The following was written in response to a college assignment to read “Write Like a Motherfucker.”

I don’t remember whether I read this somewhere or someone told me: Writing is writing. Period. 

If you’re not vomiting words onto the page and instead are just looking out the window, standing by the coffee machine, or sticking your head in the dryer waiting for inspiration, then forget it. 

You’re wasting time. 

The blank page should be an opportunity, not an invitation to stare into.

It took me a lifetime to realize that I could not use the excuse that I didn’t see a blank page to avoid writing.

I was too blinded by every insecurity and disorder ever imagined, created by drug addiction and alcoholism. 

When I did get sober or straight enough to write, it was but a drop in an ocean of living. And more often than not, it was like the trash you see floating on that ocean, embarrassing and disgusting all at the same time.

I love the line in “Write Like a Motherfucker.” 

The one that tells us, “You have to tell us what you have to say.” 

It has only been in the last ten years that it has dawned on me that I understand how to write these lines of words using these instructions.

While the school assignments at Long Beach City College and California State University, Long Beach (2016-2024) were an excellent excuse to write (no one but me was going to write those class essays), I’ve also realized they were a great learning opportunity and a lab for experimentation. 

I could write until I developed carpal tunnel syndrome, knowing that sometimes I would write good shit and other times lousy shit I wouldn’t want to read a second time. 

But that was okay. I wrote something.

I wrote through my moods (and boy, do I have moods) and the times I ached from everything that could hurt a then 75-year-old man. 

Fuck, it has come down to time. 

I don’t have time to waste. I’ve got plans for my future, so I have a lot of writing to do. With whatever time I have left (thank goodness old age is a family trait), I’ve got to keep busy.

Best lines in the essay:

“The unifying theme is resilience and faith. The unifying theme is being a warrior and a motherfucker. It is not fragility. Its strength. It’s nerve. And “if your Nerve, deny you –,” as Emily Dickinson wrote, “go above your Nerve.”

Dear Sugar, The Rumpus Advice Column #48: Write Like a Motherfucker

That is good advice I live by every day in this plane of existence. 

Do it because not doing it is not living.