Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Being a writer (trails of thought)

Has it really come to this?

Fresh out of college, three drinks in, and my shirt seems to be unusually aloof - this is the part of writing they never tell you about. The blogger - read: me - was not a course offered at my school. Perhaps it should have been. You'd think the late college nights would prepare a young, boyish writer for what may happen around the next bend. I just never thought "the next bend" translated into writer's block and eye strain. The hunched back was also a hidden bonus.
The blog reader - read: yourself - trolls the internet looking for tasty articles to snack on. Maybe it helps with those silence-breakers around your work's water cooler. Maybe it's for some hot date you have planned (read: unlikely). But that's OK. I'm here and I won't judge you. At least not until I get to know you. Hey, I'm just being honest. You're the one reading my blog. I didn't ask you to come here. But since you are here why don't you stay a while and poke around.
I talk to myself to motivate myself. Think of it as a personal trainer. One that has seen me naked. Do you ever look at yourself in the mirror and think upgrade? Jesus, if only I had the time. And I do, which makes all the staring all the sadder.
Wasn't this supposed to be an article on Beck's new album? Sheesh, what have I been rambling on about for 15 minutes? Has it even been 15 minutes? That's another thing: deadlines, they no longer exist when you're unemployed. You could work on some 5-pager for a week, a month, a year if you wanted to. Sure, you'll feel like shit when you're half a page in and it's already July but it's still an option. No one's telling you what to do.
This is hell, or at least one of the outer rings. I had always pictured hell as this very cavernous, smokey lair; almost cartoonish. Now I think it looks a little more like life without boundary, without order (read: chaos). Chaos has an overwhelming ability to seduce and (as the name implies) implode your sense of order. Sure, when I was 17 and had plenty of the opposite, chaos seemed like the obvious choice. It was the different that made all the difference. But now, twenty-two and topless, a little bit of a balance would be welcomed warmly.

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