There are two songs that have always vied to be my favorite song of all time. But I always come back to this one and know it will kick the other one’s ass because a tough little Jersey guy can do that. I taught this song as poetry to my college classes for its “carpe diem” theme. This version makes me smile because the audience is a very cool audience. Plus: harmonica. I’ll love you always, Boss, since 1973 when you made a believer out of me and not one friend of mine got it. They got it a few years later.
Unrelated, I think, maybe not, maybe there’s some thread I haven’t picked up yet, sometimes reading what other writers say about writing makes me want to give up because I will always be breaking someone’s damn rule about what it’s okay and not okay to write. Ultimately I just have to shut that shit down and write what I write. It’s all I can do.
Unrelated, I still want to go back in time and kick Webster’s ass. It’s all his fault. He just had to write that so-called “English” dictionary. We could have stayed with just one version of “English” spellings and rules of what makes a word. Word.
I will always go my own way on spellings and correct style–trends come and go, but the Oxford comma is eternal, for example. If someone else publishes me, they can change what I write to their style standard. And they have! And I lived!
My frustration is with the reprimanding tone of what is taboo in regards to subject matter and character portrayal. I write the characters I write. If their behavior and experience seems inauthentic because it doesn’t meet some reader’s experience or expectation, so be it.