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My Slant on the Writing Life

Write Naked

People ask us, "Why do you publish WORD?"

We're going to tell you exactly why. But first, we'll have to take our clothes off.

We write naked.

Sure, we've got clothes on when we shut the door and sit down at our desks to work. But the moment we start the hard work of writing—not just email or our daily suicide note—but real, creative, exploring writing—our clothes become invisible.

If someone were to open the door and surprise us in the middle of this creative act—a literary in flagrante delicto—we would scream, "Eeeek!"

Why? Because in order to connect with another person through our writing we have to leave this world and travel into the world we want to share. Yet, for some cosmic reason beyond human knowledge, while we can travel between these two worlds, our clothes cannot. We can only land in the Other World naked, vulnerable, and utterly dependent on our senses and wits for survival.

The only way we can stay in and explore that Other World is to keep writing as fast and as empty of artificial modesty—as naked—as we can. The moment we stop furiously writing—Wham! We're thrown back into this world. It's like in a Jack Finney novel when his hero travels back in time to 1880s New York and everything is going along just swell—until he digs a stray coin out of his pocket dated 1972 and—Wham! He's knocked out of that Other World and back into this one.

When writers are wholly and completely in their chosen Other World, they are quiet, peaceful, law-abiding citizens. But these blissful moments are rare. More often than not writers are half in this world—and half in the Other World. This can lead to psychotic behavior, including but not limited to muttering, chuckling, wild gesticulating, quivering facial tics and sudden shouts of, "Ha!"

This is why we close all the outside doors—to our office and to our socially conditioned sense of shame or guilt or unworthiness—to reach the place we must go to write. Even the exhibitionists among us who love to get naked and write in public, at cafes, on park benches, waiting for a train at Grand Central Station—are actually working alone inside a quiet room, a safe and private psychic space they have created.

Why is it that few things are so fraught with shame as to go about in public naked? To be naked is to be vulnerable. When we are naked we are utterly dependent on our senses and wits for survival.

We think writers are just about the bravest folks you're going to find anywhere you go, and in every language they work in. Writers are often the first people dictators, terrorists and oppressive governments threaten, arrest, jail, murder, or make disappeared.

But the problem is, a whole lot of us writers are bravely spending way too many hours alone in our rooms behind closed doors, muttering, chuckling and sometimes shouting, "Ha!"

Wouldn't it be nice to get out once in a while? Wouldn't it be fun if we could meet lots of other people and talk about the Other Worlds we like to visit when we get naked?

That's why we publish WORD. That's why we're going to host quirky parties called Anti-Socials. That's why were going to publish insight-filled interviews with sometimes nationally known—and always locally grown—writers.

WORD is all about celebrating and connecting San Diego’s writers and readers—to one another, and to the rest of the world. Think of this online magazine as your tribal meeting place, clubhouse, tree fort, neighborhood café, cabin in the woods, or pub tucked along a winding country road. But with 24/7 high-speed access to the World Wide Web, too.

Our door is always open. Everyone is welcome. Visit often.

And come as you are. Clothing is optional.

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