The Remains of a Poet

So today I achieved one of my life ambitions and passed out.  It was okay, actually.  The passed out part, I mean.  Everything afterward kind of sucked.

My parents' church had a blood drive today, and I donated, and afterward I walked over to the food area, and I felt really dizzy, so I sat down.  Some asked me if I was okay, and I said I was fine because I hate people fussing all over me (haha, if only I'd known!).  Then everything went kind of white, and then I had this really amazing dream.  The only thing I remember about it now is that there was some really weird music in it and that it gave me a happy feeling.  Anyway, then I felt something wet on my forehead, and I thought I was home in bed, so that confused me.  I opened my eyes, and I was lying on the floor, and all the blood drive people were crouched over me putting wet towels on my head and neck and stuff.  I asked what happened, and nobody answered, which I sort of get because I'd actually figured out what had happened when I asked the question; what I actually wanted to know was if I'd fallen on the floor or if someone had put me there.  The only response I got, however, was that I shouldn't close my eyes, which made me think I'd fallen because you're not supposed to close your eyes if you get a concussion (as it turned out, someone caught me before I fell; I don't know what the whole eye thing was about).  Anyway, then they put me in this chair with my feet elevated, and gave me this gross power drink and some Nutter Butters, and took my pulse and blood pressure, and it was really, really embarrassing.  All I could think was that I'm so glad it happened here and not when I went to give blood with my Optimal Health class last year, because if it had happened with Optimal Health class, you know I would always be "that girl who passed out after we went to give blood.  What was her name?   Curly hair, do you remember?"  And how awful would that be?

After we left the room, I almost passed out again, and a little after that my mom almost passed out as well.  Then she got mad and said they shouldn't let small people donate.  And I was like, "They don't.  We're just not small enough."

In other news, I've been trying to write my missing moment from OotP since, um, before Deathly Hallows came out, which is sort of pathetic, really.  And I've also been working on this fanmix for James and Lily for well over a month, and I'm still stuck.  I thought I was ready, but then I realized that Track 3 didn't fit at all, so I have to find another Track 3.  Because this fanmix is supposed to compare/contrast with the one I made for Snape/Lily, so it has to have nine tracks that compare/contrast with those nine tracks.  It's only nine tracks and I still can't finish it!  Which is also really pathetic.

Ah, well, such is life.

So I downloaded a bunch of Christmas music over the weekend, and my roommate hung up Christmas lights, and yesterday it rained and I turned off our room light and turned on the Christmas lights and sat on my bed and drank hot chocolate and wrote a Christmas story.  Well, that I was my plan, anyway.  What actually happened was I got about a paragraph into my story and then one of the other girls came in and somehow I got suckered into watching The Notebook for the first time.  I thought it was a huge waste of 123 minutes of my life, which apparently means I am a horrible person and hate love and will die miserable and alone.  Which I am actually totally fine with if it means I don't have to lay on greasy asphalt, or have sex (or almost have sex or whatever it is they even do in that scene) in a dirty, dusty, rotting house, or spend seven years crying and angsting and getting drunk and leading perfectly nice people on because I am pathetic and cannot get over it, dear GOD, people, it's been SEVEN YEARS, MOVE ON ALREADY!  So yes, my plans were rather thrown off.

I also read Six Characters in Search of an Author which is a really fantastic play and one I recommend to anyone who writes fiction.  A few quotes that exemplify this brilliance:

"A character, sir, may always ask a man who he is.  Because a character has a life which is truly his, marked with his own special characteristics. ... And as a result he is always somebody!  Whilst a man ... in general ... can quite well be nobody."

PRODUCER: And so you'd say that you and this play of yours that you've been putting on for my benefit are more real than I am?
FATHER: Oh, without a doubt. ... If your reality can change from one day to the next....
PRODUCER: But everybody knows that it can change like that!  It's always changing. ... Just like everybody else's!
FATHER: No, ours doesn't change!  You see, that's that difference between us!  Our reality doesn't change. It can't change. It can never be in any way different from what it is. Because it is already fixed. Just as it is. Forever!  Forever it is this reality. It's terrible! This immutable reality.  It should make you shudder to come near us!

