...except I can't.
The way I've taught myself to edit is a pretty strict as-I-go. The first draft is always hand-written, and the second one is typed directly from the hand-written copy with obvious minor-and-major edits to the structure.
After that, it's chaos.
I generally yell at myself as I'm writing, placing those comment's and misunderstandings in bold that look something like;
Stop being such a tosser. There is no connectivity from the reader to blah, blah, blah
The thing is that I delete these things because the moment I write one I am stuck on that segment until I get it right enough for me to continue on. Of course I go back later and edit, edit, edit, edit, edit, except all those other edits are performed in minor, very distant spaces of time.
You said in class to just print out frequently if we are Go-Editers, except I am having trouble doing that because for one, I don't want you/anyone to see the little comments I make to myself and Two, by printing out the little comments I am making to myself I feel this little audience-demon floating beside me that is essentially fabricating, and ruining, my potentially positive edits.
I am actually very stuck on this. I have no older edits of stories past to offer and, although it may seem easy for me to just write a new story and provide the edits, it isn't, solely because of the last paragraph.
So... if you see this, could you please let me know if there is anyway to go around this little assignment? It's severely stunting every creative thing for me at the moment.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Stageplays = Sad: My history with the form.
I finished the assignment (late), and I am both relieved and kind-of inspired. Also, I'm pretty sad and sort of mopey.
I always wanted to be a stageplay writer, or perhaps I wanted to be a director whom also wrote the play. Whatever title's, I always liked the idea of having my stories performed (Not filmed!) and, when I was much younger, I would always try and bamboozle my brother into putting on a play for my mum for X holiday or Y birthday. I can only remember one time that we did (A four-act play that lasted 1 minute, maybe less), but I did write it and, for a long time afterwards, I always wanted to write stage-plays.
I didn't write anymore stageplays after that, or maybe I did but I just didn't understand that there was a specific form to write them in and, thus, I am now confused by what was my earliest fiction and perhaps screenplays. Assuming I didn't write them, though, and that I continued to write fiction, the idea of putting on a play never did leave my mind. Up until 14, where I was slowly shrugging off my little tints of writing to pursue skateboarding, I had concocted an experimental "poem" which, in my head, I viewed as a play, called "The Machine Wars." It was an epic poem, one page a segment, each segment varying from the last though all in one massive, slowly-rolling story-telling structure.
It wasn't good, but I know damn well that that notebook was not just a series of connected poems. I had intended, always, for that to be performed.
(I'm reading over it now; I don't understand how I intended this to be performed, but I know I thought that it could be.)
So from 14 into 16&1/2, I didn't write at all. Then, when skateboarding lost it's edge and the ideals of corporate sponsorship dwindled, I re-took the art and started writing.
At this point in life, and even now, I chose to neglect stageplays in that I understand nothing of their marketing, how much opportunity awaits a stageplay writer, and, of course, how much money a stageplay may earn. So I focused on fiction.
At 19, I started to write a stageplay again. I don't understand what it was that made me do so, but I suddenly thought that perhaps I could say "F it" and write this epic and become this successful person. For one, I can't write at all, and two, I had never written a stage play in form.
Needless to say, I abandoned it as I do all of my projects, and ever since then I have wholly pushed stageplays off of my mind.
But of course writing one would be a substantially large grade assignment...
The one I just wrote is eight pages long and, though it is also trash like my other writings, I now am absolutely distraught at the idea that never, ever will I see my play performed. There are a couple of reasons I could list, but I'll focus on one here.
When I write fiction, I am generally growing more and more drunk as I write. As I push towards beautiful innebriation, I find myself much less concerned on my actions and find myself standing up and talking out loud and attempting, wholly, to immerse myself into the character. It's an odd habit, and an embarrasing one if ever one were to see, but nessecary.
With this play, I also wrote this with drunken-clarity, except the methodology for understanding the character was seperate in the means by which I entered their head. They say that with fiction the author is God, though I've never agreed to that and find that I am simply a weaver whom dictates, not God. With stageplays, though, the God-complex is unique in that it is not aquired, but required. I chose the format by which all action would be displayed, I chose how blood would sit upon the wall, how my character would fall and cry and exactly how his memory would be revealed, how the sombre atmosphere would not simply be but would intensify as that of a growing wind.
Everything that happens, every character action, every entrance, every exit, I chose and adjusted to my vision. Unlike fiction, where there is an understanding of plot and connecting the dots to climax's and downtimes and the eventual ending, I wholly wrote the life (Well, death really) and reasoning for everything.
And with this God Complex, I am now absolutely horrified that my play will never be seen. Though I know, again, that it's quality is entirely lacking, I do not believe that I put any less effort into it then any other "great" artist of the past. And, of course, it being a stageplay, it is is designed to be performed. Despite how many times i placed a toy-gun to my head to understand how my character would shoot himself, or how many times I skipped back and forth in the living room attempting to see a segment of dialouge, it will never amount to what could actually be revealed should my play ever be adequately performed.
Because of that, and I think perhaps that that may have been the reason all along, I'll stick with fiction.
I always wanted to be a stageplay writer, or perhaps I wanted to be a director whom also wrote the play. Whatever title's, I always liked the idea of having my stories performed (Not filmed!) and, when I was much younger, I would always try and bamboozle my brother into putting on a play for my mum for X holiday or Y birthday. I can only remember one time that we did (A four-act play that lasted 1 minute, maybe less), but I did write it and, for a long time afterwards, I always wanted to write stage-plays.
I didn't write anymore stageplays after that, or maybe I did but I just didn't understand that there was a specific form to write them in and, thus, I am now confused by what was my earliest fiction and perhaps screenplays. Assuming I didn't write them, though, and that I continued to write fiction, the idea of putting on a play never did leave my mind. Up until 14, where I was slowly shrugging off my little tints of writing to pursue skateboarding, I had concocted an experimental "poem" which, in my head, I viewed as a play, called "The Machine Wars." It was an epic poem, one page a segment, each segment varying from the last though all in one massive, slowly-rolling story-telling structure.
It wasn't good, but I know damn well that that notebook was not just a series of connected poems. I had intended, always, for that to be performed.
(I'm reading over it now; I don't understand how I intended this to be performed, but I know I thought that it could be.)
So from 14 into 16&1/2, I didn't write at all. Then, when skateboarding lost it's edge and the ideals of corporate sponsorship dwindled, I re-took the art and started writing.
At this point in life, and even now, I chose to neglect stageplays in that I understand nothing of their marketing, how much opportunity awaits a stageplay writer, and, of course, how much money a stageplay may earn. So I focused on fiction.
At 19, I started to write a stageplay again. I don't understand what it was that made me do so, but I suddenly thought that perhaps I could say "F it" and write this epic and become this successful person. For one, I can't write at all, and two, I had never written a stage play in form.
Needless to say, I abandoned it as I do all of my projects, and ever since then I have wholly pushed stageplays off of my mind.
But of course writing one would be a substantially large grade assignment...
The one I just wrote is eight pages long and, though it is also trash like my other writings, I now am absolutely distraught at the idea that never, ever will I see my play performed. There are a couple of reasons I could list, but I'll focus on one here.
When I write fiction, I am generally growing more and more drunk as I write. As I push towards beautiful innebriation, I find myself much less concerned on my actions and find myself standing up and talking out loud and attempting, wholly, to immerse myself into the character. It's an odd habit, and an embarrasing one if ever one were to see, but nessecary.
With this play, I also wrote this with drunken-clarity, except the methodology for understanding the character was seperate in the means by which I entered their head. They say that with fiction the author is God, though I've never agreed to that and find that I am simply a weaver whom dictates, not God. With stageplays, though, the God-complex is unique in that it is not aquired, but required. I chose the format by which all action would be displayed, I chose how blood would sit upon the wall, how my character would fall and cry and exactly how his memory would be revealed, how the sombre atmosphere would not simply be but would intensify as that of a growing wind.
Everything that happens, every character action, every entrance, every exit, I chose and adjusted to my vision. Unlike fiction, where there is an understanding of plot and connecting the dots to climax's and downtimes and the eventual ending, I wholly wrote the life (Well, death really) and reasoning for everything.
And with this God Complex, I am now absolutely horrified that my play will never be seen. Though I know, again, that it's quality is entirely lacking, I do not believe that I put any less effort into it then any other "great" artist of the past. And, of course, it being a stageplay, it is is designed to be performed. Despite how many times i placed a toy-gun to my head to understand how my character would shoot himself, or how many times I skipped back and forth in the living room attempting to see a segment of dialouge, it will never amount to what could actually be revealed should my play ever be adequately performed.
Because of that, and I think perhaps that that may have been the reason all along, I'll stick with fiction.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
'Sup December?
Women, women, women.
With any art, be it painting, mathematics, woodwork, etc:, there exists a very obvious connection of self-to-work. With writing, it's a bit more obvious; if I am miserable, chances are that, should it be written impulsively, than the tone/theme of the work is going to be rather somber.
Instead of a solid emotion, though, like happy/sad, angry/glad, ecstatic/suicidal, I find the most authentic, and well-rounded feeling, to be shame.
Shame is like a wobbly bridge. You can be ascending, with a full sun above glostening over your car/helmet, basking you in light-blanket, or descending, with the rain slicking the pavement, your hands clenched in pure terror about the wheel, feeling each and every mild hydro-plane, and shame will totally null whatever it is that you are experiencing.
With the former, it should be obvious in the manner by which shame affects it. You feel it, and suddenly you just stop, get out and walk to the banister, and stand there like a weirdo. But with the latter, shame brings to it awkward things, things that don't add/subtract, but fully, and wholly, distort. One can be suicidal, placing the noose about their neck, and suddenly remember a time of shame. They will not fling themselves into oblivion, but they will wait, and remember, potentially forget suicide and go do something miserable like hire a hooker.
Shame does not kill anybody; it fractures them.
With how this blog started, I believe that my entire connection, and basic means of livelihood alongside shame, are connected entirely to women. Strange that women, whom are brought up with the full understanding that they are indeed valuable and damn-near prizes in regards to how men view them, are the very thing that make me want to put cigarettes out in my eye and inhale aerosol. It is not lack-of, nor too many, but apathy towards those whom care for me that causes this shame.
No confessions are in this. Wrote this solely to fill in requirements.
Still am writing horribly.
With any art, be it painting, mathematics, woodwork, etc:, there exists a very obvious connection of self-to-work. With writing, it's a bit more obvious; if I am miserable, chances are that, should it be written impulsively, than the tone/theme of the work is going to be rather somber.
Instead of a solid emotion, though, like happy/sad, angry/glad, ecstatic/suicidal, I find the most authentic, and well-rounded feeling, to be shame.
Shame is like a wobbly bridge. You can be ascending, with a full sun above glostening over your car/helmet, basking you in light-blanket, or descending, with the rain slicking the pavement, your hands clenched in pure terror about the wheel, feeling each and every mild hydro-plane, and shame will totally null whatever it is that you are experiencing.
With the former, it should be obvious in the manner by which shame affects it. You feel it, and suddenly you just stop, get out and walk to the banister, and stand there like a weirdo. But with the latter, shame brings to it awkward things, things that don't add/subtract, but fully, and wholly, distort. One can be suicidal, placing the noose about their neck, and suddenly remember a time of shame. They will not fling themselves into oblivion, but they will wait, and remember, potentially forget suicide and go do something miserable like hire a hooker.
Shame does not kill anybody; it fractures them.
With how this blog started, I believe that my entire connection, and basic means of livelihood alongside shame, are connected entirely to women. Strange that women, whom are brought up with the full understanding that they are indeed valuable and damn-near prizes in regards to how men view them, are the very thing that make me want to put cigarettes out in my eye and inhale aerosol. It is not lack-of, nor too many, but apathy towards those whom care for me that causes this shame.
No confessions are in this. Wrote this solely to fill in requirements.
Still am writing horribly.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Nothing to write
I partially cured writers block, except it hasn't really benefited me much.
Started a story, and got stuck (Prose-fiction-prose-fiction paragraph form. Take a guess which one I got stuck on). This stageplay that is due (probably tomorrow... ) is absolutely murdering me. It's not that it's a bad assignment, or that I hate stage plays, but it's just like my present fiction output, which is lacking.
I haven't posted on this in too long, but I think I've only slipped up once before so perhaps the "three-strikes" rule can apply?
Hmm... need something to talk about...
I decided to try and write something opposite of what I generally write the other day, and that was just a miserable experience. I wrote about a little girl whom wakes up and has cookies for breakfast, and whose mother than mildly lectures in a humorous manner while her father reads the paper and shares an eye-conversation with her which is of a "bonding" nature. She then runs out the door and hip-hip hooray's as she starts the day.
The whole time I imagined the dad having whisky in his mug, and the mother being nervous that the wig she is wearing (because she had cancer but is hiding it from the daughter) is going to fall.
How am I supposed to write happy stories when those are the sorts of sub-plots I imagine?
Whoever said write opposite of what you normally write, is a moron. It doesn't work, and, for me, it makes me feel like I just polluted those characters and can never, ever return to them (which I wouldn't have anyway, but still!).
I can't even make this blog interesting.
Just awful....................
So... this probably doesn't count yet, huh?
Ok...
The stageplay I'm writing is, loosely, a sequel to my favorite poem (Richard Cory), though not really. The name is scrambled, and there is absolutely no connection at all to the details of the poem. But, in my mind, it's a half-sequel solely because I know the character, and the inspiration behind the character, is Richard Cory.
So where would that lie, then, in the fiction terminology? Fan-fiction, although it has absolutely nothing to do with the poem? Or plagarism, seeing as I am not mentioning Richard Cory, the poem or artist, in my play?
Dunno... don't really care too much about that, to be honest.
Alright, I think this is 250 words. By the terrible-ness of this blog, I'm sure you can see I'm in quite a rut these days.
For the future!
Started a story, and got stuck (Prose-fiction-prose-fiction paragraph form. Take a guess which one I got stuck on). This stageplay that is due (probably tomorrow... ) is absolutely murdering me. It's not that it's a bad assignment, or that I hate stage plays, but it's just like my present fiction output, which is lacking.
I haven't posted on this in too long, but I think I've only slipped up once before so perhaps the "three-strikes" rule can apply?
Hmm... need something to talk about...
