You Have Mail

"Do you really think you should write anything while you've been drinking this much?"

"How will they know? Besides, a lot of writers wrote when they were drunk. A lot of good writers were alcoholics."

"And by that same token, a lot of good writers were gay, if I must remind you."

"Hey, don't play the homophobe card. And Burroughs was a junkie; should I go out and get some heroin?"

"I wasn't playing the homophobe card, Ace; I can't help it if you're particularly sensitive to that issue."

"Please, I'm trying to write."

"So, what are you going to compose -- another of your lewd cliche' filled pieces of so-called "erotica"?

"Hey! I'm not bad at it. And the readers of 'so-called erotica' want those cliches. I'm serious. Once, I wrote something like 'she whispered soft sensuous urgings into his ear'. Some guy wrote me demanding to know what she said. Subtle doesn't play very well to that crowd."

"I always thought you were better at writing humor."

"So did I. But I got bored with it. I wanted to do something different. Then I write something, and a guy with an America Online address tells me there's "nothing there". Like he would know. I've never respected anyone with an AOL address. It speaks of laziness and ineptitude. But that's just me... perhaps I'm biased."

"You should go easy on the AOL addresses. Why are you so hard on them, anyway?"

"Because they clog up the 'Net. They waste bandwidth. Teen girls talking about the merits of whatever the name of the latest boy band is. And from what I've heard, cybersex isn't exactly an occasional thing there as well. 'You have mail', my ass."

"Perhaps you should write about the decline of Western civilization due to the diminution of the morals of its youth."

"Naaw. It's not as if bad ethics are exactly a new phenomenon. Incest, pedophilia, and rape have been around for quite a long time now. Same with dishonesty and murder. And it's not like adultery is a new thing."

"What would you like to discuss then?"

"Beats the bejeezus out of me; I'm drunk, remember? Perhaps I could talk about the sense of self-importance that some people seem to feel here. I mean, it's only a bloody writers' group. One out of a little over 5,000 on my server. Writer's groups, by their very character, tend to be narcissistic. You post. People respond. To you. Hell, that's what drew me to them. I mean, this writer's group is supposed to be about literary pursuits; perhaps I'm dim, but I haven't seen much of anything that I would call literary pursuits here. A few, but not many. What I've seen is self-involved scrawling... but hey, like I said... maybe I'm dim."