Writing Writer

When I was little I used to make up songs in my front yard. I'd sit at the base of a huge tree and hum ditties to myself until words came to mind. Writing used to be so easy then, there wasn't any effort to it. No worrying about falling into conventions, or being too repetitive, or following a meter and rhyme-scheme. All there was to it was spoken word with a melody.

Time went on and I started learning the ways of "real" writers. You need to pay attention to things like alliteration and allegory, and make sure that your syllabic patterns aren't cliche, or it'll seem like you're plagiarizing. All sources are cited, and the MLA margins and font formatting are too perfect, there's no life left in the writing. Everything that made it raw and beautiful has been ripped from the skeleton leaving a bare, desolate structure with no substance. It isn't always this way, but by and large this is how it turns out.

Things have changed for me now. I try desperately to adhere to structure, but at the same time have lost regard for it. I'll pay attention to the feet of a poem, and each stanza will have the same basic format... but I couldn't care less how else it holds together. I'll inject the soul back into it by breaking the rules a little. Not all the time, and not even in big ways. Little things, like a slant rhyme, rejuvenate in ways that couldn't be with a hard phonemic jab.

Other things change too, the definition of "genre" no longer means "comedy or sci-fi." It starts to take on more broad terms that don't really matter. Poetry is not a genre, it's a format. Nonfiction is not a genre, it's life. Even then, you're getting only half truths for what should be a complete roster.

Comic books and graphic novels - because they aren't the same, and it's not just the use of a buzz word - are "literary genres" too. So are screenplays. And raw notes. It's not limited to "fiction" and "memoir." It's all writing. Everything is art. Everything is beautiful, if you make it so. When you jam format in like steel rods you sacrifice the freely formed splendor that used to come from the writing.

Sure, it sometimes improves the intended impact in your reader. Sometimes it clarifies the point that was made. Sometimes you will want to format your work differently. This is not mandatory to make something worth reading. It is not mandatory to make anything at all.

Yes, I am a writer. I am not famous, nor am I published in any notable work just yet. College magazines and newspapers have put my words to page, and supposedly I'm in an anthology from a scam artist writing site from ten years ago. I'm cool with the realization that my work is - for the time being - insignificant. I only reach a small audience, and they mostly know me in person. I'm fine with that, as long as each of them take something away from this.

Literary greatness is overrated, even if that's what pays. I'll get there one day. I just don't mind waiting.

On Maturity.

It's funny how such a simple concept is so easily twisted and bastardized. Maturity shouldn't be difficult to grasp, but for whatever reason it slips away from many "mature" adults.

Maturity can be applied to many things. A boy is considered physically mature by the end of his teens. He will have grown in spurts, developed facial hair, and other things kick in. This doesn't mean that his mind matures at the same rate, or that he will emotionally ever mature.

The biggest misconception is that adults are mature. Maturity has nothing to do with age. It is not a miraculous sticker that gets put on your forehead that says you'll comprehend everything and be able to handle life. Legally, I've been an adult for six years. Most of my friends are considered adults at this point as well. Some recent things they've done include fighting over girls, holding grudges over (literally) nothing, playing with plastic knives, lighting themselves on fire, and the complete inability to cope with death. These are all different people - and with my social circle, a tiny percentage of the people I associate with - and each of them has space to grow in various ways. These people are also amazing musicians, intellectuals, humorists, and aspiring politicians. They're all adults, and all reasonably stable. Just immature.

Emotional maturity comes from understanding that there are things that are beyond your control that will sometimes hurt your feelings. The mature response is to deal with it, find something that helps sooth it, and get on with life. The juvenile response is to rage at the world and make hollow threats. No one can overcome all circumstances in life. It is not mature to be the "man's man," and punch things while ejaculating into their coffee. It doesn't matter if that's what you suspect Chuck Norris would do, it matters that you look like a 13 year old that just realized the girl you were crushing on doesn't like boys. Tough fucking shit.

A maturing mind is something vastly different from the other two common sorts, but it is linked to both. When I say that someone is mentally immature, I'm not saying they're handicapped/disabled/whatever other PC terms exist for "retarded" these days. Mental maturity comes from the practiced ability to handle situations that are much larger than human comprehension. Among these are astronomical numbers, death, birth, the question of God, and the realization that all that one does effects hundreds of thousands of people around them. It isn't something that happens suddenly, despite the concept of an epiphany. You will realize that everything dies - including you - at some point, but you will spend years trying to understand it. You will realize that God might not exist, but you won't comprehend the implications for the majority of your life. You will realize at some point that the creation of new life is something inherently god-like, but you won't ever fully understand the intricacies of it. Anyone that claims to is lying. Even doctors - who know the process inside and out (all that sex from med school) - will never fully understand the concept of when/if/how a soul is injected into a new being.

Maturity comes in many forms, but the form it should come in is exercised control and the knowledge of when self restraint is an option and when it should be thrown to the wind. Most of the time the wind gets too much. Hold on to some for yourself.

Errata: "Mature" should never be applied to television and music. "Mature" audiences just existed long enough to have been exposed to it previously. Same way that a kid shouldn't play most Mature games. They can't fucking comprehend what the implication of killing someone is, why desensitize them to it before they know what it is?

I don't give a damn about a reputation.

All my life I've been taught to make everything you do worth having your name attached. This way, you will always be able to take pride in what you do, and others will know to expect quality work from you. While it isn't always possible to be proud of everything, I do take this approach to heart professionally.

