There are people out there who get paid to follow the odds. They are called risk assessment managers. They base their entire careers on following statistics and making (supposedly) impartial judgements based on those statistics. They determine if someone gets a loan, job, contract, etc. These people are dream killers. These people are not artists.

Artists tend to thumb their noses at the status quot in my opinion because they’ve never been a part of it, willfully or otherwise. They don’t fit. This exclusion automatically changes their very perception of reality. So having “realistic expectations” that the rest of normal society seems to understand is a foreign concept to them. It needs to be.

To function as an artist, to be able to think outside of the box (or look at the box and see a chicken, or decide that there is an entire universe in the box, or the box is just an illusion to distract mankind from the overlords of dystopia), reality needs to keep its distance from abstract thought processes and creative problem solving.

If you’re too busy fixating on reality, you can’t concentrate on being creative. For any artist, that can be debilitating. Why create something if no one but you is ever going to appreciate it? There, you’ve already given up.

Again, in my opinion we already have enough risk assessment managers. We have more than enough people who are perfectly happy to go with the flow. We have too many people who give up before even trying because the odds are against them. We will always need more dreamers, more artists, more envelope pushers, more progressive thinkers.

Reality isn’t going anywhere. Sooner or later you need to face it. Make it a positive reflection of your efforts, not some insurmountable wall that impedes them. Don’t give up. You’re better than that.

Just about any writer will tell you that they spend a lot of time alone. It’s kind of job requirement. The alternate universe in a writer’s head feeds on that solitary existence. It gains more credence with less outside stimuli…well, most of the time. There is a bit of a loneliness factor. It has nothing to do with interacting with normal people. I do that all the time. It has to do with interacting with other writers.

I was invited to a local writer’s guild. The lady who invited me was very nice, as were all the other women there. It was a romance writer’s guild, officially a local chapter of the RWA. That was fine with me. My work is a mystery/romance series, maybe with a higher body count than a typical romance, but with an ongoing love story nevertheless.

However, I only went that one time. I did not join. As with most “official” clubs, it was resided over by a set of officers, specifically one domineering president. They also had homework.  I’m sure writing exercises are great. I just know I’ll never do them if I’m not getting paid for it. Overall, the whole experience felt stifling rather than comforting.

There’s a closer, general writing club with a different organization, but it’s during the day when I’m working at one of my W2 jobs. So the search continues.

I know of two other writers in my area. Debbie helped with editing on Book 1, and she’s an award winning published poet. The other is Nick. He’s a screenwriter who does a lot of work with production companies in the Cities on the side.  I love talking to both of them, but I’m still a bit shy about looking them up and injecting myself into their social lives. It feels desperate.

Such is the conundrum. Emotionally awkward people trying to make connections with other people who are also probably emotionally awkward, but no-one wants to be a bother, wear out their welcome, stick their necks out.

Maybe this is why Hemingway was hammered all the time. I don’t know about you, but I’m way more social when I’m shitfaced. Probably not as intelligent-sounding, but definitely more social. Perhaps a writer’s round table at the local watering hole on a weeknight might be in order. That requires contact and invitations, doesn’t it? Maybe I should have a beer first and think about it…maybe two.

Murder case update: Suspect confessed to shooting, dismembering wife

by Kristine Goodrich on January 28, 2013, 2:01pm

After a woman was found dead in a White Bear Lake garage, her husband confessed to shooting and dismembering her in their St. Paul home because she was leaving him.

Steven Roger Johnson, 34, was charged Wednesday with second-degree murder after the dismembered body of his wife, Manya Jewel Johnson, 32, was found in a garage in the 2200 block of Eighth Street Monday afternoon.

According to the Ramsey County criminal complaint: The Eighth Street resident called police Monday reporting his friend, Steven Johnson, had killed Manya Johnson and placed the body in his garage. White Bear Police officers found her body inside several plastic storage bins.

St. Paul police officers soon after arrested Steven Johnson without incident at his home on Sheldon Avenue in St. Paul, which he shared with Manya and their 18-month-old son.

Steven reportedly confessed he shot Manya in the head on Sunday after she told him she was leaving him and taking their son with her. He told St. Paul Police investigators he had been drinking and he used a saw to dismember her body in their shower. He said he put her body into bins and brought them to a friend’s garage without the friend’s knowledge and told the friend later.

Abridged from:
http://www.presspubs.com/white_bear/news/article_04e38f26-593e-11e2-b5f4-001a4bcf887a.html