I decided to try and write something opposite of what I generally write the other day, and that was just a miserable experience. I wrote about a little girl whom wakes up and has cookies for breakfast, and whose mother than mildly lectures in a humorous manner while her father reads the paper and shares an eye-conversation with her which is of a "bonding" nature. She then runs out the door and hip-hip hooray's as she starts the day.
The whole time I imagined the dad having whisky in his mug, and the mother being nervous that the wig she is wearing (because she had cancer but is hiding it from the daughter) is going to fall.
How am I supposed to write happy stories when those are the sorts of sub-plots I imagine?
Whoever said write opposite of what you normally write, is a moron. It doesn't work, and, for me, it makes me feel like I just polluted those characters and can never, ever return to them (which I wouldn't have anyway, but still!).
I can't even make this blog interesting.
Just awful....................
So... this probably doesn't count yet, huh?
Ok...
The stageplay I'm writing is, loosely, a sequel to my favorite poem (Richard Cory), though not really. The name is scrambled, and there is absolutely no connection at all to the details of the poem. But, in my mind, it's a half-sequel solely because I know the character, and the inspiration behind the character, is Richard Cory.
So where would that lie, then, in the fiction terminology? Fan-fiction, although it has absolutely nothing to do with the poem? Or plagarism, seeing as I am not mentioning Richard Cory, the poem or artist, in my play?
Dunno... don't really care too much about that, to be honest.
Alright, I think this is 250 words. By the terrible-ness of this blog, I'm sure you can see I'm in quite a rut these days.
For the future!
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Rejection Letters AND the Block
This blog is useful for a two things.
Complaining and giving me one more reason to type, rather than to write (I hate typing, but I know I, eventually, need to get over that).
It took but two days for the magazine I just recently submitted for to reject my story, which I think is really neat. Most of the time, magazines take ages to get back to you, and the fact that they got back to me so quickly is actually very kind. Well, that, and the fact that they got back to me at all (Amazing how many magazines don't).
I'm not new to rejection, and I'm a pretty apathetic person anyway so worry not, I'm not about to go burn all my notebooks and start a band. But I am having a certain issue with this rejection, and that being that I don't have anything to write at the moment. Normally, I'm always in the midst of a project and, bored/trying to take a moment not to write, I check my email and find rejection letters. I nod, and then resume working on a brand new story.
I don't have that right now, though, and I'm rather, well, down.
Something bizarre with writing is influence, and the measures by which influence affects it. All writing is influenced, be it by personal experience, musical-stimulation, paintings, whatever. Influenced, I mean, simply by the attachment we feel towards something, and the way that corresponds with our creative minds.
But, sometimes, the influence is just far-too great, and the writing that is delivered from it is of absolute trash and borderline plagarism (We all put our spins on things, but can any writer truly deny the ultimate source when it is so obviously present to ourselves?). There is no ruler that can state whether something is of artistic-certainity, or fan-fiction, and it isn't needed. We know when we are simply connecting threads made of the thinnest yarn.
This is what my current block is. It is not that I am "dry" of ideas (I don't really believe in that), but that the only thing I could, potentially, write at the moment is directly inspired from a character from this videogame I've been playing. It's a faceless character, with badly-constructed background story and almost no character, but him, and his appearance (Blue, tattered jacket, no shirt, long, tan scarf, spiky red hair) are swirling in my head.
This happens a lot, and I'd love to write something on the authenticity of videogames, and how they are the most authentic immersion of person-to-art, but I'll save that for something else. I would much rather keep complaining right now.
Basically, I am no novice to writing under supreme influence, and I am very aware that when I do that not only does it turn out trash, but that I am mentally confessing to myself that is plagarism and I enjoy absolutely nothing about the writing.
But I have nothing else to write! And now, with this rejection letter open in another tab, I have nothing to do but simply look at it.
"You should spend your un-creative time editing!"
Yes, if I was interested in editing any projects.
"How about the story you just sent for submission?"
I don't really care about that story, and the only reason it was written was as a test to myself. One, to see if I could write a story in under 1500 words (The final word count was exactly 1500) and two, to see if I could write it in under five days. I submitted it simply as closure to my project. I hadn't anticipated that story to be published (Afterall, I sent it only to one magazine), and I really don't want anything to do with that story (Been doubting using it for workshop).
Editing, also, is weird. I think it's strange to think of editing as un-creative. I dunno how most people edit, but when I do I, generally, make very serious edits to the structure, meaning a complete re-writing of paragraphs and pages (multiple times).
I'm making excuses to myself, actually, not to write now.
....
Blogging is fun.
Maybe I'll write something sporadic, and just try and fill a page real quick.
A mage whom is lonely.
No.
A mage whom is sacrificing...
!
Why not?
Complaining and giving me one more reason to type, rather than to write (I hate typing, but I know I, eventually, need to get over that).
It took but two days for the magazine I just recently submitted for to reject my story, which I think is really neat. Most of the time, magazines take ages to get back to you, and the fact that they got back to me so quickly is actually very kind. Well, that, and the fact that they got back to me at all (Amazing how many magazines don't).
I'm not new to rejection, and I'm a pretty apathetic person anyway so worry not, I'm not about to go burn all my notebooks and start a band. But I am having a certain issue with this rejection, and that being that I don't have anything to write at the moment. Normally, I'm always in the midst of a project and, bored/trying to take a moment not to write, I check my email and find rejection letters. I nod, and then resume working on a brand new story.
I don't have that right now, though, and I'm rather, well, down.
Something bizarre with writing is influence, and the measures by which influence affects it. All writing is influenced, be it by personal experience, musical-stimulation, paintings, whatever. Influenced, I mean, simply by the attachment we feel towards something, and the way that corresponds with our creative minds.
But, sometimes, the influence is just far-too great, and the writing that is delivered from it is of absolute trash and borderline plagarism (We all put our spins on things, but can any writer truly deny the ultimate source when it is so obviously present to ourselves?). There is no ruler that can state whether something is of artistic-certainity, or fan-fiction, and it isn't needed. We know when we are simply connecting threads made of the thinnest yarn.
This is what my current block is. It is not that I am "dry" of ideas (I don't really believe in that), but that the only thing I could, potentially, write at the moment is directly inspired from a character from this videogame I've been playing. It's a faceless character, with badly-constructed background story and almost no character, but him, and his appearance (Blue, tattered jacket, no shirt, long, tan scarf, spiky red hair) are swirling in my head.
This happens a lot, and I'd love to write something on the authenticity of videogames, and how they are the most authentic immersion of person-to-art, but I'll save that for something else. I would much rather keep complaining right now.
Basically, I am no novice to writing under supreme influence, and I am very aware that when I do that not only does it turn out trash, but that I am mentally confessing to myself that is plagarism and I enjoy absolutely nothing about the writing.
But I have nothing else to write! And now, with this rejection letter open in another tab, I have nothing to do but simply look at it.
"You should spend your un-creative time editing!"
Yes, if I was interested in editing any projects.
"How about the story you just sent for submission?"
I don't really care about that story, and the only reason it was written was as a test to myself. One, to see if I could write a story in under 1500 words (The final word count was exactly 1500) and two, to see if I could write it in under five days. I submitted it simply as closure to my project. I hadn't anticipated that story to be published (Afterall, I sent it only to one magazine), and I really don't want anything to do with that story (Been doubting using it for workshop).
Editing, also, is weird. I think it's strange to think of editing as un-creative. I dunno how most people edit, but when I do I, generally, make very serious edits to the structure, meaning a complete re-writing of paragraphs and pages (multiple times).
I'm making excuses to myself, actually, not to write now.
....
Blogging is fun.
Maybe I'll write something sporadic, and just try and fill a page real quick.
A mage whom is lonely.
No.
A mage whom is sacrificing...
!
Why not?
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Submitted, and am feeling even worse.
I made the deadline for the magazine, and with a pretty decently edited story (Though I think it's practically boring, and thus a total fail) and was pretty ecstatic about simply being able to construct that story in five days. So the last two days have been a break from writing entirely (Well... I just don't have anything I want to write, actually) and have just been drinking and hanging out with friends.
For a laid-off, poor, unhappy person, these past two days have been nice.
Already, though, it has collapsed, and it's only 9 am.
I even made it, mostly, to school on time (8 minutes late) and, with my messanger bag begging to snap, made it to my Math Class. I walked up to the door, my book in hand, and put my hand on the door handle.
But I didn't go in. I just stood there, listening.
I'm failing Math. Not failing, failed. I can't recover it this symester, and I don't really care too much. I failed last year and, also, didn't care much. Except this year, though, I poisoned the routine.
Last friday, I didn't go. And the friday before that I didn't go. Last tuesday, when I was there, it was just a very solemn class, as we were given those "rate your teacher" sheets. I can't explain it, but last tuesday, silently, we recognized my circumstance, my total disregard for her subject, and the fact that I would remain in her class like a rotten egg, present but very distant (I had hoped, like last year, that maybe I'd snag a few things and potentially pass next symester).
Except I didn't go last friday, and today, when I got to that door, I just knew that I shouldn't be there, that I shouldn't go in. I could just see everybody looking at me, quickly finding in their minds that, indeed, I do occasionally come to this class, and resuming working. But, for my teacher and I, it would just be awful. I'd interupt her lesson by coming late, and she'd stop and look at me with such malice, or, even worse, pity, pondering why this fool even tries. And I'd take my seat, lumping my messanger bag to the floor, greeting my intrusion to her lesson with keen clarity of my uselessness.
No, it just wasn't happening.
So, schedule when I started school;
8am - Math 012
9.15 - Ethics
12.30 Creative Writing
2pm - Western Civ.
Current Schedule
12.30 Creative writing
2pm Western Civ.
Success story!
And it's just awful. Now I'm in this library for the next four hours waiting for my next class, unsure of what I am even doing with life. I'm just broke and ruining everything, and all the while I am searching on my psp to buy and download a game, instead of paying rent or something useful.
Paradox.
I wish.
Stupidity, is what this is.
Moment's like this when I regret dropping out of highschool.
The worst part about dropping out of highschool, you ask?
West Virginia University, that university with the highest amount of partying and kicking kids off of campus, won't even accept me.
I am literally stuck at OCC until I comply to their liberal arts standards (Which is bullshit, seeing as all I want to do is write!) and it's just awful.
Good thing I have only ONE story out for submission at the moment....
Fucking-A
For a laid-off, poor, unhappy person, these past two days have been nice.
Already, though, it has collapsed, and it's only 9 am.
I even made it, mostly, to school on time (8 minutes late) and, with my messanger bag begging to snap, made it to my Math Class. I walked up to the door, my book in hand, and put my hand on the door handle.
But I didn't go in. I just stood there, listening.
I'm failing Math. Not failing, failed. I can't recover it this symester, and I don't really care too much. I failed last year and, also, didn't care much. Except this year, though, I poisoned the routine.
Last friday, I didn't go. And the friday before that I didn't go. Last tuesday, when I was there, it was just a very solemn class, as we were given those "rate your teacher" sheets. I can't explain it, but last tuesday, silently, we recognized my circumstance, my total disregard for her subject, and the fact that I would remain in her class like a rotten egg, present but very distant (I had hoped, like last year, that maybe I'd snag a few things and potentially pass next symester).
Except I didn't go last friday, and today, when I got to that door, I just knew that I shouldn't be there, that I shouldn't go in. I could just see everybody looking at me, quickly finding in their minds that, indeed, I do occasionally come to this class, and resuming working. But, for my teacher and I, it would just be awful. I'd interupt her lesson by coming late, and she'd stop and look at me with such malice, or, even worse, pity, pondering why this fool even tries. And I'd take my seat, lumping my messanger bag to the floor, greeting my intrusion to her lesson with keen clarity of my uselessness.
No, it just wasn't happening.
So, schedule when I started school;
8am - Math 012
9.15 - Ethics
12.30 Creative Writing
2pm - Western Civ.
Current Schedule
12.30 Creative writing
2pm Western Civ.
Success story!
And it's just awful. Now I'm in this library for the next four hours waiting for my next class, unsure of what I am even doing with life. I'm just broke and ruining everything, and all the while I am searching on my psp to buy and download a game, instead of paying rent or something useful.
Paradox.
I wish.
Stupidity, is what this is.
Moment's like this when I regret dropping out of highschool.
The worst part about dropping out of highschool, you ask?
West Virginia University, that university with the highest amount of partying and kicking kids off of campus, won't even accept me.
I am literally stuck at OCC until I comply to their liberal arts standards (Which is bullshit, seeing as all I want to do is write!) and it's just awful.
Good thing I have only ONE story out for submission at the moment....
Fucking-A
Friday, November 12, 2010
Five Day Deadline
It's hilarious I'm even trying this.
I found an online literary journal that is brand new. They don't have money, they won't ever go print and they will probably shut down after this issue, or just get bored and bail on it. Still, though, their submission deadline is the 15th, and the wordcount is 1500, and for some odd reason I really want to submit/publish with them.
They don't pay you. They make a T-shirt based off your shirt.
Despite me struggling to even eat these days, I still think that's pretty rad.
I found this out on the 9th, and started writing the story on the 10th. The story is wholly inspired by the literary journals name, an instant construction of plot simply by their title.
This isn't good, seeing as their title is the very climax of my story. Also, I feel like that is very cheesy, and they will probably look at it the wrong way. Still, though, the story in my mind should be able to fit in under 1500 words, and this is probably the first time that has ever happened.
But I'm losing it. I managed to write 400 words over the past three days, which may make it seem like little, except I'm writing this completely off the computer (Except, unlike the assignments I've done for class, I'm actually trying to do this professionally and accurately, in a real, pure showing of my "craft," which I don't have) and they weren't too bad...
Except I'm stuck, and now I have only two days to write this. The worst part is I'm now completely doubting the structure of the story, and the way I've lead it.
Actually, I'm not doubting. It's bad, 100%.
So now I have two days to write 1500 words, and to, somehow, mentally re-calibrate the plot. The story is still the same, plot the same, characters the same, actions the same.
It's my style used for the story that has to change... which is, essentially, re-doing all of this.
Even worse is that I had intended, in my mind, to use this story as the workshop. Yes, it would be too late for me to make edits in time for this submission, but, seeing as I doubt they'll publish me anyway, I was hoping that, in the future, I could use this story for other 1,500 words or less submissions (Which there are, surprisingly, a lot of).