"Authors usually hide the details of their work of creation.  Once the characters are alive ... once they are standing truly alive before their author ... he does nothing but follow the words and gestures that they suggest to him.  And he must want them to be what they themselves want to be.  For woe betide him if he doesn't do what they wish him to do!  When a character is born he immediately acquires such an independence ... even of his own author ... that everyone can imagine him in a whole host of situations in which his author never thought of placing him.  They can even imagine his acquiring, sometimes, a significance that the author never dreamt of giving him."

And the last one kind of makes me go, "Oh god, I hope fanfic-ers don't get their hands on this."  But seriously, aren't they brilliant?

So you would think that writing a short story would be the absolute perfect assignment for me.

You would think that, but you would be wrong.  Very wrong.

Here’s the problem: I am a writer.  Writing is just what I do, and I know I’m good at it.  Maybe I’m not publishable yet, but I’m working on getting there.  But anyway, because I am a writer I a) write purely for myself, b) am a perfectionist about my writing, and c) hate 90-95% of what I write anyway.  So writing a story for school is a huge problem because a) it means writing for someone else, b) I refuse to write anything unless I have a brilliant idea, and as I have no brilliant ideas, I have not written anything yet … even though the story is due Friday, and c) whatever I write I know I will hate so much I probably won’t even be able to bring myself to proofread it.

Now, I ask you, why?  There is seriously no justice in the world.  All my non-writer friends settled on ideas and began writing weeks ago; but I, the writer, haven’t even decided what to write about!  I am one of the most laidback people I know.  I’m not a perfectionist about anything … except writing.  Of all the things I have to be a perfectionist about, it had to be writing!

Of course, I know what will happen.  I will settle on a very bad idea at the last minute, and the story will be horrible, and I’ll never be able to bear looking at it again.  Which is what happened last year.  Which is what will happen every time I have an assignment like this.

Sometimes, actually being good at something is not a good thing.

Okay, so how weird is this?

1. I got dressed before noon.
2. No one had to remind me to vacuum and dust.
3. I finished my homework before dinner.
4. I read a magazine that wasn’t the Reader’s Digest.
5. I didn’t get on the Internet when I wasn’t supposed to (a first in about two years, I think).

Which is all totally bizarre, because I never get dressed before noon unless I have work/school/church; someone always has to remind me to vacuum and dust; I never finish my homework before dinner (and rarely before 11:00 pm); I don’t read any magazine except Reader’s Digest (actually, I don’t really read at all … contrary to popular belief, people who like to write do not necessarily like to read); and I am almost always on the Internet, whether I’m supposed to be or not.  So it was a very bizarre, albeit very productive day.  But the really weird thing has nothing to do with my newfound productivity.  Well, actually, it does.

You see, ever since I finished Canis Majoris (and I’m truly sorry I haven’t posted the final chapter; I’m waiting to receive the banner for it) I have had the desire to write/been getting ideas for writing/been writing like crazy.  I’ve joined two Round Robins; I’ve written a one-shot for a site project (soon to be posted at MNFF, although that wasn't the site it was written for); and I’ve gotten a crazy idea for an original story (rather akin to my story about the Clarke family, except the kids aren’t related, and instead of each one being named after a month of the year, their names are based off … er, never mind…).  In fact the only thing I haven’t been writing is Masquerade Cliché (and I really must update it soon).  Which is all very bizarre, and a bit annoying, because while I was slaving over CM I almost never wanted to write (don’t get me wrong, though, I never forced myself to write it; that would have been dreadful).

I’d like to think that finally finishing a story was a great turning point in my journey as a writer, and this happy state of affairs will last forever, but I know it won’t.  And no, I’m not being cynical.  I have, let me remind you, been writing since I was ten, and I know that this sort of thing happens.  One day, out of the blue, you want to just sit down and write, write, write; it lasts for a few weeks, maybe even a few months, and then, one day, out of nowhere, you just can’t write anymore.  The words won’t come; the ideas are stale; and the desire is all but gone (the longest I’ve ever been in this state was about six months, and I suspect it was because I was being forced to crank out, on average, one lengthy, in-depth, analytical paper a week for my English class).  Eventually, however, the desire returns, often with a vegeance.  And so, the cycle continues.

