Gary's Mostly Pointless Blog

No  #FridayFlash this week, just a reasonably good reason why and maybe—just maybe—something to think about.

So I’m in the middle of moving from South Korea back to the states.  At the time of writing, I’m operating on maybe two hours sleep because of extreme procrastination and extremely bad planning.  As I’m type, Korean movers are hauling all of my earthly possessions  off to parts unknown and I allow this under the assumption that I’m going to see it all again.  The reason I’ve gotten such little sleep is because up until…oh, I’d say two nights ago, I had made no preparations for their coming.  I started getting my stuff ready for them about 14 hours ago and I just finished maybe 30 minutes ago.  So, that’s my excuse for no flash piece this week.  I ask for NO pity.  Regardless of inaction, it’s hard to concentrate on much else when you’ve got so much more else on your mind.

But here’s something—I hope—for you writers out there to think about.

A few years ago, I invested quite a bit into recording equipment; high quality mics, extremely expensive recording programs, mixing boards and just about anything else my expendable income would let me get away with (which was quite a bit actually).  I play guitar and I had aspirations of doing some fairly decent DIY recording.  To my dismay, there is a substantial learning curve when it comes to home recordings and I put my little project on the back burner.  Suffice it to say that when I get into podcasting, I’ll be more than prepared.

So, when it came time to pack up, I had enough recording equipment to fill a 30 gallon plastic container.  I also had enough DVD’s to fill a plastic container.  The number of books that I have (which aren’t as many as I’d like) took up a fairly good chunk of another.   Then came clothes and kitchen wares and other basic essentials which had their own boxes as well.

I stacked all of the boxes near the front door for the movers and the resulting pile kind of reminded me of Christmas.  Here’s a big, satisfying mountain of neatly organized boxes that are simply waiting for someone.  I thought about how satisfying that each box had a sort of theme to them.  There’s my DVD box and there’s my Recording box and there’s my book box.  Then I asked myself, “Yeah, but where’s my writing box?”  As it turned out, I have no writing box and this worried me.

I suppose if I were an aspiring writer in the 70’s, I probably would have a writing box.    I’d have a typewriter, lots of paper and any manuscript that I thought had potential.  My actual “writing box” consists of the laptop that I’m typing this on and the 8GB memory stick that gets closer to the full mark every day.  But still, even with technology being what it is, I still feel like I should have a writing box.

It occurred to me then that I actually need a DVD box.  I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 DVD’s and they tend to take up a lot of room.  Moreover, they need to take up space for them to be what they are.  I also need a recording box.  Mics, cables, pop filters and mixers aren’t exactly compact things and to record on semi-professional level, you need lots of stuff.  What do I need for writing?

Do I actually need a computer?  Only if I want to make blog entries.  Do I need a typewriter?  Not really.  There’s always long hand.  So what do I really need to write?  A pencil, a piece of paper and an idea.

Furthermore, I don’t need some sort of device to actualize what I write; it simply needs to be read.  I also don’t need a laundry list of peripherals to write; as I said, I simply need a pencil, a piece of paper and an idea.  Once I realized this, I didn’t care about my lack of a writing box.  My writing box, for better or worse, is sitting on top of my neck.  It makes a fine hat rack, a cozy place to keep a pair of sunglasses and does, on occasion, come up with some reasonably readable stories.

So, everything that is legally mine is now just a few boxes amongst other boxes packed on a boat that will spend the better part of the next three months at sea.  That’s just fine by me.  The boat may sink and take with it all of my stuff and I’ll be out a very respectable DVD collection, a fine swath of books and enough recording equipment to almost start a small studio.  But no matter where I go and no matter what I lose, as long as I can find a scribbler, something to scribble on and something to scribble about, I’ll always be a writer.

Just something to think about.