But who knows? Will I finish it in time for the deadline? Doubtful. Will I finish it in time for workshop? Doubtful.
Well, the actual worst, worst part about this is, seeing as I'm not 21 and have to have people go out and get alcohol for me, I gave somebody 20 dollars to get me two twelves of PBR, or, if they didn't have that, a 30 pack of beer.
They got me a 30 pack of Busch LIGHT. What the fuck do they think I do, play beer bong by myself? So now the only beer I have to drink alongside writing is light beer, which is essentially water, entirely tasteless and absolutely does nothing for my head.
Terrible.
Even more terrible is I chose getting that 30 and a carton of cigarettes rather than;
1. Paying the money I still owe the IRS from Taxes
2. Paying my "terrorist" charges to Toms River Court Houses
3. Paying off the settlement Financial Aid sent me because I dropped my one course (And am failing another!).
4. Buying food for the week.
I don't need a nicotine patch, Penny. I smoke cigarettes. Stranger than Fiction
I found an online literary journal that is brand new. They don't have money, they won't ever go print and they will probably shut down after this issue, or just get bored and bail on it. Still, though, their submission deadline is the 15th, and the wordcount is 1500, and for some odd reason I really want to submit/publish with them.
They don't pay you. They make a T-shirt based off your shirt.
Despite me struggling to even eat these days, I still think that's pretty rad.
I found this out on the 9th, and started writing the story on the 10th. The story is wholly inspired by the literary journals name, an instant construction of plot simply by their title.
This isn't good, seeing as their title is the very climax of my story. Also, I feel like that is very cheesy, and they will probably look at it the wrong way. Still, though, the story in my mind should be able to fit in under 1500 words, and this is probably the first time that has ever happened.
But I'm losing it. I managed to write 400 words over the past three days, which may make it seem like little, except I'm writing this completely off the computer (Except, unlike the assignments I've done for class, I'm actually trying to do this professionally and accurately, in a real, pure showing of my "craft," which I don't have) and they weren't too bad...
Except I'm stuck, and now I have only two days to write this. The worst part is I'm now completely doubting the structure of the story, and the way I've lead it.
Actually, I'm not doubting. It's bad, 100%.
So now I have two days to write 1500 words, and to, somehow, mentally re-calibrate the plot. The story is still the same, plot the same, characters the same, actions the same.
It's my style used for the story that has to change... which is, essentially, re-doing all of this.
Even worse is that I had intended, in my mind, to use this story as the workshop. Yes, it would be too late for me to make edits in time for this submission, but, seeing as I doubt they'll publish me anyway, I was hoping that, in the future, I could use this story for other 1,500 words or less submissions (Which there are, surprisingly, a lot of).
But who knows? Will I finish it in time for the deadline? Doubtful. Will I finish it in time for workshop? Doubtful.
Well, the actual worst, worst part about this is, seeing as I'm not 21 and have to have people go out and get alcohol for me, I gave somebody 20 dollars to get me two twelves of PBR, or, if they didn't have that, a 30 pack of beer.
They got me a 30 pack of Busch LIGHT. What the fuck do they think I do, play beer bong by myself? So now the only beer I have to drink alongside writing is light beer, which is essentially water, entirely tasteless and absolutely does nothing for my head.
Terrible.
Even more terrible is I chose getting that 30 and a carton of cigarettes rather than;
1. Paying the money I still owe the IRS from Taxes
2. Paying my "terrorist" charges to Toms River Court Houses
3. Paying off the settlement Financial Aid sent me because I dropped my one course (And am failing another!).
4. Buying food for the week.
I don't need a nicotine patch, Penny. I smoke cigarettes. Stranger than Fiction
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Well this has just been awful
But they're done, all three incredibly short and entirely lacking poems.
This assignment was strange, the reason being is because I write poetry. A lot of poetry, actually. Except never have I considered typing it (Writing = Handwritten: Typing = Presenting), the reason being because it wasn't any good and I have no interest in pursuing poetry as the artistic-outlet.
This assignment was really crushing, actually. I didn't come at this "academically" or intelligently. I pushed it off until two days, and then started thinking, "Well, good-sir, why don't you ever try and type poetry?" I dunno why this thought came, because I know damn well why I don't type it (It loses what I like about the many tomes of dust-loving poetry I have; the lack of professional!), except somehow I tried to convince myself, partially, otherwise.
It's just weird. I do not deny poetry, and both (Some of) Khalil Gibran's and Sylvia Plath's poetry has always sat well with me. I just don't resonate with it as the major field, and everything about it's briefness (Well, my briefness) just always had me treat it as a piece of mental-candy, nothing more.
Ugh. This assignment has literally torn me apart. There's a deadline for this magazine coming up (1500 word short story) that I was hoping to make, except I feel the creative-mind fleeing at the moment, embarassed nearly by the mandatory poems that I had to present (Not attacking; just one of those things... ).
I was just about to type a contradicting paragraph here, but I'll stop.
Whacked out.
Oh well.
This assignment was strange, the reason being is because I write poetry. A lot of poetry, actually. Except never have I considered typing it (Writing = Handwritten: Typing = Presenting), the reason being because it wasn't any good and I have no interest in pursuing poetry as the artistic-outlet.
This assignment was really crushing, actually. I didn't come at this "academically" or intelligently. I pushed it off until two days, and then started thinking, "Well, good-sir, why don't you ever try and type poetry?" I dunno why this thought came, because I know damn well why I don't type it (It loses what I like about the many tomes of dust-loving poetry I have; the lack of professional!), except somehow I tried to convince myself, partially, otherwise.
It's just weird. I do not deny poetry, and both (Some of) Khalil Gibran's and Sylvia Plath's poetry has always sat well with me. I just don't resonate with it as the major field, and everything about it's briefness (Well, my briefness) just always had me treat it as a piece of mental-candy, nothing more.
Ugh. This assignment has literally torn me apart. There's a deadline for this magazine coming up (1500 word short story) that I was hoping to make, except I feel the creative-mind fleeing at the moment, embarassed nearly by the mandatory poems that I had to present (Not attacking; just one of those things... ).
I was just about to type a contradicting paragraph here, but I'll stop.
Whacked out.
Oh well.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Police Brutality, Tired Legs and Near Oral Sex
Poetry... avoids me.
I had decided to spend four hours, after class, to start working on these, seeing as I have no poetry of the past that I am either fond of, or have ever even considered re-visiting. I sat down, opened my laptop and a beer and stared at my computer for fifteen seconds before my barricade collapsed and the muse sufficently alerted me that I, indeed, had no interest in writing/typing poetry.
The shame of having designated four hours to writing and not being able to write was a bit much and, despite having recieved a text-message to play football, I felt that it was of such dishonor to do something of such "fun" that I simply left, bringing with me nothing more than a mini-composition book with a pen between it's pages, a pack of nearly full cigarettes and my wallet.
Somehow, I ended up on a train. After paying $26 for a round-trip ticket to New York (which left me with seven-dollars and a broken button), I found a mostly vacant upper-deck, sat against the window, and watched the many backyards and graffiti-slathered walls pass by. In my head, the thought arose that I was on my way to a literary success, that this voyage would promise me a life spent writing.
They say the second most-common reason why some writers don't write is because they think they will be published. This is true for me and, as the train and I rolled further along the rust-infused tracks beneath the gray and frosty sky, I held off for the entire trip of touching my notebook, sitting bored, my sleeves and neck tucked into my buttoned-coat. I know very well the effects of such dream-like thoughts polluting my writing. It is not that I write success-stories when my head is as so, for I don't. I continue to write my terrible stories that always are in some form a badly-written tragedy, except that thought of the happy-future sits paused, grinning, between my mental-living of the story.
Having trouble explaining this. Basically, the stories suck, even more so when that thought pervades me.
We switched trains in Newark, where, while waiting for the next train to come while standing alongside certain gangsters and various homeless people, I lit a cigarette. Turns out that Newark is an "indoor" station, though the tracks run directly outside and, despite the oval glass roof, I'd say my assumption of it being outside was reasonable.
In my eyes, yes. In the cop's eyes, no. The bastard swatted my hand and the cigarette exploded in my palm. I didn't see that it was a cop, though, for he was behind me, and assumed instead that it was some junkie. With the cherry still burning through the skin of my palm, I lunged my entire hand on the cop's face (Again, unaware that it was, indeed, a cop) and, with my all my right hand's fingers digging into his face, slammed his head against the wall.
Night-stick in the stomach.
Night-stick on the back of the head.
Two hours later, after reviewing the security tape, I was let go without any ticket or written-arrest. I suppose they decided that the way the cop addressed the situation was wrong, or perhaps that a harrassed white college student would be bad for the police reputation or some other racist thing like that. I contemplated making a terrific deal out of the situation except the reality was that I was smoking in a "no-smoking" area (If there aren't children around, then No-Smoking can fuck itself) and figured if I nagged I'd probably just sabotage myself.
I'd missed two trains to New York during my temporary imprisonment and it was another half-hour before the next train came.
I got on, looked at my marble notebook, and spent the next fifteen minutes writing the same poem over and over, in different formats.
It involved a matador, and his cape freshly wet with blood. I'd write it on here, except I don't know which of the twelve forms I'd write and, seeing as I don't plan to ever use this poem, I feel rude in choosing only one.
The moment I walked out of Penn Station and onto 32nd, I immediantly regretted coming. I felt nothing, and dashed back through the station and to the platform.
I watched as the train departed into the darkness. I thought it was the perfect moment to stretch my arm and whisper "come back," but I didn't. Seemed like a very cinematic moment, though.
I walked back to the streets with the thickly polluted air and neon-angels that contemplate suicide from above and lit a cigarette.
I have a pretty solid personal understanding of New York. When I was 16, in the summer of '06, I'd gone there with 100 dollars in my wallet, my skateboard strapped onto my packback that was filled with water bottles and gummy snacks, and a smile. At 16, I had just got sponsored and thought that I'd go to NYC and skate outrageously and become a pro.
I spent two weeks living without a roof, riding my skateboard all over and trying to have fun.
I didn't, and yet I still stuck it out for two weeks. It was actually because of that terrible, terrible two weeks that I really started writing. I'd written before that (First story written when I was four; Jack the Evil Rabbit), but had only been thinking about taking it seriously, not really doing so. One of the few things I'd bought was a notebook and pen during that two weeks, and, via journel, I really developed my true feelings towards New York City.
I hate it.
For some reason, I decided to try my best and find something poetic, or something interesting at least. I walked the two blocks down to the water front, next to the port-authority, and looked down the long, long stretch that I have riden many times before on a skateboard. If you stick around that seemingly endless, Chelsea Pier sponsored walkway, it can take you all the way to Brooklyn.
It would take us an hour on our skateboards.
It took two on my feet.
It was dark when I made it to Battery Park, and I couldn't make out whether the torch of the statue of liberty was lit or if fatigue was blurring my vision. My legs itched all over, and I believe that I endured fifty miniature strokes when I collapsed onto a bench.
It was freezing, and I knew it. My body was sweating tremendously from the walk, and my pea-coat felt like a torture device. Still, I kept it on for fear of obtaining some sort of sickness and breathed my own stale, stinking air for over a half hour.
I continued to feel nothing as I watched the dark waters rotate like a compass needle around Lady Liberty.
The courage of promiscuous people astound me. I'm guessing that as I sat on that bench thinking that I was about to die from over-use of my body, a man (Well, legally a man, though I'd say he was probably around 20 or 23, which is still a kid in my eyes) watched me from some corner and found that I was interesting or something. He came up to me with two of his friends, another male and a girl.
It took an entire .2 seconds for me to figure out that they were gay, and about another .2 to realize that the one was into me.
I partook in some mandatory greetings;
"Hey, what are you doing all alone?" They asked me.
"I'm not really sure what I'm doing," I said.
"Oh, that's cool."
The one oggled me severely, which I found pretty flattering. I'm not gay, so when a man thinks I'm attractive I think that's a pretty big compliment. No man wants to admit another man is attractive. Not because of some closeted-conspiracy, but that by doing so you are, theoretically, saying that man is better than you.
If you're not a male, you might not understand that. It doesn't make sense, but the alpha-male thing truly does exist. Everything is a one-sided competition, and an election.
Somehow, the one summoned his friends away and continued to talk to me while I tried, in vain, to supply my restless heart with nicotine.
Suddenly, he got real close to me, his mouth by my ear.
"You wanna hook up?" He whispered.
I answered quickly; "Sorry if I'm throwing the wrong signals, but I'm not gay."
He paused for a moment, his eyes survelliancing my body.
"I'll go down on you," he said, grinning. "No payback required."
Oral sex is sort of a distorted rarity for me. I don't like getting it via theory and, despite whenever the occasion arises, I generally just try and either have sex with the person, or tell them to stop and I go be lonely somewhere. I always feel like a bastard with girls because, despite the apparent "delicate flower" that is each girl, girls are just as interested in having a good time as guys. I don't believe that giving a guy oral sex offers anything other than awkward mouth gestures, and it really makes me feel terrible.
So here was this guy, a very thin, pansy man, offering me oral sex. I had just walked what seemed ten million miles, was tired and rather sour, and still unable to write.
I made a mistake.
"If you really don't expect anything back, sure," I said.
"Follow me."
I walked with this near-skipping man across the park. He didn't try and take my hand and I was pretty happy about that.
We walked into one of the men's rooms strewn throughout the park. It was empty, and we went into a stall.
I leaned against the back wall, and felt his one hand move to my belt, his other one onto my genitals.
My head came back into focus. A word exploded across all of my senses.
MISTAKE!
I stepped aside him, and yanked my belt from his hand.
"I made a mistake," I said, looking at my feet. "Sorry, man."
As I pushed the stall opened, I accidently glanced up and saw him, this young, glittery guy on his knees atop the bathroom tiles of a public restroom. He just stayed there, kneeling, a look of outrageous confusion across his face.
Not only do I now know that I feel just as crude trying to get oral sex from a guy as I do a girl, I felt even worse in the idea of knowing that this sort of sexual-behaviour happens all over. I know that some people are into it, and it's a lot of fun for some, but to think that there is even one person whom will later regret giving oral-sex while in a bathroom makes me absolutely miserable.
I dashed across the park, and across the street, and across many, many blocks until I was catching my breath in china-town, the many yellow signs with the caligraphy I don't understand hanging all around me.
