to do, and I am doing none of them.

[Okay, I actually am working on the novel. It just seems to be taking a long time.]

I guess you could say I’m fed up with myself. I’m tired of blaming everything on my “inner saboteur”, as I like to call him, and citing all the wounds and traumas I’ve experienced in the past as reasons for my lack of action.

It’s time to take my personal journey and repackage it. Instead of using it as ashes to spread on my face, I need to turn it into fuel for my creative vehicles. And, yes, there are a quite a few of those vehicles parked in my mental garage, but believe me, there’s more than enough fuel for all of them. I just need the right mix. And then… whoosh!

I don’t mean to minimize everything I’ve been through. I’ve fought hard for my mental health, and it will always be an important issue for me. I just think it’s time to move up to the next gear and honor my journey by making better use of it.

And, hell, I’m a creative person. I can think of a few ways to do that.

Let’s keep it real out there. (Time to take my own advice, eh?)