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!

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?

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

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

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.

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.