| AlgebraAddict |
06-24-2013 02:13 AM |
I tried to double space this post, I did, honestly. I swear.
I have decided to be a writer professionally, starting in high school and practicing now. I kind of want to write a small autobiography, little journal entries from whenever- it was weird, I've never wanted to write nonfiction before. I mainly have decided to attempt to write about my life because I am confused and I’ve been told I should take it more seriously and become a ‘real’ writer. Perhaps if I was a real writer I would be less confused. Perhaps the words I so frantically try to put into the mold of my dreams and fantasies wouldn’t sway and swim and slip through my fingers as they dig into the little bumps on f and j, and perhaps my fantasies would be less dark and more organized instead of scattered randomly into my waking, sleeping, and lunch hours. Perhaps I’d be neater, or less neat, or more public or more private or less judgmental or more judgmental. I thought I wrote an awful story for a school assignment, and then because I’m too nosy for my own good, I looked at the stories of other kids who did it. I knew in my heart that my story was still utterly pathetic, but I felt better. I told one of my friends that when I was eight I wrote awful stuff with amazing grammar. He replied that he wrote amazing stuff with awful grammar, and now I know he was lying because I read the first paragraph of his story and it looks like one of my stories from when I was eight. Humility is a virtue I don’t possess, but neither is the heart to tell an aspiring writer that a true villain would never say something along the lines of, “When i take over the zoo the world wil be mine mahahahaha”. In between disgust and hysteria, I reminded him gently that perhaps it should be mwahahahaha, you know, with a w after the m. Perhaps if I was a real writer I’d be a little more subtle, and people wouldn’t ask me things like, “Are you writing another book?” Then again, perhaps I’d be less subtle and I’d reply with something succinct yet decisive such as, “Yes, and it’s a novel, exactly fifty thousand words, and it’s all about how much I hate people like you.” When I go back to school I plan, to be honest, to tell them all that I’m not a writer anymore and I’m not interested in writing and I’m training to be a concert pianist. I would be bereft of both the annoying questions from people I would like to hit over the head with a baseball bat and the quick answer to questions from them such as why I talk like an ‘old dead person’. I’m a writer, I say. Then they nod as if this explains everything, while in reality a writer doesn’t talk like an old dead person because old dead people don’t talk. Coincidentally, they’re dead. How I’d hate to lose the one-size-fits all retort of I’m a writer. Amongst my many talents, I feel that writing is probably my best shot. On a recent vacation, I decided to bang out my annoyance at being at a party and being expected to socialize on one of my many punching bags: the piano. I composed something wonderful in g minor and this old lady came to me and complimented me no end and told me to have a successful piano career and asked about my other talents. I was more than a little frosty because I hate it when people compliment me, and she finally dug out of me that I was a writer of fiction because someone told her about my published work of poo—not using that exact terminology, of course. “Good, honest hobby,” she said. This irritated me because she passed off writing as a hobby instead of a lifestyle, and then, in all the wisdom of your average nincompoop, labeled it as good and honest. Being a writer is being an ugly, two-faced liar as well as a sly thief, a coldblooded, murderous assassin, and a mastermind of all things dark and deceitful; a puppet master of mind and heart. To top it off, I don’t feel I am a good fiction writer anyhow; I am too utterly and chronically confused. I’m good for my age; that’s what they say. That’s true, that’s very true, but I really don’t want to be a good writer for my age. I want to be a good writer, period. And as I said, I usually despise compliments because they’re either not sincere or based off of ignorance or lack of standard. I’ve heard that becoming a writer is the most honest thing you can do, but it’s my personal opinion that it’s the least honest thing you can do. In my day-to-day life I am a quirky, funny, generally unpopular person who likes giving hugs to random people and faces the same challenges that everyone her age faces: dealing with report cards, test grades, really weird tan lines, and boys and stupid people—Excuse me for repeating myself a little there. In my writing, I am dark and mysterious, weaving tales of fantasy and terror to bring out light in darkness and darkness in light. Yes, I’m a hopeless romantic who loves the smell of rain and the velvet-soft touch of roses on her skin and love poems and vampire romances and scented candles and the smell of clean laundry; yes, I’m a shallow child who loves donuts and gumball machines and slumber parties and pretty clothes and fancy hats and shoes she would never be able to walk in and flowers in her hair; yes, I’m a nerdy outsides who loves the Lord of the Rings and Back to the Future and Star Wars and Cosmic Encounter and Dominion and the Oxford English Dictionary and lists of obscure words that are nearly obsolete save for the treasures of ancient literature; yes, I’m a dark dreamer who loves gargoyles and cobwebs and Edgar Allen Poe and Agatha Christie and Coraline and black lace. If I’m not a ‘real’ writer I don’t care, because I choose to channel my insanity through writing and I always plan to. In the end, what is a writer but someone who creates their own universe and then lives their life through it? Good writing, really good writing, is the musings of an utter lunatic. And I certainly plan to call my book the Musings of a Lunatic. That, my friends, would be an awesome title.
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