I recently developed a theory about amateur writers (which applies loosely to professional ones occasionally).
There are only two types of beginning writers: level one and level two. These levels are easily distinguishable upon reading a piece of their work. Do keep in mind my definition of amateur writer. This is a person with a burgeoning interest in the art of written word; they are generally heavy readers and pretty nerdy. They are unpublished, unsure, and possibly mentally unstable for fantasizing about a career in writing.
Level one writers are characterized by conventions. In general, their works are thinly veiled rewrites of what they like to read. Twilight nerds write vampire fiction, fantasy novels, with the root of what they wish their lives were like at the core (dashing significant other, respect, power, beauty). Video games nerds write the plots of video games, just with more dialogue and less actual shooting. Realistic fiction readers write stories about poor people becoming famous singers and divorces and funerals. Eighty percent of the time, somebody wakes up at the end of these stories because everything is a damn dream.
Level two writers hate level one stories. They get a smug sense of superiority from reading the same five page tale of the first day working at a grocery store, where the zaniest non-zany things happen. They seek something more from their writing. They want to present metaphysical concepts, new perspectives, complex characters. Stories you have to read twice, with multi-layered allegories and names with hidden meaning. The problem is, they aren't good enough to write like that. They strive for the next Hemingway short story, and come up with something told from the perspective of a tree, a dog, or a teddy bear. It just creates a whole new set of cliches by trying to escape what is cliche.
I've been horribly caught between these two levels for a few years now. I know I can write the formulaic level one story with an acceptable level of competence. But I want to do better. Sadly, I do not possess the life experience, writing experience, and even reading experience to successfully execute my inherently lofty goals. The result is a story aiming for something higher, coming up short, and coming up sounding worse than the average to horrible level one stories. Average, average, average. They usually have titles like "A Mini Sociologic Theory on the Psychology of Writing."
I wonder what it takes to push somebody past this level one place. Is it simply the amount of talent one is born with that dictates what their pen will produce? Is it, as I'm partial to believe, all about experience levels? Do I need to pull a Mark Twain and float down a river?
I think I just need to keep writing. As every professional writer says to varying degrees and phrasing, you have to write a bunch of crap before you can get to the good stuff. I hope the elusive and mysterious level three is lurking beyond the cliche, trite, and self-important junk that stems continuously from my unripened brain.
Apr 21, 2010
Do I Like Poptarts?
I wonder if I really like the things I like because I like them or because everybody else expects me to like them.
That reminds me of this episode of Gilmore Girls (well, everything reminds me of an episode of Gilmore Girls) where Lorelai questions whether she truly enjoys Poptarts, or has only been eating them for years because she knows the mother she resents doesn't like when she eats Poptarts. They were forbidden in her childhood home, therefore tasted like rebellion and freedom. Perhaps she likes that taste, not strawberry pastry.
Rory tells her to shut up and eat the Poptart.
Perhaps all of our likes and dislikes are born out of some random association. Do I really like grape Sweettarts or do I only eat them cause my brother always gave me his cause he hates grape? Does he hate grape because of all the bad experiences he had with Dimeatap when he was little? Does Mom hate the Cowboys only because her grandpa did?
Is there anything wrong with that? Is it peer pressure or just the way things are?
I wonder this because I was thinking of giving up a chunk of what has come to be my identity. I think somewhere along the way, it was what was expected of me, not what I truly and completely loved. Or maybe I did truly and completely love it once, but all the expectation and pigeon-holing quelled my desires? Or maybe I simply grew up and away from what I once thought I wanted?
But if weren't for some serious thinking and random events, I would still be plugging down that path that somebody (or maybe just myself) snapped me into a few years ago.
But, that all raises the question... do I still actually want what I now think I want or did I just switch tracks and create the allusion of making the right decision? How is anyone to know what they really like and what's just there for them to like? What's easy for them to like?
I think I truly love books. I can't think of a single reason in the world why I shouldn't, except for that I'm not sure that I do. But this is a ridiculous doubt. I loved them even when I was too little to read or to have philosophical discussions with myself on the internet and ask a bunch of rhetorical questions to my computer screen. So why am I questioning it?
Lorelai questioned it when she caught herself doing the opposite of whatever her mom wanted her to do. I caught myself doing it when I was doing what I thought everyone else expected me to do. How do you escape into a bubble, surrounded by no outside influences, to test what you actually like?
That makes me think of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber on Dragonball Z, strangely enough. Did I like Dragonball Z for real, or was it just what all my guy friends were watching and I knew a Dragonball Z lunchbox would score me major cred in 2nd grade?
