Welcome to Brother Brutus: The Home Page, home of Brother Brutus: The Writer and Brother Brutus: The Frustratingly Dramatized and Overly Titled Website. This site is a young one, having come into being on September 9th, 2007. I have created it for a single purpose, of which there are so many facets that it is quite conceivable that I created it for many purposes, and just never got around to telling myself about them. I want to share my casual writing, my short stories, essays, and my poetry, with the world. I have read that to become skilled at writing, you must, surprisingly, write. There are going to be some short stories (short stories being my chief medium of creative achievement) that I take such pride in that I cannot help but submit them for publication (quite apart from actually having them published, mind you), but that really isn't what this is all about. This could be more aptly titled Brother Brutus: The Quest for Mere Competency Through Tedious Trial and Error. My intention is to write, and write as much as I can. At my most prolific I may be adding one or two pieces a night, although that is cer tainly not a maintainable pace. At my least prolific I will be adding exactly no pieces a night, but certainly never less than that. As the title might suggest, this is a collection of short stories, essays, and poetry, but it is important to be clear that this is not a portfolio, lacking the formality and expertise necessary for the creation of one.

     I am a high school senior at the moment, aged 17, and would really like to start a writing career. I am sure that this sort of thing is not without precedent, but I have not seen anything really like what I am attempting, so forgive me if I mess this up a few times. If I'm still messing this up in two or three years, there'll be enough time to get excited about it then.

     The site is pretty bare-bones at the moment, and I am only a casual scripter, so there's really nothing to fancy about this yet. Of course, there will probably be kinks that need to be worked out, and if you have any trouble using this site, send your problem , and I'll look into it. Who knows, this experiment could be so wildly and unrealistically successful that it would even make sense to set up a forum, in which several inactive members would occasionally post topics of no concern to the other two members. Anything could happen.

     I will just briefly touch upon the fact that if you choose to contact me or judge my writing, bear in mind that this is casual writing, by which I mean that it is the stuff I crank out in a half hour of free time, and in most cases, don't even read through for spelling. Although that is true, also know that everything I post here I strongly believe is worthy of readership, and I am proud to have written just about everything I write. Maybe I should higher my standards, but I can get around to that after I get good enough to meet anything but the lowest bar.

     I’ve updated this site with a new feature: commenting on my short stories, essays, and poetry. There is, as of yet, no way to comment on my writing theories, without directly emailing me (see below). There are two separate types of comments, a numerical rating and a word response. If you only wish to rate the piece of writing, just pick the number and leave the word block blank. Also, the opposite works for those of you who wish to only give comments, suggestions, or praise without assigning a rating. Those comments will be sent to my comments address, and I will take great pleasure in reading them. I should say, however, that as it is anonymous, there is a considerable potential for flaming, nonconstructive criticism and the like.

     Now, God knows my ego’s big enough for me not to take any insults too badly, but that sort of stuff wastes my bandwidth, and quite frankly, doesn’t really do you any good either, because you won’t ever have the chance to watch my face drop reading the various ways you found my writing similar to human excrement. Of course, if the way in which you compare it to excrement is witty, I might enjoy reading it anyways. If you wish to ask me a question or leave a comment that you would like a response to, send it , and I’ll get back to you. If you leave a question as a comment, I obviously can’t reply to you, not knowing who you are.

UPDATE 10/22/07 : I apologize for the long dry spell in my adding to this content. I have been going through an extremely intense patch of school work, as well as been developing several larger projects, namely a short memoir piece, as well as college essays, the joys of being a high school senior. So I should be able to get back to updating and adding to this site fairly soon, as my first round of applications go out the fifteenth of November, but it could be as long as until the New Year before I have the opportunity to begin posting here again. I do apologize to everyone I've bored.