why i’m completely overwhelmed and inspired by dfw right now

I am writing this right now, so that’s how I know I’m a writer. But the problem with me as a writer is that I have no experiences of note that anyone would want to hear about.

The advice I’ve always given myself (distilled down from advice I’ve heard others give) is “write vignettes, write them detailed and vivid and relatable, witty, etc etc, just write bits of things you experienced, but in a compelling way somehow” and ugh, how dull. What’s the point of writing if it’s not totally reckless. That’s how I’ve been feeling about everything lately, to be fair. And even the most reckless things I’ve ever done will sound booooring if written unmemorably and According to the Rules.

Now I know. There’s no rule that says “In order to write, you must have something to write ABOUT.” The ABOUT is utterly superfluous to “good” writing (with “good” meaning that someone not related or romantically attached to the writer could conceivably want to read it).

But there may actually be a rule that “the more rules you break in service of getting your point across, the better.” If that’s not a real rule, it’s only because one would then be paradoxically compelled to break it.

My post-dfw self is realizing I could have said “anyone’d” instead of “anyone would” back in paragraph one. Is it a real word, or whatever? Who cares?