Why There Is a Literary Zone

I consider myself an artist. But in most artistic endeavors, I am what you would call a Bad Artist.

I never learned how to play the guitar or the piano. I played the cymbals in my kindergarten band. However, I don’t know of any cymbalists who became famous as the Fab Four or even the Fab Liberace. About the only time I ever heard a cymbal in a rock song was at the end of the Moody Blues’ song “Nights in White Satin”.

When it comes to singing, I am known as the Screechy Frog. I belt out the scales like a scaly case of eczema.

My artistic “masterpieces” will not be shown at the Louvre or the National Gallery of Art. In fact, they are not as good as the paintings you see on the boys’ bathroom walls or the graffiti on railroad cars.

I did a little acting in junior high school. But I knew I would not be the next Marlon Brando or a ham like Porky Pig. Besides, I don’t have a Hollywood face.

I think I tried sculpture once, but the only thing I created was a mess. I like to dance, but I boogie more like Fred Flinstone than Fred Astaire.

But there is one artistic endeavor I do well—writing.

In junior high school, I remember writing a story about a man encountering a snake in the desert. I was pleasantly flabbergasted when my teacher told my classmates the plot of this tale in great detail. Then she castigated me for not writing the story correctly.

In high school, my English teacher loved my story about my tricycle. Later, I was the news editor of the school paper and won a creative writing award.

Because I was a history major in college, I spent umpteen hours banging out research papers on subjects ranging from electric power to central Illinoisans at the Battle of Bull Run to Austro-Hungarian diplomacy in World War I. My senior thesis on the Illinois state legislature in 1958 and 1959 won the best essay prize.

I had a lot of fun presenting a research paper at the Society of American Baseball Research conference in Louisville in 1997. In 2011, I began blogging, and I still love it, man.

Now you know I have a literary zone. I enjoy having an artistic space. And writing is like my golf game—there is always room for a hacker to practice and improve his craft.

Thought From This Blog

The difference between good art and bad art is in the eye of the beholder.