My Cardboard Balcony

I like to believe that in order to be a writer, you need a job to accommodate it. Not a job that consumes all your time and restricts your ability to pound out or scribble something for at least an hour of the day. Not a job that doesn't allow you to breathe, think, and brainstorm. However, a lot of writers disregard other jobs or careers and claim they're hindrances to being a professional writer. Look, I'd love to be a professional freelance writer. Being able to just write for my career would be fantastic. However, I'm also someone who can't write without a schedule. With a schedule comes obligations, a structure, and a routine. And when you have that routine, you can allow yourself to include writing as part of the pattern, not simply something you do when you're inspired. Retail jobs are good if you're a student writer because of the stories - anecdotes aren't the only things to emerge if you're a cashier or waiter. You meet very interesting

Blow by Blow by Belinda Roddie He stooped over me Reeking of Copper Dragon ale and Newport cigarettes He told me I was good for nothing - Useless - pathetic - Ungrateful - worthless - Each insult sent as special deliveries with a strike to the brow - To the jaw - to the nose - To the cheek - to the eyes Blow by blow - Word by word - Until I reeked of Copper Dragon ale and Newport cigarettes Stooping over you The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since September 7th, 2009.

Joe slammed a broken bottle into an old man's ear and watched the front lobe burst like a bloated bloody balloon. Fragments of tissue and aural percussion stained the shards. He felt sick all of a sudden, surrounded by overturned cars with their dashboards on fire and Coldplay's "Us Against the World" playing in the background. Painfully tranquil music as people dressed like him and battered like him and unshaven like him danced on top of hydrants screaming, "WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?!"