Hack

By John McDonnell

Hack.

That’s what I am.

Not somebody who tries to take over other people’s computers. Not an incompetent golfer. Not the act of trying to cut through a dense jungle. Look up “hack” in the dictionary and you’ll see those kinds of definitions.

No, I’m a hack writer. “A person, an artist or writer, who exploits, for money, his or her creative ability or training in the production of dull, unimaginative, and trite work; one who produces banal and mediocre work in the hope of gaining commercial success in the arts.”

That’s me, with one exception. I’ve been a writer all my adult life, and I’ve always written for money. I’ve always been on the payroll somewhere, or freelancing for someone, bringing other people’s ideas into fruition on the page, doing other people’s work, in exchange for a paycheck.

The exception is this: Have I done dull, unimaginative, and trite work? Not if I can help it. Wherever possible I’ve tried to make the writing come alive, to inject my personality into it.

That’s not always possible when you’re on someone else’s dime. In those kinds of situations, sometimes you have to just shut up and do the work. However, I’ve always tried to do the best job possible, no matter what the circumstances.

Why did I become a hack writer? Because I love writing. I learned to read and write early, and I never stopped loving it. I love the world of words, I love books in all their forms, and I love the act of writing. If nobody paid me for my writing I’d probably still do it for free, sitting at my computer stringing words together till long into the night.

The other reason is that I did it to pay the bills. It was a way to make money, and I had a family to help support. The money was decent, and things were fine for many years, but its gotten to the point where I’m tired of submerging my personality. Sure I love writing, but I want to do some writing for me, to exercise my personality. I want to see “By John McDonnell” on a piece of writing I did. When you spend your life writing what other people want you to write, you’re in danger of becoming nothing more than a ghostwriter, a particularly appropriate word. I don’t want to be a phantom, a spirit who leaves no concrete mark on this world when he walks out the exit door for the last time.

I want to write about me, John McDonnell, for a change. I want to write about my hopes and dreams, triumphs and failures, quirks and idiosyncrasies.

So that’s what this is about. It’s about me as an individual. But it’s also about you, if you’re tired of submerging your personality because other people want you to, or because you were always a good boy or good girl, or because you didn’t want to offend, or whatever other reason. Maybe you want to write something totally stupid for once in your life. Or say something you’d never say in public. This is a place to do that, to celebrate individuality, to break out of your shell.

I have no idea what direction this blog is going in. The postings will not be directed at a marketing “niche”, and they will not be SEO friendly. This blog is not designed to rank high in Google, or any other search engine. It is a haphazard, stumbling, random thing that will talk about whatever’s on my mind at a moment in time. It will probably be ungrammatical and even incoherent at times. I’m going to write my posts rapid-fire, and I won’t care about niceties. This is about emotion, individuality, personality.

It’s not about hack writing.