Who do I still think I am??

This one's about relative easiness.

BCF PROMPT: "What is easiest to write for you? Short story, poem, novel, other?"

Happy Friday, friends, lovers, and otherwise! Ok, I'm going to get right into this prompt...I've had just under 24 hours to bounce ideas around in my head regarding it, and I'm pretty sure during 23.5 of those hours I wasn't actually bouncing anything anywhere. What you might see in between the quotation marks and in the italicized font is what I consider a question looking for a one (maybe two, at most) word answer that has to be stretched into something interesting enough to hold your attention, but not too much that it becomes boring and is tuned out by the 37th paragraph.

Spoiler alert: I'll try to keep this as short as possible tonight. And if I can't totally keep out any awkward tie-ins, I'll do my best to limit them.

I can't say that I've thought about what kind of writing comes easy to me. I can tell you that this entry isn't the easiest thing I've ever written. But sometimes 3,500 words can flow out a hell of a lot easier than the three lines it takes to write a haiku. Maybe the easiest way to approach this query is for me to eliminate forms of writing first, rather than shoot for a simple, straight answer that I might second-guess later (and besides, what would I fill up the rest of the leftover space with?).

Short Stories: I don't think I've actively set out to write a short story since junior high. For real. Probably because I have no interest in writing them. I view them like how I'd view myself trying to tell you a story about anything that might've happened in my life: I'm really bad at it, and it probably winds up taking me three times as long as it should because the "short, short version" is too short and leaves out too many all of the important every detail, which is critical in the function of my relating details of my life to whomever wants to listen. Besides, life is really a series of short stories with boring gaps in between them. If I wanted to write a biography, I probably would've done so years ago and be on my fourth one by now. And you're a special person if you wanna see that kind of 800x4 ppg. tome on your bookshelf. Which leads me right into...

Novels: Have you ever heard me carry on about why I hate watching movies? No? You've never seen my typewritten confession that I lack the attention span necessary to sit through an entire cinematic production? Still no? Try this: they bore me to pieces and my mind starts to wander. I'm pretty sure if I were seven years old right now, knowing what I know about my life, I'd probably be taking Attention Deficit Disorder meds on top of everything else I'm taking. How do I know this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyq9ltreTCM

Case in point: I just spent 15 minutes on YouTube mining footage for a video clip that lasts 16 seconds. And you want this person writing a novel? More constructively to the point, I believe on three separate occasions I've actually tried to write a novel. And then I got bored after maybe a chapter or two and never looked at them again. I probably still have them. I just don't want to write something that's about a hundred times longer than something I've already explained to you I don't feel like writing.

Other: What's "other"? Advertising copy? Screenplays? Grocery lists? Love notes? Graffiti? I suppose it could be just about anything, and it's safe to assume I no longer dabble in any of the sub-sub-genres I just mentioned (although given the right reason, I could probably get back into love notes...but let's try not to think about that for now).

I will, however, include blog entries in the "other" category. But I can't look you in the eye and say with a straight face that writing them is always easy...mainly because I'm horrible at making eye contact. And not all blog entries are created equal. There's too many factors...some days you can't stop writing, and some days you have no idea what to say. Maybe you want to write but don't feel well, or have as much time. Or you have all the time in the world, but the words won't come out. Stupid words. They should always know when they're wanted.

Poetry: And this is what the process of elimination has sprung on me boiled itself down to. The problem I have here is that I could say almost the same thing about poetry as I did in the last paragraph regarding blogging, with a subtle difference: the inspiration to write a poem is often different than the inspiration to write a blog entry (provided you write blog entries that aren't based solely on writing prompts).

Try to write a poem because you want to write a poem. If you can do it, good for you. When I try that approach, it sucks. You can get away writing blog entries about random things for the sake of writing a blog entry a lot easier because you've got a lot more leeway in terms of space and word count...you don't have to measure syllables and all that crap. Unless you're inspired by whatever your muse is and you can feel compelled, you're basically writing a short, short story that requires the use of the enter key more frequently...and that's not so much a poem at that point (unless you're really good).

So I guess after all this screwin' around, it looks like poetry and blogging qualify as the least hardest easiest types of writing I prefer. Which is to say it doesn't mean much, or matter. It's really about the combination of wanting to do it, having reason to do it, and being in that moment where everything you think of is just magical amazingness and flows steadily from your pen (or pencil, or fingers) until you've been able to feel great about what you've just done, and you know it's gonna be awhile until you're ready to do it again. And I think for me, that last happened several months ago.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

The easiest and the hardest word to say.

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

Not gonna lie...after my YouTube sidebar earlier in this entry, I went on a massive search of Google and http://www.someecards.com/ looking for a meme that reads something like "I went on YouTube to look up a particular song and five hours later I was searching for videos about giraffes when I should've been in bed", or similar to it. And this little road trip down and away from the beaten path of the information superhighway required a snack. Since it's hard to eat a bagel with jelly on it and type at the same time, I decided to look at a few stories on http://espn.go.com/nfl/. I hate when I do stuff like that in the middle of typing a blog entry. Then I went on Facebook to this guy's page that I went to school with who's seemingly always posting memes roughly three days or so after I've written something that could be augmented by a particular meme, and nope, it wasn't there either. Damn you, memes!

I thought I'd wait until I knew what the purpose of me doing it was, but since I haven't figured that out by now (meaning I probably never will) I may as well just say it...I've joined tumblr (fivesixerbuffalo is my username). I haven't posted anything on it yet. And I'm only following three blogs as of now. But if you're ever tempted to join, do so because of this: http://thischarmingcharlie.tumblr.com/, a hilarious mash-up of lyrics by The Smiths set to Peanuts comic strips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojbEWJFF3Dw

2: The number of times in the last two weeks since signing up for tumblr that I've actually used it. That doesn't include trying to download an app for it so I can use it with Blackberry Central...and that was more of an attempt to use the Blackberry than it was to use tumblr.

Well, Friday's almost over and this entry definitely is. If I've learned anything tonight, it's that I have no idea how to make writing a blog entry seem easy...or anything else for that matter. Peace, I've already waited too long, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!