The Writing Life: Opening Doors

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2007: I was basically suffering from a severe case of writer’s block. I had no idea what the hell to write. I had no ideas in which to pursue. I was frustrated to say the least. To keep myself busy writing I began to blog a lot. I would pretty much write about anything and everything, no matter how mundane. To me, it was to keep the “wheels greased” so to speak. I figured if I just wrote about whatever struck my fancy it would be better than writing nothing at all. So I would write about music, art, society, cultural things, political things, current events, book reviews, a little about film and other things that amused me over the course of the day—or sometimes, if the need called for it, merely rant. At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but I was basically trying to break the block and perhaps by just writing about anything, no matter what it was, it would help break it and help me think of a good idea for another novel.

I felt good knowing that I now had three books available for anyone who might be interested in them and I got the word out through my blog, my website, and of course, through connections I was making via MySpace and Facebook. When I formed these pages, I did so with the intention of first, keeping up with some friends I hadn’t seen in years and mainly to connect with other writers and artists out there with the hopes of networking with them, developing friendships and relationships that would prove to be interesting and inspiring. There was a whole world out there. All one had to do was reach out.

Now a word on networking:
It’s sort of a funny thing, especially when one is an artist and trying to connect with other creative types. During my music days, I would have killed to have had use of this technology. God knows how many connections we would have made and how far our music would have spread. I applied the same attitude towards my writing endeavors.

There had to be, and there were, thousands upon thousands, if not millions of people out there, from all over the world to connect with. I would search them out and “friend” them. Not just anyone and everyone, but people who’s work I really liked and who I thought had something to offer. I had no idea how this whole idea of “networking” would be nothing more than a word for a lot of people. A hell of a lot of people seem to have a very strange notion as to what networking is. They all claim to aspire to “connect with other artists” but many of them don’t really mean it. A lot of them were familiar types, much like those I dealt with doing the publishing. Their only interest was to collect as many “friends” as they could, like postage stamps, and never ever communicate with you.

This is how I looked at it and still do to a large extent: You just never know who’s out there looking. You may think no one is reading you or looking at your website or whatever else, then all of a sudden you start to get messages from people who were indeed reading you only you just didn’t know it. You suddenly find emails, messages and comments that refer to things that you forgot you’d written about.

It’s also a cautionary thing as well. It shows you that since you don’t know who’s reading, you have to be careful about what bridges you decide to burn if you are inclined to do so. When it comes to social networking sites, I tend to accept anyone who wants to “come aboard” so to speak (unless it’s obvious spam or porno sites set up to look like someone’s profile) and I do my best to make contact with each and every one of them.

This doesn’t mean you’ll ever hear from them ever again, but you just don’t know whether or not they’re following you or not. That’s why I never delete anyone (unless they’re abusive assholes—and there have been plenty of them). You also never know what someone can turn you on to, where they may lead you. There’s always a hell of amount to learn from other people via conversation, messages or even just reading what they write every now and then. Slowly, things built up and I made a lot of amazing connections with people all around the world who are doing their thing, turning me on to some amazing writing, music, painting, and just about every other art there is out there. To me, it’s sort of like a world wide salon if one wants to look at it that way.

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Julian Gallo (39 Posts)

Born and raised in New York City. I am a musician/writer/painter who has poems and short stories published in about 40 magazines and journals throughout the United States, Canada and Europe and also has 12 books under his belt:
"Standing On Lorimer Street Awaiting Crucifixion" (Alpha Beat Press, 1996), "The Terror of Your Cunt is The Beauty of Your Face" (Black Spring Press, 1999), "Street Gospel Mystical Intellectual Survival Codes" (Budget Press, 2000), "Scrape That Violin More Darkly Then Hover Like Smoke In The Air" (Black Spring Press, 2001), "Existential Labyrinths" (Black Spring Press, 2003), "Window Shopping For A New Crown of Thorns" (Lulu Press, 2007), "November Rust" (Lulu Press, 2007), "My Arrival Is Marked By Illuminating Stains" (Lulu Press 2007), "A Symphony of Olives" (Propaganda Press, 2009) and "Divertimiento" (Propaganda Press, 2009). His second novel "Naderia" was released in January 2011 and his third, "Be Still and Know That I Am" (Beat Corrida) was released in September 2011. He is also currently playing guitar and bass for NYC singer/songwriter Linda La Porte. View My Profile