A short anecdote by me:
So, I began writing a super long time ago. Like, probably when I was 4 or 5. I mean, you've seen that story I wrote with my brother when we were but wee ones. However, I like to think that I've improved since then.
I used to just have notebooks filled with random thoughts and things that would make good stories, but somehow, there always just happened to be a thing that was like, "All your stories are weird and no one would read them so you might as well stop writing because they're horrible." That's basically what my internal monologue is for a lot of stuff, actually, and it takes a lot of work to combat that stupid little voice.
In sixth grade, I wrote this story, and it was about a girl who kept being abducted, but then she found out that aliens were protecting her, but the aliens were really confusing and the people trying to kill/kidnap her were really evil and she had to get a little tiny baby alien to protect her as her personal body guard, and it was actually a really good story.
I'm pretty sure that I deleted it.
Unless it's miraculously saved on some flash drive somewhere, that 60 pages of writing by 11 year old me is gone forever.
That stupid little voice is why I have more than fifteen first ten pages of stories on my computer that I never look at again because they suddenly sound stupid in my head after I come back to write some more.
I think (know) that middle school made me stop writing. Suddenly people were grading my work, suddenly I didn't have enough time to think up my own plots, suddenly there was no extra space in my brain. I told myself that if I could just get through middle school, I would have plenty of time to write in high school. Ha. Yeah, that didn't happen.
And then, it was "get through high school and write in college!" And that's kind of happening. I write a blog. But it's not the same. But maybe some people aren't meant to write stories.
The fact that the last two years of my English classes have basically been people telling me that everything I write is bad doesn't really help this situation either.
Somehow, though, I think that all the people who ever try to write go through this process of WHY IS EVERYTHING I WRITE HORRIBLE AND WHY DO I SOUND LIKE A CAVE PERSON WHEN I READ THIS STUFF? Maybe that's the point. Maybe we can't be great at something unless we dedicate large amounts of time and effort and practice to it, unless you're born some kind of genius child. And I don't think I'm willing to spend my life writing. Actually, I would be, but I just don't think I'm good enough. I'm looking for something I'm good enough at.
Sometimes, I'll have these brilliant ideas or even just sentences that could be the perfect beginning or end to a story, but inevitably I'll be walking around campus or hiking through trees and won't have anything to transcribe my thoughts. Why can't I ever have thoughts when I'm at my desk or in class where I have an ample supply of paper?? Oh, right. Because indoors and education drag creativity back into the dark abyss of anti-individuality where everything must be the same and equal so we can all pass a test, goodness knows that's the most important measure of your abilities, so you gosh darn better not have an original idea about anything.
I'm very jealous of all the people who know how to write stories. You should teach me. But for now, I'll settle for this strange blog on which I share all my thoughts about thoughts. It can sustain me and my creative endeavors.
Mostly, I just hope I don't give up something that once made me so happy and excited (and still sometimes does!) just because I feel like I'm not good enough. I'm trying to learn to write for me and not my stupid little internal voice that hates things. That's not me. I'm better than that! Yeah! Optimist!
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Monday, April 13, 2015
Random Thoughts with Me
That's because I don't really have anything that can be written about for an entire post, even though--YES I KNOW I HAVEN'T WRITTEN IN FOREVER SORRY FOR FIGURING OUT HOW TO HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE IN COLLEGE--I've been away for so long. So here are a collection of things that I've been thinking about since I've not been writing.
1. Today I had to watch a movie for my scholar's class tomorrow. It was about a guy who walked the tight rope between the Twin Towers. And they tried to make it less scary by playing calming flute music over all the terrifying footage of the guy tilting and swaying 200 feet above the ground, but in my head I just scream: BE CAREFUL PHILIPPE, YOU'RE GONNA DIE. THERE'S A REASON NORMAL PEOPLE DON'T WALK ON TIGHT ROPES WITHOUT NETS.
2. Also, a lot of this movie is in French, and so as I read the subtitles, there's one part where Philippe says, "Out of frustration, I took all my clothes off." I'm kind of hoping this was just a phrase that couldn't be correctly translated from French to English, but at the same time, I hope this was what he actually said.
3. At work last Friday, I got assigned to work a serving line that I don't usually work, because there are never enough workers on Fridays. Anyway, this line is the one where you get to cut up giant chunks of meat into little slices. But since I'm not supposed to work it, I was excited when this other guy came to replace me so I could go back to my normal job! But apparently, he didn't really know what he was supposed to do. So I showed him, but I was really weird about it, because that's who I am. And somehow, knowing how to do something that other people don't know how to do gives me weird confidence. So this is how I instructed him: "FIRST!" I said, scarily, "you need to put on this plastic glove. THEN! You put on this cutting glove and your hand will get all gross and weird and it might fall off. THEN! You put on this other plastic glove. Then you take this giant chunk of meat and drop it here and then you SLICE IT LIKE IT'S DONE EVIL. Do you think you can handle that?" And then, I don't know why, he just looked at me like I was really weird. So I left him to fend for himself. The weirdie.