"It's too hard for me to focus through all this doubt." (Do I actually love Bright Eyes??) I can't possibly go through life analyzing every whim, every small decision. I can't question my own motives everytime I order curly fries over regular ones, or get Sprite instead of Coke. I hate admitting a reliance on the darn things, but I just have to let myself feel instead of think and go wherever that leads me. After all, what happens when you make a bad decision with your head? You feel bad. You don't think bad.
Feel, not think. Feel, not think. This is going to be hard.
That reminds me of this episode of Gilmore Girls (well, everything reminds me of an episode of Gilmore Girls) where Lorelai questions whether she truly enjoys Poptarts, or has only been eating them for years because she knows the mother she resents doesn't like when she eats Poptarts. They were forbidden in her childhood home, therefore tasted like rebellion and freedom. Perhaps she likes that taste, not strawberry pastry.
Rory tells her to shut up and eat the Poptart.
Perhaps all of our likes and dislikes are born out of some random association. Do I really like grape Sweettarts or do I only eat them cause my brother always gave me his cause he hates grape? Does he hate grape because of all the bad experiences he had with Dimeatap when he was little? Does Mom hate the Cowboys only because her grandpa did?
Is there anything wrong with that? Is it peer pressure or just the way things are?
I wonder this because I was thinking of giving up a chunk of what has come to be my identity. I think somewhere along the way, it was what was expected of me, not what I truly and completely loved. Or maybe I did truly and completely love it once, but all the expectation and pigeon-holing quelled my desires? Or maybe I simply grew up and away from what I once thought I wanted?
But if weren't for some serious thinking and random events, I would still be plugging down that path that somebody (or maybe just myself) snapped me into a few years ago.
But, that all raises the question... do I still actually want what I now think I want or did I just switch tracks and create the allusion of making the right decision? How is anyone to know what they really like and what's just there for them to like? What's easy for them to like?
I think I truly love books. I can't think of a single reason in the world why I shouldn't, except for that I'm not sure that I do. But this is a ridiculous doubt. I loved them even when I was too little to read or to have philosophical discussions with myself on the internet and ask a bunch of rhetorical questions to my computer screen. So why am I questioning it?
Lorelai questioned it when she caught herself doing the opposite of whatever her mom wanted her to do. I caught myself doing it when I was doing what I thought everyone else expected me to do. How do you escape into a bubble, surrounded by no outside influences, to test what you actually like?
That makes me think of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber on Dragonball Z, strangely enough. Did I like Dragonball Z for real, or was it just what all my guy friends were watching and I knew a Dragonball Z lunchbox would score me major cred in 2nd grade?
"It's too hard for me to focus through all this doubt." (Do I actually love Bright Eyes??) I can't possibly go through life analyzing every whim, every small decision. I can't question my own motives everytime I order curly fries over regular ones, or get Sprite instead of Coke. I hate admitting a reliance on the darn things, but I just have to let myself feel instead of think and go wherever that leads me. After all, what happens when you make a bad decision with your head? You feel bad. You don't think bad.
Feel, not think. Feel, not think. This is going to be hard.
Apr 12, 2010
"You can pick your nose,
you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your friends' noses."
Can you really pick your friends? I don't think so.
It's just one of those things in life that just happens. You get squished together by some turn of fate--a mutual enemy, a mutual friend, a seating chart, a class schedule. Slowly but surely a friendship develops.
The book I just finished brought up an interesting concept, the differences between platonic and romantic relationships. People don't often look at friendships in the same parameters as romantic relationships, but they do have their similarities, and are in their own way, harder to maintain. This is especially true of "best" friendships (a term I do not very much like, but that's another blog entirely).
Friends can break up, and these break ups can be every bit as tumultuous and emotional as a romantic break up. Even more so because friends tend to stay in your life longer than any boyfriend or girlfriend (unless you get married and even then, childhood friendships can last longer). They take up a bigger chunk of your existence.
When you break up with a significant other, people just kind of infer it after they notice you not mulling about together anymore. But if you suddenly drop a friendship, people aren't so quick to realize what might have happened. They tend to go on thinking everything is fine, and make the assumptions that follow. As they go on as normal, it makes it even harder for the two ex-friends to move on. They're expected to be a duo long after they aren't anymore. Friendship break ups are never a clean break.
