Creative Writing

They write such pretty words.

Pretty words about death.  Death and sex (especially if you call it "fucking" instead. Extra points for a caviler attitude) automatically makes something profound, infallible to criticism.  Higher than a complaint, too artsy to be bothered with earthly problems like confused readers and unnecessary comma splicing.

How sad to have reached perfection at 18, looking down from the height of the literary heap at your minions with their sad, double spaced stories about their innocent little lives.  Profundity isn't meant  to be subtle; it's supposed to be in your face.  Because life paints its allegories on billboards; it's meanings shout out at you from rooftops with bull horns.  There's no meticulous searching, no effort.  Just imitate. 

Chuck Palahniuk is plenty rich, but his success rate is less than half.  But less than half is more than zero, so just keep writing your disgusting narrative, and we'll keep patting you on the back because a string of pretty words saying dirty things is good writing.  You don't even need to understand it yourself; fumble through the explanation.  You only wrote it because it felt good; it feels the same as slitting your wrists in the bathroom in middle school, not to "control the pain" like the pamphlets say, but because blood and scars make you more overtly gothic.  Just crying is not symbolically resonant enough. You need vivid imagery, a cliche not to the world but to the internet's plethora of would-be writers with internet access and time to kill.

Write fan fiction about yourself because you are your biggest fan.  We'll keep patting you on the back because you've accomplished making us feel awkward enough not to criticize you.  You've peer pressured us into not being the bitch you want us to be, you dare us to be.

Maybe I could be you if I really wanted.  I could be a writer if I really wanted.  But I'm too queasy at the sight of blood; I don't have the authority of knowledge to write about fucking metaphors (a verb here, not an adjective).  So I'll bow out.  Here's the pen.  Write your story. 

I know it isn't really yours.