One day in Generic Fantasy Setting, the mighty heroes of A Number Of Characters Banded Together To Defeat Evil came upon a touching scene.

The mightiest and noblest hero of them all. Nerd Back Home, was giving a rousing and inspirational speech to a Grebling, a small creature known mostly for it timidity.

“… so you see, Little One, there is nothing you can’t do if you set your mind to it, work hard, and never., EVER, give up on your dreams. ”

“Aww… ” said Self Insertion Character, the wizard. “See how noble of spirit he is? He shares his wisdom with even the lowliest Grebling. ”

“You’re right, as always, ” said Thinly Disguised Chick the Author Has The Hots For. “And your esoteric knowledge and academic excellence really turns me on. ”

“Duh,. ” said Hot Chick’s Dumb Jock Boyfriend. “I I suck my thumb after putting it up my bum because I’m so dumb. ”

Everybody laughed uproariously at the Jock’s blatant stupidity and viewed him with nothing but pity and contempt. Mostly contempt.

“Quiet, everyone!” said Authors Bicuriousity Elf. “I want to hear the rest of what that GORGEOUS man is saying. ”

“So take heart, Little Grebling. Some day you WILL lick the horizon. ”

“Say what now? ” said SIC, and watched as Nerd Back Home patted the Grebling on its tiny slimy shoulder, then strode off, fulfilled and inspired by the exchange.

“That’s…. not possible, is it? ” said the Hot Chick, looking to SIC with a wide-eyed, trusting look that spoke of her total faith in SIC’s intelligence and wisdom’s ability to make the world make sense again for her,

“No, it’s not. ” said SIC in a strong male voice that was clearly the product of his getting LOTS of puberty. “The horizon is not a physical object, and therefore cannot be licked. ”

“Me try now! ” said the Dumb Jock. He immediately began hopping and licking at the air with great intensity and enthusiasm.

“Wow. ” said the Hot Chick. ” Once more, he has proven how worthless all that muscle and height and handsomeness is in the real world, and how therefore anyone who found him even slightly sexually attractive is undoubtedly a mentally feeble primitive ruled by their glandular secretions and not logic and reason like YOU. ”

“That’s something that should be obvious to everyone. ” said SIC. “Oh god, now the Grebling is doing it. ”

The Grebling was, indeed, hopping and slurping just like the Dumb Jock, for Greblings, like Jocks, are a species know for their stupidity.

“Shouldn’t we, I don’t know. Stop them, or something?” said the maddeningly pretty and ladylike Bicuriousity Elf. “It’s sad to see them trying to do something that’s impossible. ”

“But they seem so happy!” said the Hot Chick in a voice overflowing with the strongly femine virtue of compassion. “Why ruin their fun?”.

SIC stroked his long thick very masculine beard thoughtfully, knowing his very wise and grownupo wisdom and judgement could resolve this conflict.

“I agree with you, Hot Chick. We should leave these poor fools to wallow in their own empty headed joys while we grown up adult people go do important, adult things. ”

Everyone, even the Dumb Jock and the Grebling, nodded in deference to SIC’s clearly superior wisdsom and maturity.

“After all,” said SIC, “there’s more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe. ”

Everyone laughed at this clearly completely original and brilliant joke, then the Quantity of Heroes strode off into the sunset, and went on to do many exciting and important things, some of which even involved their bathing suit parts in some way.

(——————————————————————————————————————)

Well that was a heck of a lot of fun to write. My original gag – the lick the horizon thing – kind of got lost in the forest of my comedic indulgences, but whatever.

As I was writing it, I realized that I have been a rather timid writer, in a sense. Practically a Grebling. Because as I wrote, I found myself thinking of this kind of writing as something I am surprised that I can “get away” with.

Like I was doing something shocking and embarrassing by stuffing my prose with so much of the sort of writing I enjoy and thereby putting so much of me into it.

As if writing like that is somehow equivalent to parading around naked screaming “look at me! LOOK AT ME DAMMIT. ”

Mental note : new Halloween costume idea.

But why shouldn’t I write like that? What do I have to be ashamed of? I think I have been limiting myself by what the audience will “get”. I have such a strong desire to communicate and connect with people that I subconsciously installed a governor to keep me from being TOO weird.

But fuck it. I’m going to draw with all my goddamned crayons from now on, and if the world can’t handle it, it can go fuck itself.

I will make better art being true to myself and writing what I enjoy writing than I ever will being a timid populist anyway.

I choose the artist’s path over the entertainer’s path. That means I am prioritizing my artistic enjoyment and integrity over my very strong desire to make the audience happy, whatever it takes.

So, from this point on, I am a writer in a garret working on powerful and unique art that could rewrite the rulebook if it ever caught on, but probably won’t be appreciated in my lifetime unless I somehow get an agent who is very, very patient and persistent.

Or even better, a patron.

I will never lose my desire to entertain and get the love I seek via laughter and applause, but I am going to pursue that goal through artistic purity and the full expression of my authorial voice rather than trying to learn how to get through to people, like I have been doing.

Screw that. I’m a unqiue individual, with my own idiosyncratic way of doing things. If I achieve success, it will be by being boldly and defiantly myself and thus creating original, vibrant, living art o such power and heft that it defines its own reality as it creates it, then fill said reality with amazement and magic.

And if people don’t get it, they don’t deserve it. The sharp people with get it, and that’s enough for me.

I’m going to have fun, god dammit.  If the product of that fun appeals to others, that’s great and all.

But no matter what, I will have had a good time writing it.

And that’s the bottom line.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.