Turns out I probably just suck [15/90]

Wow. I come home, do less than when I was away, and still manage to not post. I'm horrible at this.

There's a lot to be said about good writers. They make our TV shows, our movies, our, well, entertainment. Of course, there's a lot to be said about bad writers too, but I'm just going to ignore them for a bit.

Often times I find myself watching a movie or show or playing a game, or whatever and I'm just awe struck. The lines that people come up with are just so damn good I don't know what to do or say. A moment that has absolutely nothing to do with the actor, and everything to do with the words coming out of their mouth. Sometimes we forget that it's not just the actor and their ability to look really good and say words at the same time. Behind that actor is a writer who knows that character just as well as, if not better than, the actor portraying them. Of course there's a lot of other people involved in this process too, but well, I'm ignoring them too.

Somebody knew Han Solo so well that his response to the words I love you was a simple "I know." Somebody sits up and writes the jokes for Psych and Community and everything else. Somebody who is really very witty.

And I hate that person. Well, sort of. I mostly love their talent. But my own fragile ego won't let me love them for it without hating them as well. I hate them for being so damn witty. I hate them for being so talented. I hate everything about them for being better than me. Of course, I don't really hate them, nor do I begrudge them their success. But god, I hate them.

And I don't really know if that's a problem or not. Constantly being bombarded by feelings of inadequacy isn't the best thing for someones mental well being. But oft times it has a kind of positive effect of making you try to be better. If only so you don't suck quite so much in comparison. I really can't say if my giant complex involving other people is a good thing or not. I really don't know if it makes me try any harder, or if it makes me never want to write again. It probably varies on the day. And today, well today, I really just don't want to suck quite so much.

Quote of the Day:

"The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men."
- George Elliot

Word Vomit [14/90]

Words suck today.

No matter what I do they refuse to come out right. Admittedly, I haven't tried too much to force them out, but I don't particularly enjoy forcing writing. If it's forced, it's not real, if it's not real, what's the point?

 I believe in genuine writing. I don't want to plan, don't want to think, I want to feel the words. I want to have an idea flow out of me as is. Raw and ugly as sin. Full of cliche's and fragments and things that won't make sense until the third revision. I want gaps and plot holes that need to be filled in later because I'm too busy thinking of what happens next to concentrate on what happens now. I want spelling errors because my brain is moving far too fast for my fingers to keep up. I want to close my eyes and see a scene, to feel it and smell it while my fingers try desperately to keep up. To make sure the moment is captured before the image is lost forever. That's what I want when I sit down to write. That's what I want out of creative writing.

That's when writing makes me the happiest. When I just sit down and let the words flow out of me. Of course, most of these words are garbage with rare moments of words flowing perfectly together. But rarely is something great on the first try. That guy with the lightbulb fucked up about a million times before he figured it out. And science is much more concrete than figuring out how to string a sentence together, so I figure I have some leeway here. Hell, I can't make a lightbulb either, so I really should have a lot of room to work in.

Sometimes I wish I was better at structuring my writing before I actually started it. Then I wouldn't have to stress as much about everything fitting together properly when everything is said and done. As is, I just kind of start, and then figure out if everything adds up as I go through. It can be a terrible way to work, especially when a distinct structure is expected of you. But now that I'm not officially in classes of any sort, I suppose whatever the hell I want to do works just fine.

Like me writing whatever comes to mind. Like I'm writing now. Like how I'm using the word like 700 times to explain something that really didn't even need to be mentioned. Like how I keep typing exactly what is running through my mind at the moment. Of course I miss a few thoughts, but you don't really need to know that when I typed that last sentence I thought about ketchup simply because it was something different than what I was typing at that moment.

I love stream of consciousness. You get to say strange things.
Cabbage.

Quote of the Day:

"I'm always fucking childish, you knew that when you met me."
- Childish Gambino (The Longest Text Message)

Kids ruin everything [13/90]

I want to do nothing more than sleep. But of course my brain had to think about writing. Which I hadn't done. So now I'm here writing instead of in bed sleeping like I want to be.