I lit a cigarette and hailed a cab, which I was then told to put the cigarette out.
I took it to Penn Station and, when we arrived, I opened the door and threw my seven dollars through the cabbie window (The ride had costed 14) then proceeded to run like a madman down the escalator and into Penn Station.
A train to Point Pleasent was arriving in fifteen minutes. I found the platform and hid behind a pillar until it arrived.
I left, and sat silent and still on the ride home.
.....
Still can't write this poem.
I had decided to spend four hours, after class, to start working on these, seeing as I have no poetry of the past that I am either fond of, or have ever even considered re-visiting. I sat down, opened my laptop and a beer and stared at my computer for fifteen seconds before my barricade collapsed and the muse sufficently alerted me that I, indeed, had no interest in writing/typing poetry.
The shame of having designated four hours to writing and not being able to write was a bit much and, despite having recieved a text-message to play football, I felt that it was of such dishonor to do something of such "fun" that I simply left, bringing with me nothing more than a mini-composition book with a pen between it's pages, a pack of nearly full cigarettes and my wallet.
Somehow, I ended up on a train. After paying $26 for a round-trip ticket to New York (which left me with seven-dollars and a broken button), I found a mostly vacant upper-deck, sat against the window, and watched the many backyards and graffiti-slathered walls pass by. In my head, the thought arose that I was on my way to a literary success, that this voyage would promise me a life spent writing.
They say the second most-common reason why some writers don't write is because they think they will be published. This is true for me and, as the train and I rolled further along the rust-infused tracks beneath the gray and frosty sky, I held off for the entire trip of touching my notebook, sitting bored, my sleeves and neck tucked into my buttoned-coat. I know very well the effects of such dream-like thoughts polluting my writing. It is not that I write success-stories when my head is as so, for I don't. I continue to write my terrible stories that always are in some form a badly-written tragedy, except that thought of the happy-future sits paused, grinning, between my mental-living of the story.
Having trouble explaining this. Basically, the stories suck, even more so when that thought pervades me.
We switched trains in Newark, where, while waiting for the next train to come while standing alongside certain gangsters and various homeless people, I lit a cigarette. Turns out that Newark is an "indoor" station, though the tracks run directly outside and, despite the oval glass roof, I'd say my assumption of it being outside was reasonable.
In my eyes, yes. In the cop's eyes, no. The bastard swatted my hand and the cigarette exploded in my palm. I didn't see that it was a cop, though, for he was behind me, and assumed instead that it was some junkie. With the cherry still burning through the skin of my palm, I lunged my entire hand on the cop's face (Again, unaware that it was, indeed, a cop) and, with my all my right hand's fingers digging into his face, slammed his head against the wall.
Night-stick in the stomach.
Night-stick on the back of the head.
Two hours later, after reviewing the security tape, I was let go without any ticket or written-arrest. I suppose they decided that the way the cop addressed the situation was wrong, or perhaps that a harrassed white college student would be bad for the police reputation or some other racist thing like that. I contemplated making a terrific deal out of the situation except the reality was that I was smoking in a "no-smoking" area (If there aren't children around, then No-Smoking can fuck itself) and figured if I nagged I'd probably just sabotage myself.
I'd missed two trains to New York during my temporary imprisonment and it was another half-hour before the next train came.
I got on, looked at my marble notebook, and spent the next fifteen minutes writing the same poem over and over, in different formats.
It involved a matador, and his cape freshly wet with blood. I'd write it on here, except I don't know which of the twelve forms I'd write and, seeing as I don't plan to ever use this poem, I feel rude in choosing only one.
The moment I walked out of Penn Station and onto 32nd, I immediantly regretted coming. I felt nothing, and dashed back through the station and to the platform.
I watched as the train departed into the darkness. I thought it was the perfect moment to stretch my arm and whisper "come back," but I didn't. Seemed like a very cinematic moment, though.
I walked back to the streets with the thickly polluted air and neon-angels that contemplate suicide from above and lit a cigarette.
I have a pretty solid personal understanding of New York. When I was 16, in the summer of '06, I'd gone there with 100 dollars in my wallet, my skateboard strapped onto my packback that was filled with water bottles and gummy snacks, and a smile. At 16, I had just got sponsored and thought that I'd go to NYC and skate outrageously and become a pro.
I spent two weeks living without a roof, riding my skateboard all over and trying to have fun.
I didn't, and yet I still stuck it out for two weeks. It was actually because of that terrible, terrible two weeks that I really started writing. I'd written before that (First story written when I was four; Jack the Evil Rabbit), but had only been thinking about taking it seriously, not really doing so. One of the few things I'd bought was a notebook and pen during that two weeks, and, via journel, I really developed my true feelings towards New York City.
I hate it.
For some reason, I decided to try my best and find something poetic, or something interesting at least. I walked the two blocks down to the water front, next to the port-authority, and looked down the long, long stretch that I have riden many times before on a skateboard. If you stick around that seemingly endless, Chelsea Pier sponsored walkway, it can take you all the way to Brooklyn.
It would take us an hour on our skateboards.
It took two on my feet.
It was dark when I made it to Battery Park, and I couldn't make out whether the torch of the statue of liberty was lit or if fatigue was blurring my vision. My legs itched all over, and I believe that I endured fifty miniature strokes when I collapsed onto a bench.
It was freezing, and I knew it. My body was sweating tremendously from the walk, and my pea-coat felt like a torture device. Still, I kept it on for fear of obtaining some sort of sickness and breathed my own stale, stinking air for over a half hour.
I continued to feel nothing as I watched the dark waters rotate like a compass needle around Lady Liberty.
The courage of promiscuous people astound me. I'm guessing that as I sat on that bench thinking that I was about to die from over-use of my body, a man (Well, legally a man, though I'd say he was probably around 20 or 23, which is still a kid in my eyes) watched me from some corner and found that I was interesting or something. He came up to me with two of his friends, another male and a girl.
It took an entire .2 seconds for me to figure out that they were gay, and about another .2 to realize that the one was into me.
I partook in some mandatory greetings;
"Hey, what are you doing all alone?" They asked me.
"I'm not really sure what I'm doing," I said.
"Oh, that's cool."
The one oggled me severely, which I found pretty flattering. I'm not gay, so when a man thinks I'm attractive I think that's a pretty big compliment. No man wants to admit another man is attractive. Not because of some closeted-conspiracy, but that by doing so you are, theoretically, saying that man is better than you.
If you're not a male, you might not understand that. It doesn't make sense, but the alpha-male thing truly does exist. Everything is a one-sided competition, and an election.
Somehow, the one summoned his friends away and continued to talk to me while I tried, in vain, to supply my restless heart with nicotine.
Suddenly, he got real close to me, his mouth by my ear.
"You wanna hook up?" He whispered.
I answered quickly; "Sorry if I'm throwing the wrong signals, but I'm not gay."
He paused for a moment, his eyes survelliancing my body.
"I'll go down on you," he said, grinning. "No payback required."
Oral sex is sort of a distorted rarity for me. I don't like getting it via theory and, despite whenever the occasion arises, I generally just try and either have sex with the person, or tell them to stop and I go be lonely somewhere. I always feel like a bastard with girls because, despite the apparent "delicate flower" that is each girl, girls are just as interested in having a good time as guys. I don't believe that giving a guy oral sex offers anything other than awkward mouth gestures, and it really makes me feel terrible.
So here was this guy, a very thin, pansy man, offering me oral sex. I had just walked what seemed ten million miles, was tired and rather sour, and still unable to write.
I made a mistake.
"If you really don't expect anything back, sure," I said.
"Follow me."
I walked with this near-skipping man across the park. He didn't try and take my hand and I was pretty happy about that.
We walked into one of the men's rooms strewn throughout the park. It was empty, and we went into a stall.
I leaned against the back wall, and felt his one hand move to my belt, his other one onto my genitals.
My head came back into focus. A word exploded across all of my senses.
MISTAKE!
I stepped aside him, and yanked my belt from his hand.
"I made a mistake," I said, looking at my feet. "Sorry, man."
As I pushed the stall opened, I accidently glanced up and saw him, this young, glittery guy on his knees atop the bathroom tiles of a public restroom. He just stayed there, kneeling, a look of outrageous confusion across his face.
Not only do I now know that I feel just as crude trying to get oral sex from a guy as I do a girl, I felt even worse in the idea of knowing that this sort of sexual-behaviour happens all over. I know that some people are into it, and it's a lot of fun for some, but to think that there is even one person whom will later regret giving oral-sex while in a bathroom makes me absolutely miserable.
I dashed across the park, and across the street, and across many, many blocks until I was catching my breath in china-town, the many yellow signs with the caligraphy I don't understand hanging all around me.
I lit a cigarette and hailed a cab, which I was then told to put the cigarette out.
I took it to Penn Station and, when we arrived, I opened the door and threw my seven dollars through the cabbie window (The ride had costed 14) then proceeded to run like a madman down the escalator and into Penn Station.
A train to Point Pleasent was arriving in fifteen minutes. I found the platform and hid behind a pillar until it arrived.
I left, and sat silent and still on the ride home.
.....
Still can't write this poem.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Mania, the blues, and writing. And Alcohol.
Untampered handguns allign Heaven's Fence
As God polishes the bones of Man,
Weeping, tears spilling on the shimmering skulls.
Oh writing, what art thou?
Inability, a curse, an incessant lecture of things I just don't understand. You swallow up the factual, yet still you tag your selves with the word "empirical," as if that would help the wallowing-child within.
Indifference, I've come to resent you.
Honestly, is it truly so normal to think in verse, to constantly be swallowed by dimensions of witches and lonely girls, of harbored men and anchored trauma's? Is not madness the very thing that has us sprinting to our locked shelters to simply place output on the many, many things that, for the duration, swallow the mind until outlet.
Without the truths, Rachel staggered on
Moonlit road, licking at the Rubies
Spilling from her wrist.
Tonight,
The sky would have it's way her way
What is the release, what is the motive? There is nothing but hidden texts, countless tomes strewn in drawers and awkward spaces between mantles and chairs.
What the fuck is the point of all of this, and why won't it stop?
Contemplating the point, the reason, that writing, that stories, have devoured the real, have suffocated the football-toss and drum-set conversations.
Why, why, why is this contemplation arising? Why, why, why is this doubt sufficing for this night rather then the lonely sight?
Think, though. Think, and vision, the awkward you whom, with napkin stolen from diner, scribbles the disgustingly barren world of text.
Why doesn't it stop? What is the point?
Googled though he was, Holland moved to the tower aware, unafraid of the blood-lively roots that spread about him indifferent to the oaks that once lined the sidewalks of his street, the trees that, one-by-one, fell during the invasion of Earth.
They say Mother Nature couldn't spare the life, that ours were the one's to keep, that ours were the ones to save.
As he moved on the glass-strewn road, Holland pondered the difference of the Oaks to People.
No life could be spared, no life should be surrendered.
Everything had fallen apart.
Futile is the mind to tie away the thoughts, unable, impractical in it's method of my direction, to sever the binding of things undeveloped yet waiting, of things dancing in the shadows with tints of neon-colors whisking off of them.
I shouldn't have drank the last four beers. Struggle doesn't wait and taste must be rationed. But how is one to exist without release? How is one to suffice on the stunningly lacking without a vision blurred and descending on the very organ of construction?
How is one to simply live when one cannot see his own life?
Vegetable-paste lay slathered atop the pasta, an ingediant of such historic distaste. Still, we never spoke to Aunt Anya on her terrible topping, instead watching with frowns spreading as she, smiling, pasted our breads and noodles with the olive-skined thickness that was her prize.
Later, I'd realize my own vegetable-paste.
Fading, that is all this really is.
Fading and degrading,
Derailed hesitating.
Axes on my doorsteps shine with the nostalgia of times long ago when Daddy would arrive and sit with a head between his thighs.
The lunchpail brings the truth that mother doesn't care; meatballs, laced with coccaine.
Regardless, Frankie moved beside me and kissed my cheek, her arms lifelessly dangling beside her. I moved my hand to hers, but she did not notice and left, running off from the fenceline to the swings that swung with girls.
Matt had cancer, and I had depression. Even at his bedside, the chemotherapy dripping into his vein, I still thought that I had it worse.
I don't have a clue what I'm getting at.
Actually, I do. Basically, the past-two-week writers block I had really has me down. My novel project has, for a month now, remained untouched. I was on such a high, and then it died.
My short-stories are suffering from editing. New ideas are axed for the already-done, and even when I play with them I find I hate them.
No creativity other than the mania that poisons me every ten seconds.
I offered you my hand in marrage; you offered me cab-fare.
Erasure is the cure.
As God polishes the bones of Man,
Weeping, tears spilling on the shimmering skulls.
Oh writing, what art thou?
Inability, a curse, an incessant lecture of things I just don't understand. You swallow up the factual, yet still you tag your selves with the word "empirical," as if that would help the wallowing-child within.
Indifference, I've come to resent you.
Honestly, is it truly so normal to think in verse, to constantly be swallowed by dimensions of witches and lonely girls, of harbored men and anchored trauma's? Is not madness the very thing that has us sprinting to our locked shelters to simply place output on the many, many things that, for the duration, swallow the mind until outlet.
Without the truths, Rachel staggered on
Moonlit road, licking at the Rubies
Spilling from her wrist.
Tonight,
The sky would have it's way her way
What is the release, what is the motive? There is nothing but hidden texts, countless tomes strewn in drawers and awkward spaces between mantles and chairs.
What the fuck is the point of all of this, and why won't it stop?
Contemplating the point, the reason, that writing, that stories, have devoured the real, have suffocated the football-toss and drum-set conversations.
Why, why, why is this contemplation arising? Why, why, why is this doubt sufficing for this night rather then the lonely sight?
Think, though. Think, and vision, the awkward you whom, with napkin stolen from diner, scribbles the disgustingly barren world of text.
Why doesn't it stop? What is the point?
Googled though he was, Holland moved to the tower aware, unafraid of the blood-lively roots that spread about him indifferent to the oaks that once lined the sidewalks of his street, the trees that, one-by-one, fell during the invasion of Earth.
They say Mother Nature couldn't spare the life, that ours were the one's to keep, that ours were the ones to save.
As he moved on the glass-strewn road, Holland pondered the difference of the Oaks to People.
