Journal Entry (Friday October 21, 2022)
I have realized this morning (not for the first time, but with a clarity not previously felt) that I would like to have spent my life writing prose rather than writing software. Writing software isn’t really writing (at least for me) it’s about trying to figure out what the machine reading your words is trying to tell you — and it’s never anything good. It’s always your fault because you didn’t play by the rules. Never mind you don’t always know what the rules are — no one can know them all, but you find yourself looking for answers to a critique you don’t really care about. On the other hand, to be a real writer is one path to true creative expression. (Musicians included of course — I have great admiration for them as well.) It’s no easy path to follow. Can anyone become a writer? I don’t know the answer. I suppose in the final analysis the writer himself (or herself) is the only one that can answer that question. I’m working on it.