They say the art of truth is more important than the science of fiction. Well, maybe they say something like that, it's hard to tell. People say any half-assed thing that comes into their heads these days, there's no restrictions on words. No restrictions on thoughts either, apparently. It's almost impossible to write something that will be banned, for example. Censorship of the written word has become nearly unattainable. Ideas are given absolutely no acknowledgement, the content is ignored, and all that remains is controversy over visual imagery. Damn it. It's enough to make one want to give up writing and start designing elaborate street theatre productions of Jesus Christ Superstar using a cast of naked mimes painted like cast-rejects from Cats! That would at least generate attention.

Anywho, that ain't what I wanted to talk about, it's just a warming up, a limbering of my mind. What I really wanted to go into on this page is something altogether different.

I cannot not be a writer. I have invested all my energy, all my emotion, all my time to the process of writing. I have several pounds of notebooks filled with scraps of old poems, prose, & stream-of-consciousness pieces that herald my efforts at writing, like the nest of a phoenix, all just so much timber for my pyre. I have poured all knowledge, belief, and desire into this pursuit of writing. I can go for days without food as long as I have access to a book to read and a notebook in which to record my thoughts. I have left broken relationships, bad jobs, and failed artwork in my past, yet I have never abandoned my writing.

Even when I stare at a blank page, struggling to summon up an images, a word, a letter to fulfill my personal goals, I never consider tossing the pen and pad to the side forever. The thought of giving up and putting my effort into some more respectable form of work just never crosses my mind. Even when I cent out forty-some copies of my work and only recieved one reply (a rejection slip) I didn't think about quitting. It only motivated me in a surreal masochistic sense to write more.

But about what? What is deserving of attention? What is it that makes one person a literary genius and a second person an untidy hack? Where is the cut-off line between literature and filler? I started reading the great authors, the ones who are supposed to be the cream of the crop, those whose names will live on forever, and tried to figure out what made them tick... I started with Ulysses, figured that with all the hype that book gets it must be worth reading. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into it.

So, after setting that particular tome aside, I read through all three volumes of the Rosy Crucifixion by Henry Miller, along with Tropic of Cancer,Stand Still Like the Hummingbird, Big Sur, and Insomnia (or the Devil at Large). From there I moved on to Bukowski, and leafed through the poetry of Ginsburg and Frost and Whitman. Bukowski I quite liked, but as for the others, I found them dry, stale, unfulfilling. I wanted to see that spark of life in the magic of words, vital energy leaping out of the very lines of prose and poetry and filling me with energy.

That, in my opinion, was what made literature. I could read a book by Samuel Key, what is considered standard horror fiction, and find more to enchant me than I could in the entire body of work by Walt Whitman. Hemingway left me shuddering for air, as did F. Scott Fitzgeralg. But G.K.Chesterton, in his magnificent book The Man Called Sunday, held me in his grasp the entire length of the novel.

But I don't want to write like Henry Miller, or like G.k. Chesterton, or even like Bukowski. I want to write like me. I want each and every word, no matter how fiendish the lie, or how insane the plot, or how bizarre the subject matter, to resonate with the truth that I know, and to impart that truth on to my readers so they may be enraptured by it. I want to spread life-giving creative energy to all I come into contact with... and to learn what love is through writing about it.

"...but there were seasons for that sort of thing. Seasons where all our thoughts turn to these sorts of thoughts. Love isn't supposed to creep up on you out of the clear blue sky, it should be pre-planned, sorted out, set aside like a book you want to read but haven't yet made time for... Life should follow the rules. It shouldn't throw these strange memories of 'what if' that leap forward to an imaginary future on the merest whim, on the kind glance of a passing stranger, the inner remarks of one's own mind. It should proceed naturally, like a well-designed computer program"

So saying, Eliot stretched back and stared at the sky. Overhead the moon hung, half full, half empty. He couldn't remember if it was waxing or waning, but he knew full well that his bladder was full. In spite of this, he continued to talk.

"Yet this well-regimented life, this all-consuming course of events, if it did exist, would drown out the spontenaity, would destroy the instinctive, the impulsive nature which makes life so interesting. Love follows it's own logic, it restructures life to suit its needs. When we obey our inner impulses, we discover what it means to live, despite what we think life should be."

"All too often our lives are dark shards of pain and guilt, twisting in closets beneath stairwells, the doors tightly shut to keep out prying eyes. We display only the outer shell, act as if all is well, while the shards of our psyche continue to twist and draw blood from our inner being. The more we struggle to maintain the facade, the faster the shards spin, until finally the shards slash away the facade from within." Eliot looked over at me at that point, smiled, and indicated the scar on his wrist. He lit another cigarette and looked over at me to see if I was paying attention.

"When we are young there is no facade. We learn to create the facade by the struggles of life, by enduring the scorn of our peers and the adults above us, by damages done to us by those who profess to love and adore us, we become calloused. Then we learn to mold the callouses into a shape, a mask, which we can immediately assume at any given moment and flash out at those around us." He paused for emphasis.

"Love," he continued, "sneaks in under this facade, a universal solvent which cannot be blocked by any emotional or psychological defense we can muster. That is the essential nature of love, and it is also why unexpected love can be so altering." He stood up, flicked the cigarette out into the night, and walked into the house.

I sat for a few more minutes, watching the moon, before finally going inside myself for another beer.