No life could be spared, no life should be surrendered.
Everything had fallen apart.
Futile is the mind to tie away the thoughts, unable, impractical in it's method of my direction, to sever the binding of things undeveloped yet waiting, of things dancing in the shadows with tints of neon-colors whisking off of them.
I shouldn't have drank the last four beers. Struggle doesn't wait and taste must be rationed. But how is one to exist without release? How is one to suffice on the stunningly lacking without a vision blurred and descending on the very organ of construction?
How is one to simply live when one cannot see his own life?
Vegetable-paste lay slathered atop the pasta, an ingediant of such historic distaste. Still, we never spoke to Aunt Anya on her terrible topping, instead watching with frowns spreading as she, smiling, pasted our breads and noodles with the olive-skined thickness that was her prize.
Later, I'd realize my own vegetable-paste.
Fading, that is all this really is.
Fading and degrading,
Derailed hesitating.
Axes on my doorsteps shine with the nostalgia of times long ago when Daddy would arrive and sit with a head between his thighs.
The lunchpail brings the truth that mother doesn't care; meatballs, laced with coccaine.
Regardless, Frankie moved beside me and kissed my cheek, her arms lifelessly dangling beside her. I moved my hand to hers, but she did not notice and left, running off from the fenceline to the swings that swung with girls.
Matt had cancer, and I had depression. Even at his bedside, the chemotherapy dripping into his vein, I still thought that I had it worse.
I don't have a clue what I'm getting at.
Actually, I do. Basically, the past-two-week writers block I had really has me down. My novel project has, for a month now, remained untouched. I was on such a high, and then it died.
My short-stories are suffering from editing. New ideas are axed for the already-done, and even when I play with them I find I hate them.
No creativity other than the mania that poisons me every ten seconds.
I offered you my hand in marrage; you offered me cab-fare.
Erasure is the cure.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
On (my own) Personal Pieces
First off, let me say that I am aware my last submission was garbage. Even worse, it didn't have to be.
I wasn't lying in my last post about writers block, and what I submitted to you was actually written in three hours before class. No edits were able to be made (As if actual editing could be done in such a time!) and the shortness of the project was definitely a stunt.
The whole premise of the story was supposed to be that buisness, and buisness conduct, are changing. It hasn't finished in it's evolutionary process, and at the moment it rests on a pillar lined with the text of "rude" and "confusing." I wanted to exemplify that in the chaotic nature that is malls, and popular products.
I failed, miserably, but that was the premise.
Anyway, the point of this blog is that, after reading over, regrettably, what I'd handed in to you, I saw that, throughout it, there was a very thick layer of anger, something that is present even in these blogs. I'm not confused by this, seeing as I'm quite lucid when I write these things and do not pretend to ignore the heaviness by which I press my keys, but that it essentially nullifies certain aspects of writing for me, which is sort of neat.
I couldn't possibly be a journalist. Despite my own faith that I am writing in an unbiased, empirical standard, I know that, generally, I am dissatisfied on a level indistuingishable from that of stupidity. If it is indeed something personal, opinion-based, actual observation, or anything that is indeed "real," then I am simply not fit to write it.
I think of the girl whom sits in the far corner of the class when I write this. Whenever she speaks, her voice carries with it a hostility so obvious that the general lack-of feeling delivered towards her goes completely unacknowledged for it is simply known. This is not a "judgemental" look, for one's tone is truly one's tone, except I resonate with her speech entirely in my own personal writings. I too used to speak anger-through-dialect, except I eventually cut myself from vocally being hostile for the reality over time that my vocal-hostility polluted even my imaginative, original-project writings. Except, looking back on a radical-left newspaper a friend and I started when we were fifteen, I see that my writing is actually, truly, unbiased, and the philosophy present (Though I now would disagree with) is indeed plausible for it's manner of telling.
What is the real route by which one must act/feel to truly find their outlet of writing? Who knows...
I wasn't lying in my last post about writers block, and what I submitted to you was actually written in three hours before class. No edits were able to be made (As if actual editing could be done in such a time!) and the shortness of the project was definitely a stunt.
The whole premise of the story was supposed to be that buisness, and buisness conduct, are changing. It hasn't finished in it's evolutionary process, and at the moment it rests on a pillar lined with the text of "rude" and "confusing." I wanted to exemplify that in the chaotic nature that is malls, and popular products.
I failed, miserably, but that was the premise.
Anyway, the point of this blog is that, after reading over, regrettably, what I'd handed in to you, I saw that, throughout it, there was a very thick layer of anger, something that is present even in these blogs. I'm not confused by this, seeing as I'm quite lucid when I write these things and do not pretend to ignore the heaviness by which I press my keys, but that it essentially nullifies certain aspects of writing for me, which is sort of neat.
I couldn't possibly be a journalist. Despite my own faith that I am writing in an unbiased, empirical standard, I know that, generally, I am dissatisfied on a level indistuingishable from that of stupidity. If it is indeed something personal, opinion-based, actual observation, or anything that is indeed "real," then I am simply not fit to write it.
I think of the girl whom sits in the far corner of the class when I write this. Whenever she speaks, her voice carries with it a hostility so obvious that the general lack-of feeling delivered towards her goes completely unacknowledged for it is simply known. This is not a "judgemental" look, for one's tone is truly one's tone, except I resonate with her speech entirely in my own personal writings. I too used to speak anger-through-dialect, except I eventually cut myself from vocally being hostile for the reality over time that my vocal-hostility polluted even my imaginative, original-project writings. Except, looking back on a radical-left newspaper a friend and I started when we were fifteen, I see that my writing is actually, truly, unbiased, and the philosophy present (Though I now would disagree with) is indeed plausible for it's manner of telling.
What is the real route by which one must act/feel to truly find their outlet of writing? Who knows...
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Bare-Knuckle Boxing and Writers Block
What is worse (for a writer) then writers block? A mangled hand. Even worse then that? Having both former and latter.
It appears that the creative-outlet of alcohol is also a destructive one, and rather stupid at that. Despite winning by swinging my hand without any hesitancy/reserve into the side of my friends skull, he got out of it with a decent lump and a day-stretch headache. I, now, have a hand the size of a textbook.
But oh well. I can still write, just a pinch more slowly.
But wait, I can't write. At all. An entire week of staring at blank documents pondering, and only pondering.
The rather important assignment that is due today? Besides beating feet and not making it to class, the thing is not done. In fact, it isn't even begun because after writing a personal tale I realized it wasn't a personal narrative, more like a creative auto-biographical account.
I didn't know there was a difference, but yes, there is.
This blog alone has had me pondering for three days. I'm aware that the extra-credit aspect of this thing is bi-daily/class, and that I am possibly blowing it by not updating this thing as of recent. Still, writers block wouldn't even allow me to type on this social-outlet for fear that there was indeed nothing to type.
And that's an interesting thing with writers block. It isn't that one gains writers block by having nothing to write. I have tons to write, a novel project healthily streaming, an endless river of short-story ideas to begin and both edit, and, of course, the many, many peices of garbage poetry I write. Still, though, I can't write.
Writers block is more like this dream-catcher, but not one of the finely woven ones you see hanging on people's rear-wheel mirrors or atop the shade beside their bed. No, this one is more like a thorn, just one gigantic thorn that is sticking out of the side of your head that is literally slicked with the many doubtful words that have been delivered to you throughout life, the ones such as, "You write? Neat, that's pretty cool. But what is it you're trying to do with life?". Tossers, basically, sprout from the sides of this gigantic thorn and shout indecent, ambition crushing tales at you, all the while a med-school flag waves softly from it's point.
Terrible, terrible, terrible is what writers block is.
So there isn't much to this blog other than a confession that I am not going to be in class today. Seeing as this is creative writing, I hope you can understand the manic-reality that every writer endures when they get an accidental whiff of the Block. Perhaps after the next upcoming four hours that I have assigned to endlessly writing on a blank document, I will cure this damn disease and manage to type up the Narrative.
The crow that ate my leg offered no delay and set at once upon my arm
Tearing at it dastardly with the subtle truth of murder lying in this harm.
Stretching my hand, I fetched him and bit, digging my jaws deep into his pits
And chewed and chewed, until I found inside his stomach my flesh, ripped to bits.
I ate that as well and hoped that it would peg
Itself upon the stump, where once rested my leg.
This is what happens when you have writers block. Beautifully terrible poetry like this. Oh well. Perhaps you can sympathize and delay axing my grade? I am trying to write, but, as you can see, it's just bad writing.
It appears that the creative-outlet of alcohol is also a destructive one, and rather stupid at that. Despite winning by swinging my hand without any hesitancy/reserve into the side of my friends skull, he got out of it with a decent lump and a day-stretch headache. I, now, have a hand the size of a textbook.
But oh well. I can still write, just a pinch more slowly.
But wait, I can't write. At all. An entire week of staring at blank documents pondering, and only pondering.
The rather important assignment that is due today? Besides beating feet and not making it to class, the thing is not done. In fact, it isn't even begun because after writing a personal tale I realized it wasn't a personal narrative, more like a creative auto-biographical account.
I didn't know there was a difference, but yes, there is.
This blog alone has had me pondering for three days. I'm aware that the extra-credit aspect of this thing is bi-daily/class, and that I am possibly blowing it by not updating this thing as of recent. Still, writers block wouldn't even allow me to type on this social-outlet for fear that there was indeed nothing to type.
And that's an interesting thing with writers block. It isn't that one gains writers block by having nothing to write. I have tons to write, a novel project healthily streaming, an endless river of short-story ideas to begin and both edit, and, of course, the many, many peices of garbage poetry I write. Still, though, I can't write.
Writers block is more like this dream-catcher, but not one of the finely woven ones you see hanging on people's rear-wheel mirrors or atop the shade beside their bed. No, this one is more like a thorn, just one gigantic thorn that is sticking out of the side of your head that is literally slicked with the many doubtful words that have been delivered to you throughout life, the ones such as, "You write? Neat, that's pretty cool. But what is it you're trying to do with life?". Tossers, basically, sprout from the sides of this gigantic thorn and shout indecent, ambition crushing tales at you, all the while a med-school flag waves softly from it's point.
Terrible, terrible, terrible is what writers block is.
So there isn't much to this blog other than a confession that I am not going to be in class today. Seeing as this is creative writing, I hope you can understand the manic-reality that every writer endures when they get an accidental whiff of the Block. Perhaps after the next upcoming four hours that I have assigned to endlessly writing on a blank document, I will cure this damn disease and manage to type up the Narrative.
The crow that ate my leg offered no delay and set at once upon my arm
Tearing at it dastardly with the subtle truth of murder lying in this harm.
Stretching my hand, I fetched him and bit, digging my jaws deep into his pits
And chewed and chewed, until I found inside his stomach my flesh, ripped to bits.
I ate that as well and hoped that it would peg
Itself upon the stump, where once rested my leg.
This is what happens when you have writers block. Beautifully terrible poetry like this. Oh well. Perhaps you can sympathize and delay axing my grade? I am trying to write, but, as you can see, it's just bad writing.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Doubting, and Prose
Some would say I'm "fucking myself over" while others would simply label it as "academic disinterest." Personally, I think it's just all bullshit and that the thick atmosphere of self-induced pressure is not worth it.
It's bullshit. Despite the 1,500 that I dropped on academics, I am failing two of my four courses, which is, now placing in another year worth of OCC (2014, here we come!). But am I, the person whom, at six, went up to Princeton, saw it, and longed ever since for on-school livelihood and total scholarly-directive, really capable of continuously working these meager jobs while sloppily stuffing my pockets with non-curiculum based credits, all the while eroding and chipping away at my initial ambitions and philosophic desires?
No, absolutely not.
Except there is no other method. If I drop school, then the only thing waiting for me are these piece of shit jobs which do absolutely nothing to test the mind.
I want a task!
I want a damn challenge!
"Take a philosophy course!"
I did, except they are all morons.
Ethics apparently means morality, and apparently that justifies total snobbery and a ceaseless, disgusting tone of pretentious-lore to one's self. The moron actually said that Russia and China are "communist countries." There can be no such thing! There is no such thing! You can't throw away years and years of research and output into making communism practical just because yellow-journalism wanted to make american's afraid of radical-left thought. And what the hell does she think ethics amounts to? Kids who know why "please" and "thank you" are polite? Ethics isn't morality, you bastard! Ethics is the study of the appropriate laws and consistent features in the means of constructing and maintaining an orthodox about however many collective people's. It's just as politically-based as political theory. Ethics has no place without taking a constructive look at structure, how structure will advance, when structure will fall and what structure will replace the former. It is a study that is based on the rationalizing of next-thought, meaning what the majority concensus will be tommorow, next week, next month, next year, next century.
...good rant.
Anyway, what I am saying is that it isn't academic disinterest, and that I'm not really attempting to fuck myself over. I know exactly what I want out of school (English/Creative Writing/Actually Intelligent Philosophy Courses) except I apparently can't do anything I want without being subjected to a series of curiculum courses that devour my own worth (mathematics). Might I add that the courses I enjoy are generally taught by absolute morons (Philosophy... There is a difference between admiring philosophy, and understanding it. I am in the latter, which means if I take these courses I don't want some moron to teach me about Kant's outdated, irrelevent theories. I'd like to discuss via intelligently about the practicality of post-colonialism, or the means by which leftist-theory should change, or how and by which method genocide via foreign cultures should actually be addressed (meaning not "stop it!" but on a practical, impartial scale, particularly authoritarian and wholly A-Moral)).
Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.
And a cup of smug.
But still... hmm, it's just tough. I dunno what I am getting at. I don't feel challanged, and I'm very bored and drinking doesn't do what it used to and despite the amount of flower-infused prose I write I still don't feel any better and all the "darkness" of heart is just powder and blood-flow and cementing further and further my idea that I am, indeed, alienated from my own species.
Oh well. Keep writing, right?
I don't get it. Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel. I like getting presents, and sending Christmas cards and all that, but I'm still not happy. I almost always end up feeling depressed. Charlie Brown's Christmas
It's bullshit. Despite the 1,500 that I dropped on academics, I am failing two of my four courses, which is, now placing in another year worth of OCC (2014, here we come!). But am I, the person whom, at six, went up to Princeton, saw it, and longed ever since for on-school livelihood and total scholarly-directive, really capable of continuously working these meager jobs while sloppily stuffing my pockets with non-curiculum based credits, all the while eroding and chipping away at my initial ambitions and philosophic desires?
