Again

I consider myself somewhat of a master of illusion in that I'm able to -- uncannily, remarkably -- convince people (women, usually) that I'm a) a nice person and b) handsome. This is a revelation borne from experience rather than from guile, and as such I hope the reader is kind on me; for while I may be inscrutable in my goals, I am nothing but innocent in my execution. No one has ever told me to my face that I am a bastard, and for that I am very thankful.

I want to be good. I crave praise. At the same time, I am admittedly fearless when it comes to the written word, and sometimes I falter. As a writer, I have many children, and not all of them are fully formed. In fact, I'm willing to admit that the majority of them are quite the opposite: malformed monstrosities too hideous to be afforded a single ray of sunlight. Every paragraph, sentence, word, and letter is dear to me, but the ardent act doesn't necessarily produce the desired result.

Such is art.

More often than not, I slave over what I write, breaking down each construction as though I were Henry Gray mapping the human body. To use another equally trite analogy, I am an archaeologist digging for the unattainable and unknown, a man with an obsession for discovery. I am, essentially, a panhandler praying for gold dust. Sometimes I uncover a gem, but usually I find nothing but sand in my sieve.

I'm afraid my two latest attempts at "fiction" can be classified as spectacularly poor aim on my (p)art, but I hope I can be forgiven for their crudeness, they accepted as my pursuit of the infinitely slippery goal of...

But if I knew that, I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to capture it. Or trying to explain it to you.