I believe that every person in your life serves a different purpose; you get something that nobody else gives from them. When that source runs out, or when people find somebody else who feels that need better, they move on. Perhaps this a callous way of looking at it, but I see no evidence to the contrary. Perhaps they hang on longer than they should sometimes, and that only breeds sitcom-esque problems.
I've moved on from quite a few friendships, but I've noticed a quality in the ones that hang around. They are the people that you don't necessarily have to talk to every day, but never let that awkward layer of distance pile up between them. They are the people that don't need reminding. They are not the people you chose, or the people that chose you. They're simply the people that choose to stick around.
Can you really pick your friends? I don't think so.
It's just one of those things in life that just happens. You get squished together by some turn of fate--a mutual enemy, a mutual friend, a seating chart, a class schedule. Slowly but surely a friendship develops.
The book I just finished brought up an interesting concept, the differences between platonic and romantic relationships. People don't often look at friendships in the same parameters as romantic relationships, but they do have their similarities, and are in their own way, harder to maintain. This is especially true of "best" friendships (a term I do not very much like, but that's another blog entirely).
Friends can break up, and these break ups can be every bit as tumultuous and emotional as a romantic break up. Even more so because friends tend to stay in your life longer than any boyfriend or girlfriend (unless you get married and even then, childhood friendships can last longer). They take up a bigger chunk of your existence.
When you break up with a significant other, people just kind of infer it after they notice you not mulling about together anymore. But if you suddenly drop a friendship, people aren't so quick to realize what might have happened. They tend to go on thinking everything is fine, and make the assumptions that follow. As they go on as normal, it makes it even harder for the two ex-friends to move on. They're expected to be a duo long after they aren't anymore. Friendship break ups are never a clean break.
I believe that every person in your life serves a different purpose; you get something that nobody else gives from them. When that source runs out, or when people find somebody else who feels that need better, they move on. Perhaps this a callous way of looking at it, but I see no evidence to the contrary. Perhaps they hang on longer than they should sometimes, and that only breeds sitcom-esque problems.
I've moved on from quite a few friendships, but I've noticed a quality in the ones that hang around. They are the people that you don't necessarily have to talk to every day, but never let that awkward layer of distance pile up between them. They are the people that don't need reminding. They are not the people you chose, or the people that chose you. They're simply the people that choose to stick around.
Apr 6, 2010
Just Say No Kids
Drug abuse resistance education is the way to go to live in a happy nation!
Ignore that. It's part of a DARE rap I made in 5th grade for our Dare Jamboree. Cause I'm cool like that. It's the only line I remember...
Anyway, I was reminded of it today during an extremely heated drug discussion in class. Extremely heated. This class stayed perfectly silent (except for one obnoxious girl) through discussions on health care, education, crime, poverty, even sex. But somebody brings up their weed, and people get freakin defensive! I didn't realize exactly how many of my college classmates were high advocates (pun intended) of legalizing weed.
But amidst the screaming and carrying on, my professor was saying something that had always floated around in the back of my mind.
There's this part of the stoner culture (at least the parts of it that I've been in contact with) that is all defiant and thinks that when they light a joint, they're flipping off the government. But the reality of it is, they're not. The government makes a crap load of money off of drug arrests, especially weed. It's far more than they'd ever make by legalizing it and taxing it. I think the figure was 600 dollars a second. A second! So everytime they light up, they're just playing into the government's plan. Feeding the system they think they're defeating. The government has them right where they want them, with a false sense of security and pretty darn complacent in their altered state. (Another fun fact: money procured from drug busts funds public schools. Lord knows public schools need the cash!)
So, that said, most of the class wasn't really understanding her point and she was getting pretty exasperated. It was probably due to the fact that they've already killed all their brain cells...
The main thing they kept repeating was "it's a personal choice!"
And yes, it is a personal choice and I'm all for personal freedom. But this does not mean that actions do not have consequences. Every time you do something, it effects something, someone, somewhere else. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The guy you buy your pot from... where is that money going? What are you funding? What's that pot laced with and what's that doing to your system? What irresponsible behavior are you going to engage in while high?
They all think that just sitting in their rooms, high and happy, is perfectly safe. Maybe it is. But do you tell all you family and friends to leave you alone for a few hours since you'll be out of commission? What if somebody calls and needs you? There's no way you're capable of helping. That's not a far-fetched situation.
Our culture is so self-centered, under the guise of "personal choice." You have to make responsible personal choices. I can respect somebody who personally chooses to smoke weed, that's fine, but only if they're willing to accept the fact that it does have consequences and are willing to deal with them.