No, absolutely not.
Except there is no other method. If I drop school, then the only thing waiting for me are these piece of shit jobs which do absolutely nothing to test the mind.
I want a task!
I want a damn challenge!
"Take a philosophy course!"
I did, except they are all morons.
Ethics apparently means morality, and apparently that justifies total snobbery and a ceaseless, disgusting tone of pretentious-lore to one's self. The moron actually said that Russia and China are "communist countries." There can be no such thing! There is no such thing! You can't throw away years and years of research and output into making communism practical just because yellow-journalism wanted to make american's afraid of radical-left thought. And what the hell does she think ethics amounts to? Kids who know why "please" and "thank you" are polite? Ethics isn't morality, you bastard! Ethics is the study of the appropriate laws and consistent features in the means of constructing and maintaining an orthodox about however many collective people's. It's just as politically-based as political theory. Ethics has no place without taking a constructive look at structure, how structure will advance, when structure will fall and what structure will replace the former. It is a study that is based on the rationalizing of next-thought, meaning what the majority concensus will be tommorow, next week, next month, next year, next century.
...good rant.
Anyway, what I am saying is that it isn't academic disinterest, and that I'm not really attempting to fuck myself over. I know exactly what I want out of school (English/Creative Writing/Actually Intelligent Philosophy Courses) except I apparently can't do anything I want without being subjected to a series of curiculum courses that devour my own worth (mathematics). Might I add that the courses I enjoy are generally taught by absolute morons (Philosophy... There is a difference between admiring philosophy, and understanding it. I am in the latter, which means if I take these courses I don't want some moron to teach me about Kant's outdated, irrelevent theories. I'd like to discuss via intelligently about the practicality of post-colonialism, or the means by which leftist-theory should change, or how and by which method genocide via foreign cultures should actually be addressed (meaning not "stop it!" but on a practical, impartial scale, particularly authoritarian and wholly A-Moral)).
Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.
And a cup of smug.
But still... hmm, it's just tough. I dunno what I am getting at. I don't feel challanged, and I'm very bored and drinking doesn't do what it used to and despite the amount of flower-infused prose I write I still don't feel any better and all the "darkness" of heart is just powder and blood-flow and cementing further and further my idea that I am, indeed, alienated from my own species.
Oh well. Keep writing, right?
I don't get it. Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel. I like getting presents, and sending Christmas cards and all that, but I'm still not happy. I almost always end up feeling depressed. Charlie Brown's Christmas
Monday, October 4, 2010
This Novel Invisible
Novels are like shards of glass. Despite how much I try to convince myself that I can treat each chapter as a short story, I find that per continuing segment my fingers sting more, my head wincing and stuttering at thoughts.
Why, though, is it such an issue?
In all honesty, a novel is a series of short stories, particularly the one I am working on seeing as it is 3rd person single (meaning the narrator is following but one protagonist). It's no different then writing a short story and not finishing it in one go other than duration. Might I add this story is, outside of political theories and various philosophic questioning, an adventure story. After the initial six chapters, which stay in one community (a large community at that, with each chapter taking place in a different part save for two) the entire story should be, more or less, engaging to me.
When I begin though... ugh.
And this isn't so simple a solution as "maybe the story isn't for you." The reality is that this story has boiled and rotated insided my head now for eight months. Most novel projects are a week, two week high for me that I abandon no different than the 100+ short stories I drop per year. But here is this project, nearly fully fleshed upon conception and now I find the veins connecting and the ligaments functioning.
Despite the quality that it will amount to (low, I'd assume), the story exists on a scale like that of a child. A child I don't really like 95% of the time though still my child whom is occasionally cute and draws nifty robots.
It just seems so crude. Not the story but the project, The Novel. I hate it, it's a horrible word that is literally slathered with capitalist-engineering and objectivist-agreement. It's miserable! It's ugly! It's rude! And still I have to write the damn thing because unless the New York Times is going to start publishing my crap short stories and calling me with tear-choked throats pleading for another with a $1000 check already en-route to my home, the only way I am going to make writing an actual means by which I live is to write, indeed, the novel.
Bah-Humbug!
P.S. As for the personal-essay assignment due this friday... I have made no progress. Writing in the style of Rios bares to me no better fortune than that of the strangely labeled "Happily recount Unhappy Family" assignment which, despite the four times I went over it in the book, I still don't grasp.
I wish there was a way to write the noise that kids make about missles. That's what I feel like.
Pewwwwww-Brkk!
Why, though, is it such an issue?
In all honesty, a novel is a series of short stories, particularly the one I am working on seeing as it is 3rd person single (meaning the narrator is following but one protagonist). It's no different then writing a short story and not finishing it in one go other than duration. Might I add this story is, outside of political theories and various philosophic questioning, an adventure story. After the initial six chapters, which stay in one community (a large community at that, with each chapter taking place in a different part save for two) the entire story should be, more or less, engaging to me.
When I begin though... ugh.
And this isn't so simple a solution as "maybe the story isn't for you." The reality is that this story has boiled and rotated insided my head now for eight months. Most novel projects are a week, two week high for me that I abandon no different than the 100+ short stories I drop per year. But here is this project, nearly fully fleshed upon conception and now I find the veins connecting and the ligaments functioning.
Despite the quality that it will amount to (low, I'd assume), the story exists on a scale like that of a child. A child I don't really like 95% of the time though still my child whom is occasionally cute and draws nifty robots.
It just seems so crude. Not the story but the project, The Novel. I hate it, it's a horrible word that is literally slathered with capitalist-engineering and objectivist-agreement. It's miserable! It's ugly! It's rude! And still I have to write the damn thing because unless the New York Times is going to start publishing my crap short stories and calling me with tear-choked throats pleading for another with a $1000 check already en-route to my home, the only way I am going to make writing an actual means by which I live is to write, indeed, the novel.
Bah-Humbug!
P.S. As for the personal-essay assignment due this friday... I have made no progress. Writing in the style of Rios bares to me no better fortune than that of the strangely labeled "Happily recount Unhappy Family" assignment which, despite the four times I went over it in the book, I still don't grasp.
I wish there was a way to write the noise that kids make about missles. That's what I feel like.
Pewwwwww-Brkk!
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
On Cell Phones During Class
(I didn't do the assignment, again, so I'll write about an event in class instead)
The method by which professors and teachers handle this strangely unyielding issue is different per mentor, and of the many I've witnessed there is not one that is inextricablly solid in stunting the crude act.
But this blog is not on my own philosophic inquiry toward the phenomena of cyber-reliance, but on the account of the act that occured in the most-recent class.
A cellphone polluted happiness.
"Could you put the phone on my desk?"
"No."
These exchanges of words bore with them the very blade that severed the unspoked gospel of 12.30 creative writing class. It was these words that vaccumed, inhaled, the unspoken-positivity that lingered upon each course since the initial-class. It was strange, so very strange.
The request was something that most people would respond "negatively" to, meaning they'd probably not obey on-command and instead try and snuggle around. It was a request that demands the surrender of an item one owns, and thus the surrendering of one's self (mildly). The primitive, genetic even, reaction to this is essentially "no," except now how in the way that it was delivered.
It was so very, very rude.
The intended means by which a mentor should handle cell-phone rudeness is, should it be affecting in a negative whatever, however, is to deal with it in a very quick manner, to avoid tension, to not allow any sort of discussion on the alien, ugly action of text-messaging whores and A.D.D. morons whom truly can't comprehend one action of sitting for a set-amount of time, which is what they paid for by enrolling to university. There is no reason the cell-phone need be so destructive and thickly present once a mentor has called out the proprieter of actions; tell them, quickly, put the phone away/on my desk/get out, and no more. Either comply or, should they not, then get out. The whole point is to make it brief, so that the action of mentor-to-single-student via negative and authoritive-like doesn't spoil the entire atmosphere and organization of that current class.
This theory on handling it didn't happen. In fact, the exact opposite happened.
"No."
When she said "no," it was a rude, smug, entirely-unnessecary "no." It was a "no" that didn't simply linger, it devoured.
I watched the silent, pleasent shade of glee above our glass ignite, and then watched as my many peers, each pacted with the silent-vow of excitement for 12.30 Creative Writing, drop.
One student stuck out primarilly, and we'll call him Mot. Mot is a low-sound, near-mumbling, very enthusiastic student and, whenever he does speak in this class, it holds this subtle, and suple, layer of ecstasy, of pure reveal, of honest intellectual-esque stigma. Mot is not the most "enlightening" in regards to creative writing, but his words are spoken with utmost-faith in the idea that this class, should he be wrong, will alert him and nurture him. To Mot, and to everybody whom enjoys this class like Mot, the real happiness that awaits at 12.30 creative writing is in the peers, in the discussions, in the readings. It is not the lesson, not so much the professor (anymore, for now that her roots are established the students will, like normal, claim ownership of a class not theirs if it is, indeed, a "good" class. *I'm saying that in a positive note*) and most certainly not so much the creative homework as learned last friday.
No, it is the unity of peers, of the equality that has, somehow, slid within us all as we sit down at our 12.30 course, that truly establishes Mot and other's enjoyment.
"No."
The color of Mot's face dropped at the word. He sat and waited for the next action of the professor's, sat and breathed the last of the fleeing-sense of home that class delivered. I watched as he turned upwards, away from the rude woman and the stumbling-thoughts of the professor and looked at nothing, his eyes and face focused on the top left corner of the room, above the door. I saw the color fade in his cheeks, the tints of red, of growing happiness, collapse, swelling chaotically back into the pit of his heart, leaving only many pale streaks darting beneath his ears and through his facial hairs.
I noticed this not only with Mot, though Mot's was vivid, real, the most pure reaction of having this hour and fiteen minute treat be suddenly crunched, coughed upon, and licked by an unwanted mouth, then handed back to him.
It was a shame how miserable it was, how truly dissapointed the girl presenting workshop must have felt knowing that today she was not going to get her peers best intentions of critique, to deliver both compliments of certain-obligation though certainly felt and of course critical-analysis well-pampered though still delivered. And the professor, how miserable one must be after being heckled so many times at your job by the sudden illusions of student's lost in their cell-phones.
It was a horrible class, all because some dumb woman whom is of the two that do not participate decided to be unnessecarilly rude. What was she truly defending by being such a pigeon? Her telephone? Her pride? Her strength? So misguided, so bloated within her own shell of existence, is this woman that she enacted by being, quite simply, a bitch, that she stole away the altruistic, and of such quality is this altruism, I may mention, vibe of the class, if only to stand on her sunken soap-box of lacking-intelligence and dispassionate sex of fifteen years and running.
"No," ruined the day. One can't help but ponder how long it's stink will float...
The method by which professors and teachers handle this strangely unyielding issue is different per mentor, and of the many I've witnessed there is not one that is inextricablly solid in stunting the crude act.
But this blog is not on my own philosophic inquiry toward the phenomena of cyber-reliance, but on the account of the act that occured in the most-recent class.
A cellphone polluted happiness.
"Could you put the phone on my desk?"
"No."
These exchanges of words bore with them the very blade that severed the unspoked gospel of 12.30 creative writing class. It was these words that vaccumed, inhaled, the unspoken-positivity that lingered upon each course since the initial-class. It was strange, so very strange.
The request was something that most people would respond "negatively" to, meaning they'd probably not obey on-command and instead try and snuggle around. It was a request that demands the surrender of an item one owns, and thus the surrendering of one's self (mildly). The primitive, genetic even, reaction to this is essentially "no," except now how in the way that it was delivered.
It was so very, very rude.
The intended means by which a mentor should handle cell-phone rudeness is, should it be affecting in a negative whatever, however, is to deal with it in a very quick manner, to avoid tension, to not allow any sort of discussion on the alien, ugly action of text-messaging whores and A.D.D. morons whom truly can't comprehend one action of sitting for a set-amount of time, which is what they paid for by enrolling to university. There is no reason the cell-phone need be so destructive and thickly present once a mentor has called out the proprieter of actions; tell them, quickly, put the phone away/on my desk/get out, and no more. Either comply or, should they not, then get out. The whole point is to make it brief, so that the action of mentor-to-single-student via negative and authoritive-like doesn't spoil the entire atmosphere and organization of that current class.
This theory on handling it didn't happen. In fact, the exact opposite happened.
"No."
When she said "no," it was a rude, smug, entirely-unnessecary "no." It was a "no" that didn't simply linger, it devoured.
I watched the silent, pleasent shade of glee above our glass ignite, and then watched as my many peers, each pacted with the silent-vow of excitement for 12.30 Creative Writing, drop.
One student stuck out primarilly, and we'll call him Mot. Mot is a low-sound, near-mumbling, very enthusiastic student and, whenever he does speak in this class, it holds this subtle, and suple, layer of ecstasy, of pure reveal, of honest intellectual-esque stigma. Mot is not the most "enlightening" in regards to creative writing, but his words are spoken with utmost-faith in the idea that this class, should he be wrong, will alert him and nurture him. To Mot, and to everybody whom enjoys this class like Mot, the real happiness that awaits at 12.30 creative writing is in the peers, in the discussions, in the readings. It is not the lesson, not so much the professor (anymore, for now that her roots are established the students will, like normal, claim ownership of a class not theirs if it is, indeed, a "good" class. *I'm saying that in a positive note*) and most certainly not so much the creative homework as learned last friday.
No, it is the unity of peers, of the equality that has, somehow, slid within us all as we sit down at our 12.30 course, that truly establishes Mot and other's enjoyment.
"No."
The color of Mot's face dropped at the word. He sat and waited for the next action of the professor's, sat and breathed the last of the fleeing-sense of home that class delivered. I watched as he turned upwards, away from the rude woman and the stumbling-thoughts of the professor and looked at nothing, his eyes and face focused on the top left corner of the room, above the door. I saw the color fade in his cheeks, the tints of red, of growing happiness, collapse, swelling chaotically back into the pit of his heart, leaving only many pale streaks darting beneath his ears and through his facial hairs.
I noticed this not only with Mot, though Mot's was vivid, real, the most pure reaction of having this hour and fiteen minute treat be suddenly crunched, coughed upon, and licked by an unwanted mouth, then handed back to him.
