Introductions and Intentions

I am not an expert blogger, so don't expect anything flashy.  Just text and maybe some pictures--doubtfully.

My name is Aaron.  As of my typing this, I am 21 years old and in Atlanta, Georgia.  In September I'll begin my senior year at the University of Rochester.  After this year, it's a whole new ballgame--not a blank slate, but a fresh and empty page of paper.  That's where the "Young" of "Young Soap" comes from.

The "Soap" is a little bit more of a stretch, but bear with me.  The one thing that I really like to do in my spare and solitary time--aside from wasting hours on the internet--is writing.  The thing is, I don't do it enough.  Writing, you see, is demanding in the same way that exercising or studying is.  As people, bound to inertia, we resist anything that requires effort and activity, especially in our free time.  That's why I'm starting this blog, to make myself write every day, and I don't mean write in this blog.  If I don't write, I'll have nothing to blog about.  I guess it doesn't make too much sense, but I have other reasons for starting this that I'll get to later.

I still haven't explained the "Soap," have I?  The first career that ever really, viscerally attracted me--that made me weep with longing--was television writer.  More specifically, soap opera writer.  Obviously, I couldn't start writing a TV show on my own.  (I could, and have, written TV shows before, but if they are not produced, of they are not seen, then they do not live, they are not complete).  So, I focused on something I could do on my own--something I could bring to completion: prose.  More specifically, a novel.  So there, to me "soap" and "writing" are synonymous.  This blog is meant to track my journey as a writer.

Now I feel obliged to answer the question: why make it public?  I'm not entirely sure.  I have a diary of my own that I have kept for many years and is meant for my eyes only.  Maybe I'm just another victim of this internet culture--I feel the need to share.  More, importantly, though, I think I intend this as a marketing venture.  If I am ever published, I hope this blog may draw people to my work, and my involve those already interested more deeply in.  So my motives are not entirely innocent.

Let me just catch you up on my latest venture and then we can all call it a night.  Since the winter of 2010, I have been working on a novel--the first in a series of 8.  I won't name it here, because I'm maybe a little superstitious.  Anyway, I have a decent manuscript right now.  I've just begun what I hope will be the final revision, but the work has been slow.  After three days of infrequent work, I'm still only half way through the first chapter.  So that's what you'll be hearing about on here, I expect.  Maybe I'll write about other things, as well, tying in some way back to writing.

So, there you have it.  Another blog by an amateur writer about writing.  Maybe it's the beginning of an amazing journey; maybe it's a detour on the way to something else.  Only time will tell.

-Aaron