Personally, I choose not to engage in such behavior because it's not worth what I stand to lose. I have a spotless record; I'm squeaky clean. Why risk throwing in a drug bust? My parents trust me completely because I've never given them a reason not to. Why throw that away for a few hours of artificial happiness?
Besides, I like being in control of myself. My thoughts are scary enough when I can edit them at will. I want to be accountable for my actions. It's the mature, responsible thing to do. I'm capable of making myself feel better without the help of a drug; I refuse to give up my self-sufficiency. At the end of the day, all I have is myself and my brain and I'm going to take care of them.
Perhaps I've hopped to firmly onto my soap box, but I remained mostly silent during that discussion and I just had to get it out. Their selfishness and close-mindedness appalled me. There's a world out there and the community college pothead does not have all the answers in it. I hope one of them realized they're just being a cog on a wheel, with a make believe agenda.
DARE was cheesy and ineffective. Perhaps if they taught it that way, at the core of the problem, we wouldn't need weed to get by in life. But, hey, at least I wrote a cool rap.
Ignore that. It's part of a DARE rap I made in 5th grade for our Dare Jamboree. Cause I'm cool like that. It's the only line I remember...
Anyway, I was reminded of it today during an extremely heated drug discussion in class. Extremely heated. This class stayed perfectly silent (except for one obnoxious girl) through discussions on health care, education, crime, poverty, even sex. But somebody brings up their weed, and people get freakin defensive! I didn't realize exactly how many of my college classmates were high advocates (pun intended) of legalizing weed.
But amidst the screaming and carrying on, my professor was saying something that had always floated around in the back of my mind.
There's this part of the stoner culture (at least the parts of it that I've been in contact with) that is all defiant and thinks that when they light a joint, they're flipping off the government. But the reality of it is, they're not. The government makes a crap load of money off of drug arrests, especially weed. It's far more than they'd ever make by legalizing it and taxing it. I think the figure was 600 dollars a second. A second! So everytime they light up, they're just playing into the government's plan. Feeding the system they think they're defeating. The government has them right where they want them, with a false sense of security and pretty darn complacent in their altered state. (Another fun fact: money procured from drug busts funds public schools. Lord knows public schools need the cash!)
So, that said, most of the class wasn't really understanding her point and she was getting pretty exasperated. It was probably due to the fact that they've already killed all their brain cells...
The main thing they kept repeating was "it's a personal choice!"
And yes, it is a personal choice and I'm all for personal freedom. But this does not mean that actions do not have consequences. Every time you do something, it effects something, someone, somewhere else. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The guy you buy your pot from... where is that money going? What are you funding? What's that pot laced with and what's that doing to your system? What irresponsible behavior are you going to engage in while high?
They all think that just sitting in their rooms, high and happy, is perfectly safe. Maybe it is. But do you tell all you family and friends to leave you alone for a few hours since you'll be out of commission? What if somebody calls and needs you? There's no way you're capable of helping. That's not a far-fetched situation.
Our culture is so self-centered, under the guise of "personal choice." You have to make responsible personal choices. I can respect somebody who personally chooses to smoke weed, that's fine, but only if they're willing to accept the fact that it does have consequences and are willing to deal with them.
Personally, I choose not to engage in such behavior because it's not worth what I stand to lose. I have a spotless record; I'm squeaky clean. Why risk throwing in a drug bust? My parents trust me completely because I've never given them a reason not to. Why throw that away for a few hours of artificial happiness?
Besides, I like being in control of myself. My thoughts are scary enough when I can edit them at will. I want to be accountable for my actions. It's the mature, responsible thing to do. I'm capable of making myself feel better without the help of a drug; I refuse to give up my self-sufficiency. At the end of the day, all I have is myself and my brain and I'm going to take care of them.
Perhaps I've hopped to firmly onto my soap box, but I remained mostly silent during that discussion and I just had to get it out. Their selfishness and close-mindedness appalled me. There's a world out there and the community college pothead does not have all the answers in it. I hope one of them realized they're just being a cog on a wheel, with a make believe agenda.
DARE was cheesy and ineffective. Perhaps if they taught it that way, at the core of the problem, we wouldn't need weed to get by in life. But, hey, at least I wrote a cool rap.
Apr 3, 2010
osidflksdhfslkhg!!!!!
I've been staring at this stupid computer screen for hours. Desperation, sheer desperation, is all I feel. I'm trying to write an impossible paper. Impossible, I tell you. Every now and then, I am forced to get up and walk about the room for a minute, stand at the open window. I think those tweeting birds (and increasingly, crickets) reassuring me that there is a world outside are the only things keeping me alive right now.
