'Lost Generation' Authors

This whole working 40 hours a week thing is really cramping my style.

I mean it's really inconvenient.

In fact, it's simply unacceptable, I say. This of course, will not make any difference to anyone but me, so I'm basically belly-aching for the sake of it.

But I have to tell ya, reality continues to ruin my life.

Especially in terms of finding time to write, and being in the moment enough to have something to write about.

All this time spent on work turns my brain into what I can only describe as a bland mound of wet white bread, squeezed and molded into a big mushy wad of derivative crap.

Working in a corporate environment can seriously suck the creative life-force out of you. It does that to me, anyway.

This is the current bane of my existence.

Maybe I just need to drink more triple espressos.

All I know is that the fortune I spent on books the other day is not an investment that’s seeing returns just yet. I haven’t even cracked any of them open and it’s been what, like four weeks?

I can’t think of them all off the top of my head, but I remember getting The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr., which was subsequently revised a few times by E.B. White. I figured I’d splurge and get it since I 'lost' my copy years ago. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was stolen, but then I think to myself, "Who steals a book like that?"

In any case, I truly think everyone who writes should own a copy of this book.

I also bought The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway, and The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald.

As popular as it is, or has been, I’ve actually never read The Great Gatsby. I was a rebellious lad in high school, and typically refused to read any book that was considered ‘required reading,’ so I figure that must have been why.

I was a conventional-wisdom-be-damned kind of guy back then. I still am, for the most part, but now I'll at least give it a chance before writing it off.

But that’s just fine with me, because now I can experience what’s considered by many to be a real gem of a novel and can probably appreciate it more now with a relatively mature, late-thirty-something mind (Ok, so the ‘mature’ part is debatable, depending on who you ask, but whatever).

So, what’s old is new to me in this case.

I’m hoping I’ll enjoy it as much as I think I will. If anything, maybe it will help me shake off these doldrums that are keeping me at bay.

Here’s to giving it a shot and hoping it helps to flip the 'on' switch in my brain (fingers crossed)!