So, the first blog. If you’re reading, that means you are here, and for that alone, I thank you. I thought a lot about what this blog should represent. Of course, it’s a blog on writing. Hence “Rob on Writing”. At this point you may be asking yourself what it is that Rob has to say that you don’t already know.

The truth? Maybe not much. But do you want to chance it? Who knows from whence (or whom) the nugget emerges that changes your writing? Read my blog. If the opinions, suggestions, or pith don’t get it done for you, no worries. It’s like the KIA. Yes, the car. My wife and I used to make jokes about any KIA we saw on the road. Ka-ka-ka-KIA, we’d chant. Then we received one as a rental in some Midwestern city. It wasn’t bad at all. We actually decided we wouldn’t die of shame were we ever to find ourselves driving one.

Point is, you don’t know until you test-drive the thing. (Okay, the Nissan Cube? I don’t care if it drives like farm-fresh butter—I won’t let myself be buried in one.)

No, I can’t guarantee you’ll find what you’re looking for here, but my intention is to always be truthful. What I can promise here is no political correctness whatsoever (witness my Nissan Cube statement). I have mumbled PCedness until I wanted to puke. It’s tiring. It’s boring. And it’s just plain wrong.

I also promise no politics, religion, or other incendiary subject matter. Okay, not the latter. That’s half the point of the blog. But no political or religious discussions unless they pertain to, yeah you guessed it, writing. Or my own personal whim. After all, I am the owner of the blogspace.

Just keeping it honest.

All this said, and assuming you are still here—on with the first subject. I thought a great deal about what I should post inaugurally. As it turns out, it wasn’t all that difficult. This past week I joined the legions of Twits. I know, amazing that it took this long. And you don’t know the half of it. I am a technical kind of guy. I think I was just prolonging the inevitable. Facebook has already monopolized enough of my time; I figured Twitter was the vacuum waiting to pull me in, like matter into a singularity.

Then I had a marketing consult. Therein I learned that by not leveraging the largest network of people on the planet (perhaps even in the solar system), I was—in marketing evolutionary terms—several rungs below Cro-Magnon. Which is to say, in a word: subhuman. I think my marketing expert actually said I was so devolved as to preclude even an outing of good old-fashioned knuckle-dragging.

So I joined. I’ve never considered myself a follower—or at least I’ve always hoped that I was smart enough to follow when I should be following (say, waiting in line on the stairs for a Mayan sacrifice) and lead when I should be leading (when, for example, the exit doors have been released on a sinking plane). All joking aside, however, I was humbled at the sheer velocity of “following” in Twittertopia. Perhaps bowled over by the Tsunami is a better analogy.

I spent the week following my peers. Authors. Writers. Agents. Reviewers. The published. The unpublished. The funny. The persnickety. The outrageously attractive. Those who chose avatars instead of head-shots.

But what astonished me more than anything? The sheer numbers of people who are writing or have written novels. Holy fucking slush pile, Batman. I mean, I thought I knew, okay? I thought I understood how many people out there are writing (and now, with the digital revolution, publishing). But no. I was as naïve as a blind man with no sense of smell at a freaking leper orgy. Completely and utterly unprepared, is what I am saying.

The word infinite comes to mind. In fact, it’s one of the first times since college that Calculus actually poked its hideous head and whispered in my ear “remember the limit”. (For those of you who were smart enough to avoid higher math altogether, a limit basically approaches a number but never reaches it—ergo, infinity). I kept following, and following, and following some more—and the list of writers went on.

And therein lies the question:

Why does every person on this rock flying through space think they can WRITE?

The answer?

Because they CAN.

Write, I mean. Any one of us who made it through, say, the fourth or fifth grade, can write. Those who made it through high school and college can no doubt write fairly well. Grad school? Likely you have no issues with your language of choice and the written word.

But can you write a book that someone can read and, God forbid, enjoy?

Maybe. But what is it that makes such a multitude sure that they can?

I don’t have the answer. Sorry if you were looking for it here. What I will do is share the analogy that kept me up most of the night:

Imagine you are a contractor—a house-builder. Also imagine that you are one of the best, if a bit new and relatively unknown. All you need, you figure, is that break: someone to allow you to build their dream home. You are quite certain, once everyone sees your masterpiece, the word will spread. You will be doing what you were meant to do.

But when you show up to the bidders’ conference, there are not a dozen other would-be builders. There are not a hundred, or even a thousand.

Surrounding the clients, working their way out in semi-concentric circles—a spiral that reaches toward the horizon—there are millions. Perhaps a billion; you have no way of calculating the sheer magnitude of those putting their hats in the proverbial ring.

Further suppose, for the sake of argument, you are truly one of the best for the job. What are your chances of getting through to at least have your abilities speak for themselves? For that matter, think about the poor clients. All they want is a great home, and they are willing to pay for it. Good luck finding that needle in a sea of needles.

So the very reality that helps each of us indies also betrays us. Clouds the water. Muddies the market. And all we can do—all we can hope for—is that one day, we are noticed in the middle of the deluge.

Let’s be honest. It’s more like a Class V hurricane.

So write on. And do it well. Work at it. And when you think you are finally finished, work some more. Here are a few quotes to inspire that effort which will one day bring the sunshine through to the worst of the storm:

I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.
~Truman Capote

I can’t write five words but that I change seven.
~Dorothy Parker

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
~Anton Chekhov

Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain.
~Elie Wiesel

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The blank page is dead…long live the blank page.