I'm home now. After an hour of being trapped on a plane surrounded by screaming, crying, laughing, kicking, hitting kids (I didn't hit them, they hit me) I'm home. I have never in my life been on a plane with so many children. They surrounded me on all fronts. There was one directly behind me. A little boy. The lovely creature was on the plane for all of two minutes before he hit me in the head. I don't really know how it happened. He was so little, I don't know how he reached up over the seat to bop me on the head, but he did. From that moment, I knew I wasn't going to enjoy the flight very much. And that was after I found out I was in the middle seat.

It was an early flight so I was tired anyway, I just wanted to sleep. But sleep was never really an option. Not with all the child noises coming from every direction. Happy noises, sad noises, noise for the sake of noise noises. Any time of sound for any purpose a kid could have was made. Normally kids don't bother me much. But when there's one kicking the back of your seat on a semi-regular basis, and three others making random noises, it starts to grate on you. The kids parents never even told him to keep his feet down. My source of sanity came in the form of several batman comics preloaded onto my iPod. That and music. Loud music. Lots of it. I soon got into my happy place where screaming children barely existed.

I was honestly sad I was surrounded by families. Not because of the screaming kids, but because I am rarely inspired by families. It is easier for me to look at one person and come up with where their life has taken them, and what they might have done than it is for me too look at a family and imagine the same thing. I don't write about children. Children are hard. They're complex and simple. Smart and idiotic. They're confusing. And I don't think about them much. I don't write them because I don't know them. But a single person? A teen, a young adult, an adult? It's something I can relate too more. Something I can understand more. Children throw off my groove. Add a kid into any picture and my mind rarely knows what to do with it. They make writing difficult.

Children demand my attention through laughter and squeals of joy or pain. They rip me from my comfortable little world and throw me into one where my thought process slows and the stories freeze in my mind. It's awful.

I don't like feeling creatively drained. So I avoid writing about children. Or around them. Because they make everything so much more difficult. Even simple things like enjoying a short flight from Atlanta to Indianapolis.

Hospital visit [12/90]

I commend the me from a year or two ago that managed to update (mostly) every day. I must have been dedicated. Because back then I did things like school and socialize. I don't do anything now, and I still can't manage to update this thing every day. Actually, that's probably part of the problem. I don't do anything, so I don't have anything to say. Ha. Anyway, here we go.

Today I actually thought about writing. Actually writing something. You know, something that takes effort. Not just a small rant where I sometimes attempt to make the words sound nice. I mean, I actually thought about writing a story. It was a simple idea. Just a walk through the hospital. The sights, the sounds, the smells. The chaos. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing important would happen, at least not that the character would know about. She'd just walk through the hospital, tur around, and walk out. No real point, no real mission, just the human experience. A mundane thing, the kinds of things people do everyday without really thinking about.

It would have started simple enough. A girl walks into the hospital. The reader is never really sure why. Maybe she's visiting someone, maybe she's got a appointment, maybe she's just delivering something. But she walks in. The doors slide open for her. She takes a second to think about that- the doors slide open for her. A few years ago sliding doors would have seemed amazing she thinks. Like magic. She saw that in a TV show once- people who had never seen sliding doors. The hospital is loud and people are rushing about. They come and go from every direction. Some sliding through the corridors like they've done it a million times, others glancing nervously about- clearly lost. She goes about her way and pretends she doesn't notice the lost souls. Everything is the same shade of blue, or at least it feels that way. The carpet stretches on forever. She wonders if tile would be better, it is a hospital after all. But she supposes that the clinic area might not have as much threat of bodily fluids spilling everywhere.

It would go something like that. There'd be a girl, and she'd wonder through the hospital. No real reason or purpose. Just something nice. Something simple. Something that's not up it's own ass in morals and symbols. Something where blue is just blue and a door is just a door.

The beginning of this really isn't very witty at all [11/90]

Rage against the machine used to be a band. Actually, it might still be a band. I don't really know. Anyway, it is now a (semi)clever way for me to say that I am angry with the institution. The institution in this case being High School education. More specifically, English.

I hate the way we teach English and writing. Hate it. There is very very little you could ever say to change my mind. You go through high school and then you get to college. And when you get to college the first thing most English professors say is forget whatever the hell your high school teachers said. Forget it. It's stupid. (Actually that's the way it goes in a lot of fields, or so I'm led to believe)

We teach our kids to memorize and regurgitate for the sake of tests and funding. We don't teach them how to think or discuss. You know, life skills. We tell them the green light at the end of that fucking dock in The Great Gatsby stands for how Gatsby is so close to his goals but can never reach them. How he's green with envy, or what the fuck ever. We tell them that the eyes on that damn billboard are representative of someone always seeing what goes on. We tell them that Tom loves red and gold because it symbolizes power. We tell them all this shit and we tell them to memorize it. We don't let them think. Or when we do we tell them they're wrong. They can't be right. Because there's clearly only one way to read this book. Because Nick Carroway is a god among men and so much better than all of them. Not the attention starved judgmental unreliable little shit I read him as.