For now, however, I’m going to enjoy it.  I’m sure the new “Jacob” kids won’t mind.  And the Clarkes are probably glad of some company in Bizarro World…

My inspiration’s waning

As I sit down to write.

Just to get a simple sentence out

Will prob’ly take all night.

 

My inspiration’s fading

As my fingers begin moving.

To stop before I start to cry

Would prob’ly be behooving.

 

I try to vent frustration

In free verse most of the time.

For some reason, at the moment,

I have the urge to rhyme.

 

It really hasn’t gone so well;

This poem’s an atrocity.

Besides, I’d rather write a book

That becomes a monstrosity.

 

But my inspiration’s disappeared,

Relocated, is simply gone;

I’m sitting here asking myself,

“How did it go so wrong?”

When I first began writing stories at the tender age of ten, I saved everything I wrote on floppy discs.  Why? you might ask.  Because in those days we only had one computer, and the disc protected my stories from being read by anyone else in my family (unless they put the disc into the computer, which they easily could have done, because I left it on a shelf right next to the computer.  But I was young, and it gave me a sense of security, so there you go).  I had several floppy discs, but one in particular was special to me, because it had my favorite story on it.  It was the first story I ever wrote, and it was called People Change, and I was really, really attached to it.  But one day I put this disc into my computer so I could open up People Change and something horrible happened: The disc was blank!  All the stuff on it was gone, that's it, disappeared, nowhere to be found.  Over a year's worth of writing had vanished without a trace.  Naturally, I was upset.  But eventually I resigned myself to the fact that I was never going to see People Change again, and I began a new disc.  Over the next two years I went through five more discs, and at some point all five of these discs got erased!  Eventually I got a brain and stopped saving stuff onto discs and started saving them onto my hard drive, which was a lot safer, especially after I learned how to password protect documents.  But I still got bummed occasionally when I thought about those three years worth of writings I had lost.

So last night I was sitting at my computer.  And I was looking around the desk for something, and I saw my six old discs.  And I thought, I wonder if they still don't work.  So I picked them up and put the first one in my computer and pulled up the page that said if it had anything on it and there was People Change!  It was a very exciting moment for me.  I immediately saved all the files on that disc onto my hard drive and put in another disc.  Of the six discs I tried five of them worked.  I saved all their files onto my hard drive (in case the discs broke again in the middle of the night), and then I went to bed.

Now today I opened these files and began to read, and it made me really depressed.
Why would it make her depressed? you are asking yourself. She hasn't seen some of these for five years.
And of course you would be correct.  But you see, what is so depressing is that I was an absolutely horrible writer when I was ten.  And also when I was eleven.  And definitely when I was twelve.  And I wasn't all that great when I was thirteen.
Well, you're probably thinking, of course you weren't as good as you are now, but you were probably good for your age.
And this is what I thought at first too.  But then a horrible thought occurred to me:

When I was writing these, I thought they were good.  And I think what I'm writing now is good.  But what if, in three years, I read what I'm writing now and realize that it wasn't good?  What if I'm really horrible, but I only think I'm good, and in a few years I'll realize I'm not good?

This is a very depressing thought.  The other depressing thing about all this is that I realized that my sisters are liars!  They are liars because they told me when I was writing these things that they were good, but now I know they were lying.  This makes me really depressed.  Whom can I trust now?  Can I even trust my own abilities?  I'm bummed.  I'll just leave it at that.

Jerry the Frog Spoof Line of the Moment: Padme: What's with all this abnormally aggressive depression?
Anakin: It's all Obi-Wan's fault I'm a mass-murdering basket case!
Fans: Now we know where Luke got his whining from.

Deep Thought of the Day: Sometimes, when I reflect back on all the beer I drink, I start to feel real ashamed.  But then I look into the glass and think of all the workers in the brewery and all their hopes and dreams.  If I didn't drink this beer they might be out of worked and their dreams would be shattered!  Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true, than to be selfish and worry about my liver." ~ Jack Handy