It was a shame how miserable it was, how truly dissapointed the girl presenting workshop must have felt knowing that today she was not going to get her peers best intentions of critique, to deliver both compliments of certain-obligation though certainly felt and of course critical-analysis well-pampered though still delivered. And the professor, how miserable one must be after being heckled so many times at your job by the sudden illusions of student's lost in their cell-phones.
It was a horrible class, all because some dumb woman whom is of the two that do not participate decided to be unnessecarilly rude. What was she truly defending by being such a pigeon? Her telephone? Her pride? Her strength? So misguided, so bloated within her own shell of existence, is this woman that she enacted by being, quite simply, a bitch, that she stole away the altruistic, and of such quality is this altruism, I may mention, vibe of the class, if only to stand on her sunken soap-box of lacking-intelligence and dispassionate sex of fifteen years and running.
"No," ruined the day. One can't help but ponder how long it's stink will float...
Friday, September 24, 2010
Ephiphany Glee to Decaying Alcoholic
To swap from one extreme to another is strange, and absurdly uncomfortable.
I didn't want to work tonight. I knew all week that I didn't want to work tonight. I'm tired of always sleeping, of looking at texts saying, "drink tonight," meaning with someone other than myself, and knowing that I can't. Still, though, I drove to K Mart and parked in the distance, my Dunkin cup fresh and warm, my cigarettes plentiful even by frugal methods.
The moment I parked, I couldn't imagine getting out of the car so instead I sat and watched my co-workers mingle outside, smoking and laughing bemidst the obligatory pre-work complaints. It was nice, even as they stood and took the heavy steps inside, to see them without my presense, to know that I could listen without ears to their lives actual noise.
Still, the moment the last person walked inside, and my supervisor came to the door and peaked about for any stragglers before locking it, I knew that there was no way I was going in. So I sat and watched everyone walk from behind the window, their bodies dissapearing momentarily between shelving, the frowns and apathy slowly forming per interference to my view. As they all dissapeared, I put on "Reelin' in the Years" by Steely Dan, got out of the car and smoked a cigarette, burdenless and smiling.
Content with the situation, I got back in the car and decided to come home, grab beer and go do whatever.
"Click click click."
The battery died, except Steely Dan kept playing.
Not that big of a stint, except my friends, all stoners, tend to feed the stereotype of lazy. Because I don't smoke, my alienation from the old crew is rather concrete and, sure enough, everybody I called didn't answer.
An hour and twenty minutes later, with my phone dead, my cigarettes empty and my smile evaporated, I found somebody to jump my car and came home.
To go from "No work!" with the full understanding that I completely should not be skipping work and be so very happy, to a spoiled, angry, bored man-child is not something I dig. It's embarrassing, to be honest. I wasn't rude, but to know that for the last hour and twenty minutes the only thing I did was mentally complain about the "incompetance" of my friends was just bad behaviour, even if it was only in my mind, and it was on no level progressive.
Just stressed and drinking alone once more. The phone, of course, rings now, except I still don't have it in me to pretend I have compassion towards our time-worn, decrepid replationships.
Just so very childish.
Was this even worth skipping work for?
I didn't want to work tonight. I knew all week that I didn't want to work tonight. I'm tired of always sleeping, of looking at texts saying, "drink tonight," meaning with someone other than myself, and knowing that I can't. Still, though, I drove to K Mart and parked in the distance, my Dunkin cup fresh and warm, my cigarettes plentiful even by frugal methods.
The moment I parked, I couldn't imagine getting out of the car so instead I sat and watched my co-workers mingle outside, smoking and laughing bemidst the obligatory pre-work complaints. It was nice, even as they stood and took the heavy steps inside, to see them without my presense, to know that I could listen without ears to their lives actual noise.
Still, the moment the last person walked inside, and my supervisor came to the door and peaked about for any stragglers before locking it, I knew that there was no way I was going in. So I sat and watched everyone walk from behind the window, their bodies dissapearing momentarily between shelving, the frowns and apathy slowly forming per interference to my view. As they all dissapeared, I put on "Reelin' in the Years" by Steely Dan, got out of the car and smoked a cigarette, burdenless and smiling.
Content with the situation, I got back in the car and decided to come home, grab beer and go do whatever.
"Click click click."
The battery died, except Steely Dan kept playing.
Not that big of a stint, except my friends, all stoners, tend to feed the stereotype of lazy. Because I don't smoke, my alienation from the old crew is rather concrete and, sure enough, everybody I called didn't answer.
An hour and twenty minutes later, with my phone dead, my cigarettes empty and my smile evaporated, I found somebody to jump my car and came home.
To go from "No work!" with the full understanding that I completely should not be skipping work and be so very happy, to a spoiled, angry, bored man-child is not something I dig. It's embarrassing, to be honest. I wasn't rude, but to know that for the last hour and twenty minutes the only thing I did was mentally complain about the "incompetance" of my friends was just bad behaviour, even if it was only in my mind, and it was on no level progressive.
Just stressed and drinking alone once more. The phone, of course, rings now, except I still don't have it in me to pretend I have compassion towards our time-worn, decrepid replationships.
Just so very childish.
Was this even worth skipping work for?
Inability to Write this Assignment
This is by far the most troubling assignment I've had. It's not so much as the transition of POV, but the actual assignment.
I can't explain, too frustrated to actually "articulate" (I hate that word) upon.
Basically, I ignored the concept of POV transition and focused instead on the five-points feature of this. I started writing a story involving orange trees, rowdy boys and a theoretical Tree of Knowledge from the bible. It came off cute, and was fun, and I liked writing on something, however mildly, religious. That said, the story evolved into this thirteen page and going strong project and suddenly I realized that not only was it going to be a hassle to re-do, but that first person was going to destroy the story. The only character of the three within it that could have taken the role of narrator was, like most of my horrible stories, holding a secret. The way I presented the 3rd person was that the secret wasn't on his mind, that him and his mate were just going on a rowdy adventure where the actual, unknown climax suddenly occurs. To write this in first person, I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't totally destroy the boy-character that I actually liked.
It wasn't happening, so I stopped working on that and tried writing a story about dancers and the idea that "good dancing" was gained through a drug.
It wasn't interesting, and I didn't care for it, though I spent two hours writing it only to drop it.
Then I started writing a story about two politicians whom are basically angry. It was garbage also.
Three ideas followed and I found I was stuck in a "couple" trap, that I couldn't even contemplate writing a story without having it focus on two characters. Twelve beers and six hours of sleep later, I woke up at 4 am panicing and wrote the story I handed in.
That story has actually been on my mind for a while, except in no way, shape, or form like it was told in what I submitted. Again, I was stuck on couples and focused entirely on the girl.
Actually, I don't want to talk about this. It's depressing, and I fucking hate the story I submitted and despite this being "just for school" I don't like having something so crudely written represent whatever the hell it is I'm trying to present (badly).
I'm writing another story and handing it in tuesday. Doesn't matter if it is read or not, for my own damn sanity I'm writing it.
....horrible horrible story. It really is. Regret handing it in for the partial grade entirely.
...I'm yelling on a blog.
I can't explain, too frustrated to actually "articulate" (I hate that word) upon.
Basically, I ignored the concept of POV transition and focused instead on the five-points feature of this. I started writing a story involving orange trees, rowdy boys and a theoretical Tree of Knowledge from the bible. It came off cute, and was fun, and I liked writing on something, however mildly, religious. That said, the story evolved into this thirteen page and going strong project and suddenly I realized that not only was it going to be a hassle to re-do, but that first person was going to destroy the story. The only character of the three within it that could have taken the role of narrator was, like most of my horrible stories, holding a secret. The way I presented the 3rd person was that the secret wasn't on his mind, that him and his mate were just going on a rowdy adventure where the actual, unknown climax suddenly occurs. To write this in first person, I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't totally destroy the boy-character that I actually liked.
It wasn't happening, so I stopped working on that and tried writing a story about dancers and the idea that "good dancing" was gained through a drug.
It wasn't interesting, and I didn't care for it, though I spent two hours writing it only to drop it.
Then I started writing a story about two politicians whom are basically angry. It was garbage also.
Three ideas followed and I found I was stuck in a "couple" trap, that I couldn't even contemplate writing a story without having it focus on two characters. Twelve beers and six hours of sleep later, I woke up at 4 am panicing and wrote the story I handed in.
That story has actually been on my mind for a while, except in no way, shape, or form like it was told in what I submitted. Again, I was stuck on couples and focused entirely on the girl.
Actually, I don't want to talk about this. It's depressing, and I fucking hate the story I submitted and despite this being "just for school" I don't like having something so crudely written represent whatever the hell it is I'm trying to present (badly).
I'm writing another story and handing it in tuesday. Doesn't matter if it is read or not, for my own damn sanity I'm writing it.
....horrible horrible story. It really is. Regret handing it in for the partial grade entirely.
...I'm yelling on a blog.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Re-done Carver Mimic
Turns out I couldn't sleep thinking that I'd be handing in the piece of garbage I wrote earlier. So now, it's six am and I have school in two hours and I just finished my new story.
I ponder that you, professor, will look at this blog in regards to why I wrote something so obviously dark and crude, so I'll explain.
The story I wrote before this one was garbage, literally plotless. I didn't like it, so I reread the Carver story and called a friend to come walk with me. I understand that the Carver story isn't supposed to be "dark," except I couldn't get over the part where the girl takes a hit of weed. She takes one hit, and that's all. I believe that she doesn't even like pot, but smokes it because her mate does, which is terrifically sad. Because of that, I started thinking of all the strange submissive habits people whom are together do for each other.
I walked to a bridge with my friend and, being there, started to think of another story. I was rather infatuated with the water and liked the idea of using dark, colorless water via minimalist style so the bridge next to Marina Grill is the early setting for my story. I originally thought the story would be about murder, about throwing somebody off a bridge, but decided against it. The person I was with is someone potentially interested in me, and I to them. Except, the former is in actual, intimate interest, while mine is something primitive. I don't enact upon it, because I understand it's wrong and there is no neutrality in regards to actions such as the one I desired.
Because of that thought, and the one I got from "Cathedral," I thought of rape between lovers, between married couples. It seemed strange, and the action of it something unacknowledgable and quite different.
So I wrote it as so. I know it's partially crude, and far more negative than Carver's story, except that's what I came up with. I did my best to match his narrative style and that's about it.
Trust me, it's better than the story previous to it.
I ponder that you, professor, will look at this blog in regards to why I wrote something so obviously dark and crude, so I'll explain.
The story I wrote before this one was garbage, literally plotless. I didn't like it, so I reread the Carver story and called a friend to come walk with me. I understand that the Carver story isn't supposed to be "dark," except I couldn't get over the part where the girl takes a hit of weed. She takes one hit, and that's all. I believe that she doesn't even like pot, but smokes it because her mate does, which is terrifically sad. Because of that, I started thinking of all the strange submissive habits people whom are together do for each other.
I walked to a bridge with my friend and, being there, started to think of another story. I was rather infatuated with the water and liked the idea of using dark, colorless water via minimalist style so the bridge next to Marina Grill is the early setting for my story. I originally thought the story would be about murder, about throwing somebody off a bridge, but decided against it. The person I was with is someone potentially interested in me, and I to them. Except, the former is in actual, intimate interest, while mine is something primitive. I don't enact upon it, because I understand it's wrong and there is no neutrality in regards to actions such as the one I desired.
Because of that thought, and the one I got from "Cathedral," I thought of rape between lovers, between married couples. It seemed strange, and the action of it something unacknowledgable and quite different.
So I wrote it as so. I know it's partially crude, and far more negative than Carver's story, except that's what I came up with. I did my best to match his narrative style and that's about it.
Trust me, it's better than the story previous to it.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Carver Mimic
This is the first thing I think that I have ever written that can be described as "plotless." I literally have no inspiration towards this, nor intimacy. I read "Cathedral" and was outstandingly unamused and without interest towards it.
I'm assuming that the only actual difference between Carver and Hemingway is theme and format. Carver favors narration while Hemingway adored dialouge. Yes, they are completely different but seeing as how they were both minimalists, the only real difference in regards to my approach was narration vs dialouge.
Honestly, I wrote this story just to write it. I re-read Cathedral three times and found nothing from it. The story I wrote is off my narrow assumption that it has a similar form to Carver, though even that I doubt.
For the 100% honesty, this has to be one of the worst things I've ever written. Not so much as you can't read it, but that I have no feeling towards it and I don't believe the readers will either.
EDIT: Trashed this story and wrote a different one.
I'm assuming that the only actual difference between Carver and Hemingway is theme and format. Carver favors narration while Hemingway adored dialouge. Yes, they are completely different but seeing as how they were both minimalists, the only real difference in regards to my approach was narration vs dialouge.
Honestly, I wrote this story just to write it. I re-read Cathedral three times and found nothing from it. The story I wrote is off my narrow assumption that it has a similar form to Carver, though even that I doubt.
For the 100% honesty, this has to be one of the worst things I've ever written. Not so much as you can't read it, but that I have no feeling towards it and I don't believe the readers will either.
EDIT: Trashed this story and wrote a different one.
Morning skies
If you haven't looked at the six am skies yet, you probably should.
Fall is near!
Hmmm. Writing...
Eleven beers and an indefinite grin, I can't say I'm thinking at all about writing at the moment.
Happy, happy, happy.
Not really, but you understand addictive habits, yes?
It appears that authorship is truly something "rare," despite the infinite amount of books with pasted-on "New York Times Bestseller." I suppose I am designed for failure, that my "voice" with writing is something along the lines of a crude, apathetic retaliation against all the political theory I failed to present and prompt growth.
I tried writing something today in regards to it being published. I intentionally began a project in the idea that it would absolutely be bought and sold.
I stopped about a page in.
What was it about? Oh you silly thiefs, of course you'd like to know. I'll tell you, because I don't give a fuck at this wonderful time of six am.
Joshua. Apparently that is the real name of Jesus according to historians.
Joshua. It's actually quite an epic name if you think about it. Joshua. Anyway, the idea is that Christ is "reborn" in a lovely, horrible area (my idea was west orange, NJ) and that he is this white, gorgeous person whom not only has an incredible shot but also takes an incredible shot and dies. Bascially, some rascal (mine was named Lamar) becomes, somehow, in cahoots with this transfer student Joshua and that he essentially learns all the racist, bigotist, crude, unintelligent dogma's of Christianity and at the end Joshua dies via Pay-It-Forward style and Lamar becomes this sort of pilgrim.
