Halloween – Kids, candy bags, and costumes, the sound of leaves crunching under pitter patter footsteps, wind and darkness.
I used to be thrilled when holidays would come around. Now, I find it all a mixture of obligatory gestures, rampant consumerism, and unavoidable frustration. I credit this to my current life and not to an entirely morbid permanent change in me. Ahhh conventions conventions.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
My drug of choice
Dreary days make me tired. I’m drained much of my awake time due to lack of sleep, frustration and the day-to-day nonsense of my current life - too much drama, too many life-or-death moments.
Sleep is my drug of choice these days, and right now, I'm all out. I'm wigged out and strung out. I miss that inviting solace in the silent moments before I finally succumb to sleep - an excitingly, fuzzy numbness that blots out everything. Soon after those murky moments, I slowly slip down the darkening slope of sleep, tumbling into myself, swimming through the muck of my brain until visions and sounds and smells of dreams jolt through me. I swear I could sleep for weeks on end. It is my home of solitude, the last unspoiled thing in my life. Bar the door, I'm not coming out alive.
Related idea: I’ve heard of many writers transcribing their dreams, laying it all out there for people to interpret and at some point, I will keep a dream journal – if not for nothing more than to try to express the most surrealistic version of me possible. But for now, just writing this has taken an incredible amount of self-control. God, I’ve tumbled.
Sleep is my drug of choice these days, and right now, I'm all out. I'm wigged out and strung out. I miss that inviting solace in the silent moments before I finally succumb to sleep - an excitingly, fuzzy numbness that blots out everything. Soon after those murky moments, I slowly slip down the darkening slope of sleep, tumbling into myself, swimming through the muck of my brain until visions and sounds and smells of dreams jolt through me. I swear I could sleep for weeks on end. It is my home of solitude, the last unspoiled thing in my life. Bar the door, I'm not coming out alive.
Related idea: I’ve heard of many writers transcribing their dreams, laying it all out there for people to interpret and at some point, I will keep a dream journal – if not for nothing more than to try to express the most surrealistic version of me possible. But for now, just writing this has taken an incredible amount of self-control. God, I’ve tumbled.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The beginning - an explanation
It's been two and a half years since I've written anything - certainly an odd fact considering I am a professional writer for 8 years. Despite my being an advertising copywriter and sports journalist, my true passion was (imagine this) to write the great American novel. The total loss of literary ambition comes on the heals of two tumultuous years of upheaval and self-inflicted personal chaos. The roller coaster ride my life has been on shows no signs of ending.
Thus far, I have endured - with a little more gray in my hair and weary bags under my eyes. Slowly, I'm realizing I might be a little more invigorated about life and love if I returned to my writing roots.
Random background blurb: I earned my bachelor's degree in English from Kent State University in the alive and thriving nineties. I dabbled loosely in the artistic hopefulness that comes from taking creative writing classes and reading piles and piles of "great books." But, besides a few juvenile attempts to shock teachers with my detailed prose, my writing failed to grab the attention of anyone other than me. Of course, when I re-read my work from that time, I am mildly embarrassed by the writings' self-conscious, calculated, and derivative prose.
In writing, voice is the key, and I had little of it because I had no me. I had no beliefs or experiences or guts to put it right there on the page for all to criticize or ridicule. I didn't understand that what the world needs is not another Jack Kerouac or James Joyce or Chuck Pahlaniuk, what the world needed was me - the honest, untethered truth of me, and you and any other writer who just wants to give themselves to their readers.
In short, my starting this blog is an attempt to finally get it right: to write precisely and honestly about my life, my loves and my view on this crazy, insane world we live in. Any other goal is trivial.
Thus far, I have endured - with a little more gray in my hair and weary bags under my eyes. Slowly, I'm realizing I might be a little more invigorated about life and love if I returned to my writing roots.
Random background blurb: I earned my bachelor's degree in English from Kent State University in the alive and thriving nineties. I dabbled loosely in the artistic hopefulness that comes from taking creative writing classes and reading piles and piles of "great books." But, besides a few juvenile attempts to shock teachers with my detailed prose, my writing failed to grab the attention of anyone other than me. Of course, when I re-read my work from that time, I am mildly embarrassed by the writings' self-conscious, calculated, and derivative prose.
In writing, voice is the key, and I had little of it because I had no me. I had no beliefs or experiences or guts to put it right there on the page for all to criticize or ridicule. I didn't understand that what the world needs is not another Jack Kerouac or James Joyce or Chuck Pahlaniuk, what the world needed was me - the honest, untethered truth of me, and you and any other writer who just wants to give themselves to their readers.
In short, my starting this blog is an attempt to finally get it right: to write precisely and honestly about my life, my loves and my view on this crazy, insane world we live in. Any other goal is trivial.
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