a different form of awesomancy

So, usually I'm an Editor. I capitalize that because I have no editor telling me that it's silly and I shouldn't, and 'cause I'm trying to make a point here, Dickinson-style. When I was a kid, I read My Teacher Is an Alien and The Hobbit and I decided that wanted to be a writer. I wrote daily, continually, from second grade through a year or two out of college -- daily diary enteries, (bad) poems, (worse) stories & scripts, essays, blog enteries, and etc. I was in journalism through middle & high school, and then, when I realized that I hate journalism, I took 8 creative writing workshops in my 4 years at the University of Florida. All of which taught me that I enjoy editing far more than I enjoy writing.

I still write! Obviously, hi. I've got this blog, a couple personal & private ones, a notebook in my bedside stand and another that always lives in my purse. But I in no way consider myself a Writer. When I talk with friends about this, they make noises about how ohnono I'm quite good at writing, I could do it if I wanted, I should [implied: gather up my balls and] try more/harder. And hey, maybe I should... there's still a tiny monkey of hope inside me who wants to run around with leather jackets and sunglasses and crazy hair, being a literary rockstar. But, kids, writing is hard. It requires ideas and self-esteem and follow-through, all of which are weak points of mine and none of which are gonna be strengthened without a lifetime-worth of mental workouts.

So, as I said, usually I'm an Editor. It's all the skill of writing, and all the payoff of seeing good work hit print, without all those parts that I'm still working on. And I love editing. My really good days are the ones where I get to edit medical articles for seven hours and then take breaks and go home to edit fiction or scripts. But I sometimes I practice at being a writer -- here, in my notebooks and personal blogs, and, for the next two weeks, on Burrito Blade. Adam & I switched roles for six pages to see whether our dance would still work with me leading, and although it was odd working in someone else's universe, I'm fairly proud of the result.

If you'd like to read from the beginning you can start here, or if you'd prefer, you can read the following summary for the lackadaisical and then go straight to my first page as the writer: A couple of gods are battling for the fate of humanity in NYC using food-based magic, and have dragged a couple of humans into the havoc. And a building just collapsed on our protagonists.


I hope you like the result, too! Huge thanks to Renato for turning my rambling narrations into such pretty pictures. And oh hey, to Adam for being just as rad an editbuddy as he is a writebuddy. Lemme know what you think?