I've got several jobs to help pay for college, and I take pride in my work for all of them. I've always had at least one job while in university, but at the moment I have (about) three. All involve customer service, and are specifically service jobs. I'm not servicing the customers (mostly illegal, outside of Las Vegas), but I am garnering the same satisfaction from them. Sometimes it's little things, like making sure they don't fall down a flight of stairs, or fixing the lounge chair they abuse until I need to repair it again. Sometimes it's making sure a building doesn't get lit on fire, or ensuring that the sound system for an event will not only work, but make my constituents sound as good as they think they do.

For every job I have and task I complete, I go out of my way to never half-ass it. I'm very distinct in my approach, appearance, and follow through. If I don't put full effort into my tasks, everyone notices. I'm at a disadvantage in this way; others will only do enough work to stay employed, never going beyond the basics of their duties. They do not fulfill the full responsibility, and little is expected of them. The standard to stay employed is significantly lower. In my case, since I've put my all into everything the entire time, an off day kills my reputation. That's something I can't abide by at this stage in life, I need to hold on to it on a professional level.

That's why I meet my deadlines, why my organizational skills see full use in the workplace, and why I don't fuck around on the job. My making you happy keeps my job safe. While a coworker might demolish your eardrums with a PA rig, I must keep it perfect. While a coworker might leave you to your own devices, I must make sure you have all the information you need to save your self from acting the fool. While a coworker might take a bribe to ignore regulations, I must recommend you put it away or donate it to a children's cancer society.

I don't live through my reputation, but my job does.

Easter Bunny's Severed Head

We all fear the living dead, yet the vast majority of all religion is based on the notion of life after death. Perhaps it's best to assume that undeath is ultimately the afterlife.

Christians possibly have it the worst off. Their saviour is glorified because he became a zombie. The little known fact about Jesus is that he was considered merciful only because he refused to eat brains. That's why he returned for such a short time before perishing again.

We are not afraid of zombies because they want to kill us. We are not afraid of them because they are nearly unstoppable. We are not even afraid because we do not understand them. We are afraid of zombies because - in a sense - they are a higher level of being than humans. We are afraid of them because we know they're better than us. We were supposedly made in God's image, but zombies were modeled after his son. Therefore, we must all die and come back once more to truly embrace a love for Christ.

...this would all be true, if any of the subjects discussed ever existed.

If you celebrate Easter today, or passover still, or whatever else is around this time of year, then I hope it's happy and full of life.

Fuck this.

I'm never blogging again. I'm sick of all the hate and terrible feedback I get every time I open myself up to the world.

God fucking damnit. Goodbye, reader.

Spring Breaking Walls

"The concept of a 'Spring Break' has always fascinated me, even if it's usually just an excuse for people to get drunk and take their clothes off. I've never celebrated in such a way, though taking my clothes off is always a good idea. I've opted almost universally to stay in the area for the break, with rare exceptions when I was younger to go upstate with my family. I hated those times."

I search offhandedly for my bag of gummy bears.

"Really, if I'm going to have a week and a half off from my classes and work, do you expect me to go do something I won't remember after? Or wake up with an infestation of crab-mites? Or find out that the person in the bed with me looks much less attractive and suddenly more manly than she did when I was drunk? There's no point to it."

Where the fuck are my gummy bears? I ignore it, and keep typing.

"If I wanted that kind of nonsense, I could do it on a weekend and have significantly less memory loss. How many college students do that on a daily basis anyway? If my university wasn't commuter based I imagine there'd be a higher drop-out rate and a much higher level of alcohol poisoning on campus. Why would I want to do that though?"

There they are! I bite the head off of a green squishy bear.

"Besides that, there's so many better things I could do. Gatherings with friends, construction projects (which are actually quite rewarding). Coheed and Cambria concerts that were sold out until this afternoon that you jumped on like the 'Tea Party' to Obama's Health Care bill, except your jumping was productive. These opportunities would be missed in Cancun, or wherever the hell the young and logically handicapped people go get herpes these days."

I smile, kill the last few bears, and my fingers come to a rest.

Some Assembly Required

"Hand me the wing-nut," I say to my stepfather.

I hand tighten the bolt as much as I can, giving the frame structure without permanence. This gives me the option to fix it later, in case we're reading the terrible instructions wrong. The television spits a news story about The President's surprise visit to the Middle East to talk to troops.

"Now we should put the arms on," he assesses.

"No, that's not the next step."

He doesn't really look at the instructions. He knows how this is supposed to look from the picture on the box, to rely on a piece of paper to tell him what to do is below him. Today he yields to me for perhaps the first time ever assembling anything together in the past 17 years. Then again, I'm only here because he couldn't figure out the instructions in the first place. Maybe he realizes that I know what I'm doing.

This victory is small, but just as delicious as any other would be. Nearly every other conflict over the past two decades has ended with neither of us talking to one another for days, and occasionally the harsh confrontation that boils down to his lack of a job versus my disorganized room. I savor this triumph, and get back to the task at hand.

We start to assemble the main basin, burners, and electronic ignition. The living room is a silly place to build a grill. It's his comfort zone, and the only room he's used to anymore. It makes sense, in a way. Had I started the project, it would be outside from start to finish, and christened with a marinated try of caramelized veggies on a stick.

Maybe we're just opposite ends of the spectrum. I'm the young, well educated one and he's the old, stubborn one. I shouldn't expect someone to change their ways when they've had them set since before I existed. It doesn't mean that their ways are right, but it does mean that those ways have become correct for the daily behavior. The same way that "incorrect" and "wrong" aren't the same. To say it's wrong to drown kittens would be that it's morally unethical. TO say it's incorrect to drown kittens would be to say that you're better suffocating them, or lighting them on fire.

Today I am both right and correct, and I love every second of it.