On Writing

One of my favorite books is "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac.

Now, I am not sure if it is my favorite because of the actual book or the book plus the story of how it was written. Despite what Wikipedia says, I was taught in college that Kerouac wrote it in three weeks on a continuous scroll (while high on Benzedrine). Since it can sometimes take me over a week to write one blog post, this amazes me (and sadly, I'm only high on Goldfish).

Granted, Kerouac didn't have a three-year old and an obsession with The Real Housewives, but still.

He had talent...and a pretty interesting life. I have not traveled around the US, nor have I ever been heavy into drugs and alcohol, nor have I helped someone cover up a murder. Booooring.

But I have recently discovered that I am not as smart as previously thought. And I have no writing ability. I was hired (by my cousin - gotta love nepotism!) to do some writing for him. I wouldn't say it was hard work, but it was a lot of writing and even more thinking. And by the end my brain hurt.

In the midst of my eleven day writing haze, I thought about authors who I read in college and loved. And then I thought about how none of them had Google or Wikipedia or Thesaurus.com. And then I thought "how on God's green earth did they do it??"

Seriously. I googled EVERYTHING. And much of what I had to write was descriptions for similar items. So I had to get creative. And by creative I mean, use a thesaurus. And that's when Thesaurus.com became my new best friend.

I even briefly considered paying for a subscription to Phrasefinder.com. Because I was drawing blanks on the most common of phrases.

But it got me thinking about real writers. How do they do it? How did they do it before the Internet? Did they just live in the library? Where is my library? Or were they just really smart?

All of these questions are making my brain hurt again. I need to stop thinking.

Bring on those Jersey housewives!