We tell them to write about whatever they want, and then tell them they're wrong when they do it. We don't want them to think outside the box, not really. And that's so wrong. It's so bloody American too. What other culture is so centered on individuality and then telling you exactly how to be an individual? When they say write anything, they never really mean anything. They mean write something along the lines of exactly what I've taught you. Don't speak, don't think, don't do anything at all. God forbid you turn the assignment in on itself.

My little sister, a sophomore in high school, came home with an assignment to write anything. She asked me for help. We decided to write about what you could write about (because I'm such a whore for all things meta). Teacher hated it. Damn near failed her (she got a lovely D-). And for what? Because she didn't see the point. And because it was written in second person.

First of all, fuck the second person rule. Fuck it. Yes, yes, I understand why they say don't use second person. I can understand keeping it out of 'formal' writing. I understand not alienating an audience. I understand not putting words in the readers mouth. But second person is not a sin upon mankind. Using second paper does not make your writing the worst thing anyone could ever read.

And the point, I feel, was extremely clear. The entire thing said that "this is what you could use 500 words to write about." I don't think it gets much clearer than that.

It's frustrating. It's more frustrating than it should be. I really have some issues with the American education system. Most of which aren't very fleshed out. I should work on that.

Everything you know is a lie [10/90]

<p>&lt;p&gt;I've been in Miami for the past few days. Without stable Internet connection. I'm actually writing this on my phone. &lt;/p&gt;<br>
&lt;p&gt;Anyway, all that great stuff they tell you about Miami is a lie. A bold face lie. A lying out your ass, making everything up lie. A dirty lying lie from the mouth of a liar. </p>
<p>Miami is full of old people. </p>
<p>Little old people. Big old people. White heads and dyed heads. All sorts of old people. So many old people that they're all starting to blur together. I can't tell one from another. </p>
<p>Old people who talk about old things. Old. People who don't know how to work a remote or turn on a computer. Old people who are innately attracted to casinos. </p>
<p>Which is where I find myself now. Lost in a sea of neon lights and white hair, baseball caps, and balding old men.</p>
<p>Now, I admit I'm biased. I don't gamble. I don't particularly like gambling, don't see the point. Since I was old enough to pick up a controller, I've been able to play electronic poker and gamble away fake money to my hearts content. And even then I was wary. I always cashed out before I could loose my meager winnings. The thought of loosing money like that, even fake money never sat well with me.

So now I'm trapped in a casino with a bunch of indistinguishable old people stating at flashing lights. Flashing lights and loosing money. No appeal. None.

Where are the beaches and babes, and boys with muscles. The jetskis and speed boats. The sun and sand. The random celebrity encounters.

All I've seen is old people, rain, and traffic.

Though I suppose I should have known better when I came to Miami with my grandparents.

Miami: 325 Miles [9/90]

I'm in a car on the way to Miami. It should be known that I love my grandparents. I love them to death. I love them so much I haven't gotten snippy.

We're going from Atlanta to Miami in a sedan. Not so bad, there's only 3 of us. So far I've spent most of the trip sleeping. Or pretending to.

But my waking moments? They're filled with patience-testing, teeth-grinding, headache-inducing experiences.

So far I've been forced out of the car to walk into a clearly closed wendys, lived through a McDonalds ordeal, and damn near been frozen.

Have I mentioned i've only been awake for about an hour?

Unrelated: palm trees are cool.

I'm currently listening to non-stop Frank Sinatra and similar artists. Maybe I'm uncivilized. Maybe I just hate this style music. Maybe it's because my parents used to put this on to make me go to sleep. Whatever the reason, it is slowly driving me insane.

State of the trip: Miami, 325 miles.

For the last two miles they argued about how to get back home. Sometimes I wonder if they argue just for fun. Miami: 323 miles. New thought, I wonder if they shoot swamp people around here.