I'm overwhelmed with philosophies. I'm trying to apply them to this darn book, a book of journals written by a guy in the desert. He was just writing them for many of the same reasons I'm writing right now-- he needed to get his thoughts out because his head was stuffed with them. Yet, somewhere along the lines, they got edited, polished, and published and now I'm sitting here trying to analyze the living bejesus out of them.
I don't think he intended any socio-political undertones nor were all these deeply profound and vastly hidden "allusions" to the "forefathers" of poetry intended. The things we grow up reading come out in our thoughts and writings. That is all. That is why you find shades of Jeffers and Thoreau in his works, Mr. Literary-Database-Contributor. Not because he wanted you to create a 60-page, printer-killing PDF file about it! You go on and on about how he was slying avoiding citation--perhaps they weren't conscious decisions! Perhaps he was simply scribbling in his little housetrailer with his gopher snakes and didn't intend for generations and generations to read this book and scratch their heads and apply the tenants of humanism to his very syllable!
This is all making me feel quite dumb, and perhaps that's why angry paragraphs such as the one above come about. I do not have a Ph.D. in English or comparative literature. I don't even have my high school diploma yet. Why am I being asked to grapple with the great mysteries of the universe? Why should I have to apply philosophical ponderings to the desert? I've never seen Utah; I never met Edward Abbey; I've never killed a rabbit with a stone. How am I supposed grasp the knowledge a Ph.D in philosophy may not possess and apply meaning to those things??
I should not feel dumb. I have been thrown into the deep end of the pool without my water wings and nobody ever gave me any swim lessons. How are you supposed to tread water without arms?? I am forced to sit here and stew in frustration and stare at these pretentious, pointless articles and passages I've read 10,000 times, and bullet points about existentialism that I'm not even allowed to cite and wonder how on earth I'm going to do this for the next two (probably, possibly more) years??
It's enough to drive an English major to communications.
End of rant. I have to go stare at Jeffers some more. URGH.
*random note that made me smile for the first time in hours: when I went to type one of the tags for this post as "hate" it corrected it to "happiness." Thank you, blogger interface, for trying to cheer me up. I wish it'd autocorrect a five-page research paper on the philosophies presented in Desert Solitaire!
I'm overwhelmed with philosophies. I'm trying to apply them to this darn book, a book of journals written by a guy in the desert. He was just writing them for many of the same reasons I'm writing right now-- he needed to get his thoughts out because his head was stuffed with them. Yet, somewhere along the lines, they got edited, polished, and published and now I'm sitting here trying to analyze the living bejesus out of them.
I don't think he intended any socio-political undertones nor were all these deeply profound and vastly hidden "allusions" to the "forefathers" of poetry intended. The things we grow up reading come out in our thoughts and writings. That is all. That is why you find shades of Jeffers and Thoreau in his works, Mr. Literary-Database-Contributor. Not because he wanted you to create a 60-page, printer-killing PDF file about it! You go on and on about how he was slying avoiding citation--perhaps they weren't conscious decisions! Perhaps he was simply scribbling in his little housetrailer with his gopher snakes and didn't intend for generations and generations to read this book and scratch their heads and apply the tenants of humanism to his very syllable!
This is all making me feel quite dumb, and perhaps that's why angry paragraphs such as the one above come about. I do not have a Ph.D. in English or comparative literature. I don't even have my high school diploma yet. Why am I being asked to grapple with the great mysteries of the universe? Why should I have to apply philosophical ponderings to the desert? I've never seen Utah; I never met Edward Abbey; I've never killed a rabbit with a stone. How am I supposed grasp the knowledge a Ph.D in philosophy may not possess and apply meaning to those things??
I should not feel dumb. I have been thrown into the deep end of the pool without my water wings and nobody ever gave me any swim lessons. How are you supposed to tread water without arms?? I am forced to sit here and stew in frustration and stare at these pretentious, pointless articles and passages I've read 10,000 times, and bullet points about existentialism that I'm not even allowed to cite and wonder how on earth I'm going to do this for the next two (probably, possibly more) years??
It's enough to drive an English major to communications.
End of rant. I have to go stare at Jeffers some more. URGH.
*random note that made me smile for the first time in hours: when I went to type one of the tags for this post as "hate" it corrected it to "happiness." Thank you, blogger interface, for trying to cheer me up. I wish it'd autocorrect a five-page research paper on the philosophies presented in Desert Solitaire!
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