The Autobiographical Views Out the Window: Insights into 13 Miles

It's a funny thing. Teachers of writing and writers who dispense lazy advice always say write what you know. This advice is somehow going to make the task of writing less daunting, less difficult or at the very least, easy to start the process. This 'write what you know' is supposed to be a comfort. I don't know about you, but I know what I know and I find it to be boring. In fact, why would I spend my days doing those thing in which I know only to retire to my writing desk at night to write about it? Seems pretty stupid to me. I would choose to write about those things that I don't know in hopes of discovering something new or enjoying a pleasant diversion from life as I know it. Write about what you don't know, I hear this as advice occasionally, and boy is it refreshing. But the truth remains, writers more often than not stay right where they are and they write about those familiar things.

And I'm no different. I way too often write about what I know. I know a lot about late nights with black coffee, cigarettes and conversations with strangers. I know about missed connections, brief love affairs with those who have a different mother tongue. I know about being lost in the desert highways and hearts. I know about the quiet morning after when the rock 'n' roll has faded and life must begin. I know about alienation of artists in the post consumer world. I know about the wake of destruction where we live in hovels and mansions and they are the same thing. I know about the kiss that never comes and the cracked lips waiting for soothing relief. I know the merits and the evils of gin.

The next small facet is what's out the window. The views a writer sees color the words on the page too. For me, I see cars and factories and fat people. I see a world that has fallen into disrepair. I see citizens of this world fallen into disrepair. I don't have a very high opinion of modern life, and the highly neglected world we've developed. And I certainly don't have a very high opinion of other people. I'm still idealistic and believe in the opposable thumb and human intellect to be our saving grace. But as close as I can tell the height of human civilization has come and gone and what's left is what I see outside my windows. Neglect.

And the autobiographic sketch is this: Anthony was born, lives and writes. He writes love stories. Love stories, that's right. I don't see why not. As far as the autobiography inside everything I write, it is there. It's not blatant, and it may not be recognizable. All writers do this. Many of us will write ourselves directly into the story. The writer and the narrator are one, and that one is interacting with the fictional characters of the story. Yeah, I think that's pretty common. It's also common that the writer will have a specific character who is the writer's self right on the page.

So, write what you know. Write about the views out the window. On the sly, add in some autobiography. This does not need to be nonfiction, or as it may seem, memoir. This is the act of writing. When alone and writing, the desk is the only thing that matters, it is littered with papers, computers, pens. It is littered with thought, with words and with the future of human letters.

Right now, I know what it's like to be a city dweller. I know what it's like to work in a fancy restaurant serving tables. I know what the conversations are like among white American men who think what they do is so great that they flaunt it amongst themselves and expensive dinners out. I know what it's like to gamble the 20% tip on patrons who have less education than I do, less annual income than I do and less thought than I do. It's an odd dynamic.

I also know what it's like to leave the restaurant and walk the city streets. I don't know what your town is like, but mine is filled with homeless people, meth addicts and street urchins. It may be the cultural norm in my town to embrace and coddle these types of people, or it may be a sign of the times. Whatever it is, there is a body in every doorway and the discarded drug paraphernalia is a common gutter occurrence. It's a sad state of affairs. If you want to avoid this in your own town, I suggest an increase (rather than a cut) in educational spending and stop at nothing to encourage industry so that people have jobs.

That's my day. It's 2012. Some folks think it's the end; some sort of western-Christian-apocalypse thing bent onto a twisted Mayan cosmovision. Again, don't cut educational spending and encourage industry so people can go to work. Out the window? My views? Who cares?

13 Miles is the sum of my experience as a waiter in a downtown restaurant. It follows the events of a day. It is the long walk, I've used a pedometer to count steps and miles, that is one day of work. In the course of a day, there have been bums and priests and suicides. There have been saints and spray painters. There have been drinks. And moreover, there has been thoughts of love.