So, You Want To Be A Writer, Huh?

I was thinking today that I would love to write for a living. To try my hand at writing of all sorts would be an interesting challenge. Although I’ve never really written anything of substance, I have quite the active imagination just quivering to be set free. Maybe that’s just gas. If I were to learn to focus and to collect my thoughts and guide them toward a meaningful purpose, I just might succeed at writing. Therein, however, lies the problem. I am a chronic procrastinator, and my wife affectionately refers to me as “Professor Calamitus” from the Jimmy Neutron television series. All of his evil genius schemes are brilliantly conceived and begun, only to be left undone. I’m still trying to decide whether or not I should be offended at this comparison.
The question now arises; what to write? A love story? An adventure? A combination of both? What time period should it occur? Where?
I truly love a good swashbuckling adventure, with maybe a little romance thrown in, but it’s been done so much, it would be very difficult to devise anything original.
Ok, I’m a sucker for a good romance, as long as there’s a good chunk of violence in the story (I have to maintain my masculinity somehow), and authors such as Nicholas Sparks have really nailed the romance genre down (without the whole violence thing).
Mysteries are incredibly fascinating to me; although I don’t believe I’m smart enough to contrive a masterful whodunit (remember the Professor Calamitus thing)? With my luck, I would paint a grand picture with a deep plot with colorful characters and... What was I talking about?
Maybe I could write horror stories. No, I’d probably end up scaring myself into a psycho ward. I’m ok with monsters and aliens (you should meet my in-laws), but no ghost type stuff. I’m a weenie when it comes to ghosts; remember that active imagination I was talking about? When I was a kid walking back from my friends’ house alone at night, I would imagine some thing creeping up behind me to whisper in my ear with its hot foul ghost breath. I bet you didn’t know that sneakers could do a pretty sweet burnout when you’re trying to get traction on pavement. The thick blue smoke from the sneaker burnout acted as a good smokescreen to cover my egress from the area. I think I could have set a few land speed records running home! I would tear open our front door, dart in, and slam it in the face of that stupid smelly ghost. Ha! Beat you again, sucker! Well, it would inevitably turn out that the “ghost” was just my “friend” trying to run me down to give me something I forgot at his house. Some friend!
Fantasy novels are fun to read and enjoy, because in them you can have all kinds of cool magic, creatures, heroes and heroines who are abnormally physically fit and impossibly proportioned. On the cover of the books the Fiercely Rugged Looking Hero is usually wearing a leather Speedo (quite popular in the heyday of fantasy times for its fashionable durability and aesthetic charm), and maybe a cloak made up of various chunks of animal hides. He is carrying a battle-axe the size of a small sedan which he uses to promote truth, justice and the barbarian way, dealing fiercely (I like that word) with any and all enemies, or people and creatures that smell worse than him. The Heroine is always dressed in a skintight fur-trimmed leather leotard with some metal discs strategically placed to protect her freakishly large and perfectly round breasts. Oh, and she is wielding an enormous crazy looking sword that is glowing, indicating that it possesses some unearthly power that enables her to keep the Fierce Hero in line. It is especially useful when the Fierce Hero comes home to the castle after a long day of fighting smelly creatures and evil wizards and is feeling a bit too frisky.
I guess that doesn’t leave me much to write about. Maybe if I must write something, it should be on the mundane, every-day things in life. The only problem with that is we all have an overabundance of mundane every-day type things that we want to forget about. That is why we read a good story in the first place; to steal away from reality, if just for a moment. It is wonderful to imagine ourselves as that smelly Hero/Heroine, sporting our fashionable yet functional leather Speedo/leotard, and utilizing our powers for truth, justice, and the barbarian way.
If I never succeed as a New York Times best-selling author, I will still enjoy writing about those little thoughts that come to mind (yes, thoughts actually occur from time to time). You never know, one of them just might be a winner.