4. I'm thinking about getting a pet turtle.
5. Then again, that thought really isn't a new thought. I'm basically always thinking about getting a pet turtle.
6. Someone made a comment about marching band the other day, and made me kind of frustrated. I'm not even in marching band anymore, but that doesn't mean that I didn't dedicate of 1,000 hours of my life to it in high school. The comment went something like, "Why do schools give so much money to the marching band? They get to buy new tubas and we only got new uniforms two years ago!" Okay, this may have been an exaggeration, but the point is the same. So, strange comment maker, allow me to say some things. 1. In our band lobby in high school, there were pictures from 1999 in which the people were wearing the same uniforms that they wear today. If I can do some math here (which I maybe can't but I'll try), that means we've had the same uniforms for 16 years. That's 8 times more years than you. Also, tubas are expensive, and we don't buy new ones. We get to use rented ones from someone else, if we're lucky. I feel like I have more things to say about this. Maybe I should make this topic an entire post sometime. Okay.
7. Do you know how hard it is to shop for clothes? Maybe that's just me. I don't know. But inevitably I end up buying two of the same thing in different colors just because I found something that I like, finally, after being in the store for like three hours. Just kidding. You probably couldn't force me to be in a store for three hours. ALSO: I was trying to buy a swimsuit, and they're all called things like "Sexy Swimsuit for Women" or "Sexy Red Swimsuit with Cats" like, maybe I just wanted to buy a normal swimsuit that doesn't make me feel weird about either purchasing or wearing it. Can that be a thing? Not that being sexy is weird. Oh, gosh, now that I've offended all the people.....
8. I have to go eat dinner. I wonder if there's anything delicious.... Stay tuned to see if I survive! (It might be a couple of weeks, the way this is going so far...)
1. Today I had to watch a movie for my scholar's class tomorrow. It was about a guy who walked the tight rope between the Twin Towers. And they tried to make it less scary by playing calming flute music over all the terrifying footage of the guy tilting and swaying 200 feet above the ground, but in my head I just scream: BE CAREFUL PHILIPPE, YOU'RE GONNA DIE. THERE'S A REASON NORMAL PEOPLE DON'T WALK ON TIGHT ROPES WITHOUT NETS.
2. Also, a lot of this movie is in French, and so as I read the subtitles, there's one part where Philippe says, "Out of frustration, I took all my clothes off." I'm kind of hoping this was just a phrase that couldn't be correctly translated from French to English, but at the same time, I hope this was what he actually said.
3. At work last Friday, I got assigned to work a serving line that I don't usually work, because there are never enough workers on Fridays. Anyway, this line is the one where you get to cut up giant chunks of meat into little slices. But since I'm not supposed to work it, I was excited when this other guy came to replace me so I could go back to my normal job! But apparently, he didn't really know what he was supposed to do. So I showed him, but I was really weird about it, because that's who I am. And somehow, knowing how to do something that other people don't know how to do gives me weird confidence. So this is how I instructed him: "FIRST!" I said, scarily, "you need to put on this plastic glove. THEN! You put on this cutting glove and your hand will get all gross and weird and it might fall off. THEN! You put on this other plastic glove. Then you take this giant chunk of meat and drop it here and then you SLICE IT LIKE IT'S DONE EVIL. Do you think you can handle that?" And then, I don't know why, he just looked at me like I was really weird. So I left him to fend for himself. The weirdie.
4. I'm thinking about getting a pet turtle.
5. Then again, that thought really isn't a new thought. I'm basically always thinking about getting a pet turtle.
6. Someone made a comment about marching band the other day, and made me kind of frustrated. I'm not even in marching band anymore, but that doesn't mean that I didn't dedicate of 1,000 hours of my life to it in high school. The comment went something like, "Why do schools give so much money to the marching band? They get to buy new tubas and we only got new uniforms two years ago!" Okay, this may have been an exaggeration, but the point is the same. So, strange comment maker, allow me to say some things. 1. In our band lobby in high school, there were pictures from 1999 in which the people were wearing the same uniforms that they wear today. If I can do some math here (which I maybe can't but I'll try), that means we've had the same uniforms for 16 years. That's 8 times more years than you. Also, tubas are expensive, and we don't buy new ones. We get to use rented ones from someone else, if we're lucky. I feel like I have more things to say about this. Maybe I should make this topic an entire post sometime. Okay.
7. Do you know how hard it is to shop for clothes? Maybe that's just me. I don't know. But inevitably I end up buying two of the same thing in different colors just because I found something that I like, finally, after being in the store for like three hours. Just kidding. You probably couldn't force me to be in a store for three hours. ALSO: I was trying to buy a swimsuit, and they're all called things like "Sexy Swimsuit for Women" or "Sexy Red Swimsuit with Cats" like, maybe I just wanted to buy a normal swimsuit that doesn't make me feel weird about either purchasing or wearing it. Can that be a thing? Not that being sexy is weird. Oh, gosh, now that I've offended all the people.....
8. I have to go eat dinner. I wonder if there's anything delicious.... Stay tuned to see if I survive! (It might be a couple of weeks, the way this is going so far...)
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