Dumb.
But this is the type of garbage that sells! It's so very, very weird to me. How do people adore this partial theological nonsense which I can assure 40% of was written by smitten, angry mates like myself.
Ugh.
Either way, I didn't write it and instead stared at the unfinished, unedited short story of mine entitled "Rachel's Status." What's it about? I can't tell you because when I posted my damn stories on writerscafe.org they all got stolen and I had to hound down fifteen people and threaten them with copyright law unless they removed them.
So nobody can know and thus, nobody can read.
Paranoid, paranoid, paranoid.
Oh, but my pabst is here.
Not so lonely!!
Fall is near!
Hmmm. Writing...
Eleven beers and an indefinite grin, I can't say I'm thinking at all about writing at the moment.
Happy, happy, happy.
Not really, but you understand addictive habits, yes?
It appears that authorship is truly something "rare," despite the infinite amount of books with pasted-on "New York Times Bestseller." I suppose I am designed for failure, that my "voice" with writing is something along the lines of a crude, apathetic retaliation against all the political theory I failed to present and prompt growth.
I tried writing something today in regards to it being published. I intentionally began a project in the idea that it would absolutely be bought and sold.
I stopped about a page in.
What was it about? Oh you silly thiefs, of course you'd like to know. I'll tell you, because I don't give a fuck at this wonderful time of six am.
Joshua. Apparently that is the real name of Jesus according to historians.
Joshua. It's actually quite an epic name if you think about it. Joshua. Anyway, the idea is that Christ is "reborn" in a lovely, horrible area (my idea was west orange, NJ) and that he is this white, gorgeous person whom not only has an incredible shot but also takes an incredible shot and dies. Bascially, some rascal (mine was named Lamar) becomes, somehow, in cahoots with this transfer student Joshua and that he essentially learns all the racist, bigotist, crude, unintelligent dogma's of Christianity and at the end Joshua dies via Pay-It-Forward style and Lamar becomes this sort of pilgrim.
Dumb.
But this is the type of garbage that sells! It's so very, very weird to me. How do people adore this partial theological nonsense which I can assure 40% of was written by smitten, angry mates like myself.
Ugh.
Either way, I didn't write it and instead stared at the unfinished, unedited short story of mine entitled "Rachel's Status." What's it about? I can't tell you because when I posted my damn stories on writerscafe.org they all got stolen and I had to hound down fifteen people and threaten them with copyright law unless they removed them.
So nobody can know and thus, nobody can read.
Paranoid, paranoid, paranoid.
Oh, but my pabst is here.
Not so lonely!!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Lack-of Assignment
I know this blog is supposed to be for our assignments but, seeing as I didn't do the assignment, I'll just write something in regards to writing.
In all sincerity, my mind is shattering. Despite the stereotype, this lack-of alcohol has me spiraling downward even faster as the constant pressure of non-intimate classes and malignant, everyday duties take hold. I write, write, write, except I find I'm constantly taking a peek from my strangely high cliff of Ego, looking down on the rowdy, bright-lit plains of commercial writing and quality writers.
Envy is the only thing on my mind, other than suicide, respectively.
There is no tale of mine that competes, no novel project I stand behind with fists clenched. This is "art," I'm supposed to be tapping into something human, something unearthed but clouded, except I can't stop writing stories involving some sort of "monster," metaphysical being or quazi-satanic demon.
It's the same thing; I'm just unhappy, always unhappy, except I can't even get that down accurately on page.
This blog is an example of failure. It's 11.30pm, I woke up an hour ago. Because of my constant push towards writing, I know that I should be sitting in front of this thing writing either something new, or editing something old. I have all night, except I can't even pretend to desire something of once-before passion when the only thought upon my mind is a beer, razorblades and wine.
So I write this blog, which, despite it's ultimate purpose, hope will give me something.
It's not. Once the amber-streaks invade the mind it appears there is no cure other than the lust itself.
Getting nowhere with this.
Are we really expected to keep passion towards a project? Am I truly to have faith in my own novel feeding off the blackest-desires of my head? Though they are the same color they are not the same shade; no sadness is one in the same.
I write nothing. Again.
"Sand's overrated. It's just a bunch of tiny little rocks." Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
In all sincerity, my mind is shattering. Despite the stereotype, this lack-of alcohol has me spiraling downward even faster as the constant pressure of non-intimate classes and malignant, everyday duties take hold. I write, write, write, except I find I'm constantly taking a peek from my strangely high cliff of Ego, looking down on the rowdy, bright-lit plains of commercial writing and quality writers.
Envy is the only thing on my mind, other than suicide, respectively.
There is no tale of mine that competes, no novel project I stand behind with fists clenched. This is "art," I'm supposed to be tapping into something human, something unearthed but clouded, except I can't stop writing stories involving some sort of "monster," metaphysical being or quazi-satanic demon.
It's the same thing; I'm just unhappy, always unhappy, except I can't even get that down accurately on page.
This blog is an example of failure. It's 11.30pm, I woke up an hour ago. Because of my constant push towards writing, I know that I should be sitting in front of this thing writing either something new, or editing something old. I have all night, except I can't even pretend to desire something of once-before passion when the only thought upon my mind is a beer, razorblades and wine.
So I write this blog, which, despite it's ultimate purpose, hope will give me something.
It's not. Once the amber-streaks invade the mind it appears there is no cure other than the lust itself.
Getting nowhere with this.
Are we really expected to keep passion towards a project? Am I truly to have faith in my own novel feeding off the blackest-desires of my head? Though they are the same color they are not the same shade; no sadness is one in the same.
I write nothing. Again.
"Sand's overrated. It's just a bunch of tiny little rocks." Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Monday, September 13, 2010
Failure of Editing
Having this full day to work on my writing and not worry about having work tonight, I'd believed that I would edit some of my older stories, primarilly "You Never Forget Your First" which was my intended short story to bring to my workshop.
Failure remained close, and I accomplished nothing so much as leaving Wordpad open all day without editing anything. There was a ton I would have liked to edit, and know that I need to edit, except I just didn't feel like it. I'd like to blame it on something, but it was just laziness and lack-of passion, the latter being something that every writer is supposed to buck up and deal with.
I, like so many foolish amateur writers, started a novel-project not too long ago. The entire thing is planned in mind, the chapter presentations are mostly concrete save a few unavoidable alterations and the first six chapters are handwritten. I just recently got my laptop, which I had told myself that, when I get this device, I would begin typing up the novel.
I want to, except I don't, indifferent to my failure to edit today.
Laziness all around, I do nothing but complain. Either way, I'll figure out, eventually, what I'm bringing to workshop.
Failure remained close, and I accomplished nothing so much as leaving Wordpad open all day without editing anything. There was a ton I would have liked to edit, and know that I need to edit, except I just didn't feel like it. I'd like to blame it on something, but it was just laziness and lack-of passion, the latter being something that every writer is supposed to buck up and deal with.
I, like so many foolish amateur writers, started a novel-project not too long ago. The entire thing is planned in mind, the chapter presentations are mostly concrete save a few unavoidable alterations and the first six chapters are handwritten. I just recently got my laptop, which I had told myself that, when I get this device, I would begin typing up the novel.
I want to, except I don't, indifferent to my failure to edit today.
Laziness all around, I do nothing but complain. Either way, I'll figure out, eventually, what I'm bringing to workshop.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Hemingway Paper
Having to "write" a story like Hemingway is not something I'm very passionate about. Two years ago I tried it out, spending about four months on three five page short stories. They were horrible and this one and a half page story I just wrote is equally as horrible.
I didn't put much effort into it. I wrote it longhand first as usual, then typed it direct. Then I changed describing the girl from "you" to "her." I liked using "you," because I felt it tipped more at a Hemingway style for me, except I didn't really believe it. I think it makes much more sense using you, seeing as what is wrote is 100% symbological/psycological, but I decided to change it and I think it reads nicer now.
The next step was shortening it, which didn't happen save 45 words. I think the final count was 434 or 476, and it's supposed to be 250. I tried, though, and the only way it was happening was sacrificing from an already short story with little to be "gained" from. So now it leaks onto half a second page but that's just how it's going to be.
I don't really have any interest in the minimalist style. I don't deny it as form, or pretentiously attack it, but it doesn't fit my method of writing at all. I don't write "flowery," but I certainly use a lot of commas, travel quite a bit from describing one moss-covered bridge-support to the next and enjoy writing quite a bit from the protagonist's perspective and his/her many interpretations of things.
One of the paragraphs in the story just written is;
"Just a moment's breath," I say, leading her away. She wants to say of continuing our dance but I ignore her, moving to the door. The wind cools my hand wrapped around hers as we move to the open balcony.
It's an amateur, if not bad, paragraph, except if I wasn't subjected to writing via minimalist then I think I could have had a good time writing this bite-sized tale. I liked the idea of wind curling between two people's hands, a sort of barrier undesired but existant. I'd have liked to expand on the protagonist's feelings towards the wind cooling his unusually warm hand but alas! Hemingway style.
Perhaps it would have expanded to three and a half pages should I have written in my own form, but it would have still held the basic foundation and I think it could have held much, much more.
The word count thing is rather crude also.
Oh well. C- here we come!
I didn't put much effort into it. I wrote it longhand first as usual, then typed it direct. Then I changed describing the girl from "you" to "her." I liked using "you," because I felt it tipped more at a Hemingway style for me, except I didn't really believe it. I think it makes much more sense using you, seeing as what is wrote is 100% symbological/psycological, but I decided to change it and I think it reads nicer now.
The next step was shortening it, which didn't happen save 45 words. I think the final count was 434 or 476, and it's supposed to be 250. I tried, though, and the only way it was happening was sacrificing from an already short story with little to be "gained" from. So now it leaks onto half a second page but that's just how it's going to be.
I don't really have any interest in the minimalist style. I don't deny it as form, or pretentiously attack it, but it doesn't fit my method of writing at all. I don't write "flowery," but I certainly use a lot of commas, travel quite a bit from describing one moss-covered bridge-support to the next and enjoy writing quite a bit from the protagonist's perspective and his/her many interpretations of things.
One of the paragraphs in the story just written is;
"Just a moment's breath," I say, leading her away. She wants to say of continuing our dance but I ignore her, moving to the door. The wind cools my hand wrapped around hers as we move to the open balcony.
It's an amateur, if not bad, paragraph, except if I wasn't subjected to writing via minimalist then I think I could have had a good time writing this bite-sized tale. I liked the idea of wind curling between two people's hands, a sort of barrier undesired but existant. I'd have liked to expand on the protagonist's feelings towards the wind cooling his unusually warm hand but alas! Hemingway style.
Perhaps it would have expanded to three and a half pages should I have written in my own form, but it would have still held the basic foundation and I think it could have held much, much more.
The word count thing is rather crude also.
Oh well. C- here we come!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
For Creative Writing...
I have no idea what the point of a blog is outside of seeking some sort of critique/identification/reputation/traumatic-past-that-has-you-believe-internet-friends-are-the-best-friends or something of that sort (self-righteous indeed, and all-in-all naive, except I really don't see the point of these things (just yet, perhaps?) seeing as I've always kept journals) but alas, I have one now so I suppose I'll write something.
Seeing as this is for creative writing, I suppose this is supposed to involve writing, my method, format, means and ideas, except I'm not at all interested in talking about that at the moment. Seeing as this is an ego-to-media "device" that I'm on, I think I'd rather say what my night just consisted of via the last hour.
(I am about 80% sure this is not what I'm supposed to be doing but I guess this can be a -1 point for this post?)
So I left work about an hour ago (overnight shift at Kmart) and throughout the night I had been scamming "bathroom breaks" to sit hunched in a stall while secretly writing in my little pad with a mini-pen. I haven't had an intimate idea in a while so instead I wrote about some cliche drug-dealers whom go to a rock and roll show and do drugs and lack any sort of "place" as they jam out amidst the crowd.
If that sounds dispassionate it's because it is. The moment I begun I didn't care for it, though for some reason I liked describing drug intake (perhaps it was the bathroom stall atmosphere?) Either way, I got really into the idea that I was a rockstar and imagined how neat it would be to wear an unzipped leather jacket everywhere and not feel like the wanker of the century.
After I had placed up all the shelves and eternally scarred my finger tips by placing labels, I got in my mother's CRV, turned on the White Stripes and started driving. Somehow, I got the idea in my head that I was the biggest badass in the world and with my seven cigarettes and cold coffee, drove to the Manasquan inlet, switching lanes without a blinker (There was no traffic but it still felt "raw") and parked.
Afterwards, I just kind of walked. The mood subsided to fatigue and after two minutes of walking on the boardwalk I turned around and went home.
Still don't have a passionate story, so I don't have anything else to say.
Seeing as this is for creative writing, I suppose this is supposed to involve writing, my method, format, means and ideas, except I'm not at all interested in talking about that at the moment. Seeing as this is an ego-to-media "device" that I'm on, I think I'd rather say what my night just consisted of via the last hour.
(I am about 80% sure this is not what I'm supposed to be doing but I guess this can be a -1 point for this post?)
So I left work about an hour ago (overnight shift at Kmart) and throughout the night I had been scamming "bathroom breaks" to sit hunched in a stall while secretly writing in my little pad with a mini-pen. I haven't had an intimate idea in a while so instead I wrote about some cliche drug-dealers whom go to a rock and roll show and do drugs and lack any sort of "place" as they jam out amidst the crowd.
If that sounds dispassionate it's because it is. The moment I begun I didn't care for it, though for some reason I liked describing drug intake (perhaps it was the bathroom stall atmosphere?) Either way, I got really into the idea that I was a rockstar and imagined how neat it would be to wear an unzipped leather jacket everywhere and not feel like the wanker of the century.
After I had placed up all the shelves and eternally scarred my finger tips by placing labels, I got in my mother's CRV, turned on the White Stripes and started driving. Somehow, I got the idea in my head that I was the biggest badass in the world and with my seven cigarettes and cold coffee, drove to the Manasquan inlet, switching lanes without a blinker (There was no traffic but it still felt "raw") and parked.
Afterwards, I just kind of walked. The mood subsided to fatigue and after two minutes of walking on the boardwalk I turned around and went home.
Still don't have a passionate story, so I don't have anything else to say.
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