I Am A Writer, I Write

As a writer, I have opinions on many topics. I scrutinize and judge just about everything. I think about politics, values, experiences, events, issues, history, arts, books, food, beer, wine and coffee, sometimes deeply, sometimes intelligently, but often sort of vacuously. Just ask me about something. If I don’t have an opinion immediately available, I’ll create one, because not only do I write, but I write fiction. Hence, I’ve come to write reviews on Travelocity.

It’s been going on a few years, and it’s not under my name. My origins as a reviewer are obscure. I suspect a place either pleased or annoyed me and I wanted to share it with the world, because, see the post title.

And then they kept hitting me up. Do you have more to write about? Why, yes, I do. I don’t write often, though, and I try to be careful. Five stars are not given. Five stars means something close to magic has been experienced. I think too many people too quickly issue five stars. But then, ratings are based on experiences and expectations. If you eat at McDonald’s everyday, other places can quickly seem like fantastic food, and if you sleep on wood, a decent mattress is amazing. I imagine ratings also have the same sort of immediacy and experience auras encountered in performance reviews, too.

So I write reviews, trying to say more than, wow, was this place great, or crap. Travelocity encourages me, “Hey, wow, you’re a level 2 reviewer,” (I think that’s what it said), “and your reviews have been read by 13,000 people.” My writing ego was impressed. Then it tells me, “20 found them helpful.” Twenty, from 13,000? That throws my ego under the truck. “You have 300 followers.” Well, it’s someone.

But I still like writing the reviews. Because — see the post title.