Writing

Ghostwriter, my favorite word-processor.

Writing is one my three main hobbies, the others are photography and music production. I enjoy writing quite a bit. I suffer sometimes from imposter-syndrome. I have no formal training. As with my other hobbies, I am an outsider.

Hey that's the name of my newsletter, The Outsider. I may not have a large vocabulary but I am lucid and articulate. I try to write clearly, if not concisely. I like to spell things out for the reader, while not making them feel a hint of condescension. I want my readers to understand precisely what I am talking about.

It is another creative outlet for me. I am a slow writer. Sometimes I do writing exercises. I use writing prompts occasionally. I tried to write a thousand words per day, like Jack London. It's difficult to keep up. I write stream-of-consciousness. Most of it comes out as garbage but sometimes I mine it and there are gems in the tailings.

I can't talk about writing without also talking about reading.

Some of my favorite authors are John Steinbeck, Olaf Stapledon, Harlan Ellison, Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Anton Wilson. These authors have cracked my mind open in various ways and my respect for them is immense.

In addition to being a slow writer, I'm also a slow reader. Maybe I'm just slow in-general. I feel ham-fisted and frustratingly slow to learn in everything I do. Do I have a learning disability? Perhaps. I have considered this possibility. I have concluded however that most of us are our own worst critics. I try not to wallow in the deep-end of self-loathing and self-deprecation for long. It makes for boring, trite and repetitive content that reads like the high-school diary of an emo-kid. I put those feelings aside for the most part when I write. Might as well get on with it.

My absorption of the material I do manage to read is complete, and (if it is well-written) impacts me greatly. I reflect on some of what I have read for years afterwards.

My writing is often-times highly personal.

My writing style is raw, hard-hitting and well-considered. I adopt a writing style similar to John Steinbeck's Cannery Row or Tortilla Flat for some of my essays, or parts of them. My essay, A Pachinko Life is an example of that. That essay runs to over ten-thousand words. I tried to get various publications to run it, but it is far too verbose. However a couple of editors have read it. One of them told me simply, "Congratulations." High praise in my mind.

Other essays are photographic in nature, like Pubster Portraits 2022-2024. Some essays are timely, written the same day or in the wee hours of the morning on the next, like Jacob & Mariah's Reception or A Day With Bill.

Some essays are celebrations of life and family, like Getting Back In Touch With My Parents, or Jenny's Ever-Changing Garden.

My academic training in regards to writing is quite limited. I have never written professionally, but I would consider it. Like everything else I do, I do what I do, and I don't do what I don't do.

I am not always in-step with my peers.

On June 14th, 2025 for example, during the No Kings Protest, I published an article celebrating Jenny's life, and I sat down and finished an upcoming article on Why I Avoid Politics.

I am largely concerned with what is going on immediately around me. I may have an opinion on national and world affairs. I may even feel deeply about them. I feel that I just don't have the expertise or journalistic chops to weigh-in on many topics outside my immediate sphere of influence. I leave that job to others for now.

I am selective about my topics, they need to be important to me.

If it isn't, I don't write about it. Topics I avoid like the plague include politics and religion. There are plenty of people who write about that. I am more of a pastoral writer than a controversial one. It isn't my goal to be recognized as a rebel or revolutionary.

My writing is imbued with my viewpoint. I do have one. My views and philosophies become evident the more you read. I lean on and into my own experience, because I can speak with authority there.

Some of my writing is technical. I have an interest in the intersection of the arts and technology. Specifically, how technology empowers the arts. For example I wrote an article about digital typography. I have articles planned for things like the Linux operating system, drawing programs and reviews of various pieces of audio equipment.

I mostly write about things in my life that I have perspective on. Things I've thought about for a while. Hardships in my life that I can look back upon and laugh about. I think a sense of humor, especially about one's own life and trials is very important.

I have had a mid-life crisis, where I estranged myself from friends and family for some years.

What has carried me through is the fact that I am a committed and loyal partner. My family's patience, understanding, and unconditional love has paid me dividends of a different kind. I am now mature enough to appreciate it. I am lucky in love, family, and friends, not so much with my professional life and money.

For reasons that I won't go into here, I could never hold a job for long. If you are a close friend, you know the reasons. I decided recently that I have wallowed in self-loathing and hopelessness surrounding my failure to provide financially for my family for long enough. It is time to take a stand and do something. I have renewed my connections to family and friends and I am deeply involved in my community now.

I guess at my core, I am a recorder of life. I document my life and those that surround me.

I don't know what is going to become of it, but I am grateful to have the opportunity to record, photograph and write. I am terrible at marketing and finance, but I am hopeful that providence and serendipity will provide as it has so many times in my life.

My job is to become a resourceful and productive person, even if it seems pointless at times. I am throwing myself at this task with wild abandon, as if it were a full-time job with overtime. I write feverishly as if the hour was late. My time here is limited, and I feel my mortality. I burn the midnight oil often, creating sounds, words, and pictures. Finally, I package and ship my creative output in a coherent form on this website, through my newsletter, on YouTube, bandcamp, and social-media.

If you are an aspiring writer, I encourage you to begin to write about your personal experience, because that is the most interesting thing about you.

I'm forty-eight years old now. I have collected a lifetime-worth of experience to write about. When I was younger, I didn't feel like I had anything worthwhile to share with anybody, but that wasn't true. I was just down on myself. This is a journey you can embark upon immediately. You don't have to wait until you feel worthy like I did. You don't have to write for a readership, like I do. Just write, wherever it takes you. I do encourage you to pour your heart into your writing. However, you don't have to reveal everything. Leave some mysteries for yourself.

You don't need permission to write and you don't need a publisher to get paid, this is 2025 afterall. I chose to self-publish and monetize subscriptions. In regards to hosting, I started with Google's Blogspot, then I moved to Medium, now I host much of my content on ghost.io, a paid option for which I've connected a domain name, www.ltbyrne.com. Ghost.io is integrated with Stripe, an online payment system. This enables me to charge a recurring fee for my work. For a new writer, I'd say Blogspot or Medium is perfectly fine. I used to have Wordpress back in the day, but the interface is so clunky and outdated, I can't recommend it anymore.

Anyway, good luck. Keep writing, whatever you do.