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A quick note about this blog. I wrote this a few weeks ago, while my internet was still out of commission. I am actually headed off to Paris tomorrow. I wanted to release this on Monday but my internet was still out, so now my blogs will come out every Friday, with this being an early release due to my absence. I have a lot of things I want to see and do while in Paris this weekend, as far as writing goes, I have a dream inspired short story I hope to finish while away. Anyways, I hope everyone has a great weekend and is enjoying the new scene for my blogs.
-Joe
After spending an hour and a half trying to find the terminal for my connecting flight, I finally got a chance to sit down. I spent the first few minutes cursing Philadelphia and everything associated with it. Realizing that I was going to become quickly bored, I decided that I should do a little light reading. Hell, I had about six hours until my flight was to board, and it's not like there is anything to do at the airport anyways.
I pulled out a copy of Hemingway's “A Moveable Feast.” I had read the first chapter before I left Pittsburgh and decided from that chapter that this book was going to be a great influence. Whether it be in my life, or my writing, or any thing else that can be influenced, it was going to change me.
The next thing I realized, I was on a plane heading for Germany and all I could think about was the most remarkable novel that I had just read. All the different views that Hemingway and I shared. Events that had taken place in my life that paralleled his. I was able to see where my style of writing had been hugely derived from, which came as sort of a surprise to me since I had more aligned myself with F. Scott then Hemingway.
After reading “A Moveable Feast,” I realized what that feeling was after the first chapter. At first I thought of it as a muse, but quickly came to realize that it wasn't inspiration, it was a kick in the ass. I had been talking about writing and publishing a novel for over a year now and only became semi-serious over the past four months [only to decide to change direction a few chapters in, forcing myself to start all over]. I wanted to read more. Over the past two years, I had only read two books, one being a very short novella by Ayn Rand. I wanted to do so much, and Hemingway got me out of my procrastination and helped me become a man of substance. His kick in the ass, released my passion for writing and even got me to rewrite the first chapter of my novel into something much deeper than what was originally written.
I quickly lost that passion though, due to the many variables I face in life.
Work became very busy when I got back to Germany. I had a few upcoming assignments for the Herald Post coming up, which didn't seem to matter to anyone in my NCO support channel. Add that to the many bullshit tasks given to me everyday and the fact that I am still trying to learn how to write like a journalist, it was very hard to motivate myself to write, or read, or care. And when I did get motivated to sit down at the computer and write, I found myself lost in the internet.
Then, one weekend, while surfing around on the web, I discovered that my W-2 was up and I could do my taxes. After that tedious task, I realized that I had just come into $1,500 dollars, so naturally, my mind begun thinking of how it could be spent. That was when Hemingway gave me another kick in the ass. While looking around at different televisions and other gizmo's, I happened to glance at my coffee table and saw “A Moveable Feast” sitting there along with George Orwell's “Down and Out In Paris and London,” and that is when it hit me.
I am only a four hour train ride from Paris. Not only would it would be great to just go there and say that I have been to Paris but this is the city that so many writers from the Lost Generation and other time periods escaped to. I needed to escape. Sure the thirty day vacation I had just come back from should be enough for any man to come back to work relaxed, but when you are as low as I am on the totem pole and have as many if not more responsibilities as the Chief, you become so stressed that it feels like you are pushing two days into one. And anyways, for the amount of work I do, I deserve another break from it all.
So first it was train tickets. That is easy. All I have to do is go on the web and enter my destination and dates of travel and I can print them off in no time, but when should I go? Payday is on the first and I have a three day pass I still have to use. Three days though? That isn't long enough. I really can't take any leave days since I need to save those in case my family decides to fly out in March. Ah Ha! The fifteenth. Not only is it a payday, but it is also a four day weekend. I could live with only going to Paris for four days, besides I can always go back later on in the year.
Now that I knew when I was going, I had to figure out where I was staying. At first, I seriously contemplated just taking a back pack of essentials and staying out on the streets for three nights, but I quickly came back to reality and started looking at hotels. I didn't need anything fancy, just a bed would do, but I wanted to be close by to the sites, you know, the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, all those spots. I had also decided to check out a few areas like Shakespeare and Company [both the original store and the new one], the apartments that Hemingway lived at and worked, and a few other “sites.” After a quick search, I found I nice little hotel, about six kilometers away from most of the sights that I wanted to see, not to mention it was close to the train station as well.
That night, I had the most trouble sleeping. All I could think about was being in Paris. Thinking about all the magic and inspiration it would bring me. How, when I got back from my getaway, my writing and I would be completely different. Better, more profound, deeper in meaning. I would begin my transformation into a great writer, like Hemingway, and F. Scott, and like all the other great American writers from that time period.
While collecting addresses to all the places I wanted to visit in Paris, I also wrote more, almost completing the first four chapters of my novel. Even before I had gotten on a train, the power of Paris was affecting me in great ways. Then, after I had turned in my papers to my unit, asking for permission to leave the country, Paris was put in the back of my mind and not worried with, everything had been set and there was no more I could do. I decided to pick up on my Campus Legend that I had started on awhile back on my Xbox.
But only for a day.
Quickly more and more writing started pouring out of me [and not just for work]. Characters and short story ideas where flying all around in my head, and it was in preparation of writing my first blog on this blogspot page that I realized something.
I was walking home from the base library, mentally going over some of the notes I had written down and thinking about what my first blog should be. I was thinking along the lines of a “Why I Write This Blog” sort of thing, and in that process I remembered the feeling I had after reading “A Moveable Feast,” and how I got the kick in the ass that I needed. I then began to think though that maybe his kick in the ass did nothing in reality. For after that flight, I didn't write and only begun to write when Paris, inspired by Hemingway's book, popped back into my life. Maybe I had the desire and not the passion.
For the past two years, I had pretty much been talking about writing. The only real thing I produced where my blogs on MySpace, which most of the time were written under the influence of alcohol, anger, depressing music, and/or women. Some were just terrible and meaningless, and some were so thought provoking, I would read them later on and have to double check that I was the author of them, but that wasn't passionate writing, that was just me showing off my desire to be a writer.
Now, with Paris hardly on my mind, I am pumping out so much writing, that I don't even recognize it from my earlier works. Most of my earlier writing was shorter and could of said more, but I didn't have the passion to write more, I merely gave you all the gist of what I was trying to say. Before I wanted to write, now I need to write. Now I have the passion.
So that there is why I write, because I have a passion for it. A need. I realize that I have something so worthy to say, that I should be put in to print for thousands, millions to read and discuss, and share with their friends and family. The passion.
The great thing about having the passion; you don't need some great journey or runaway from your home to pull it out of you. If you have the passion, in anything, you just need a swift kick in the ass.
