A Wise man once told me...
So you're a shitty writer,
well guess what? We all think that. It's part of the charm, and most of the curse. Once you've garnered your anti-social days, and have successfully converted those unused vocally stimulated hours into a garbled soup of words you once thought you'd never be able to articulate into a palpable form, you hate it. I barely read anything I've ever put out once the last punctuation has been struck-- hence all the spelling errors. This is partly out of fear that what I do read will open my eyes to the inner-being that is Mr. Fossett-- like meeting an alternate dimension version of yourself that gives you insight to how horrid of a human being you actually are. The other intestinal twisted forethought is that it may actually convince me that I am not a good wordsmith.
Our ability to continuously converse on paper is based solely on the high praises received from the tongues of others. It's why writers are terrible people. Egotistical narcissists with a sadistic trend of self-humiliation and an over-abundance of self-righteousness. Topped with a heaping pile of cynicism. Add to this distasteful recipe the longing for acceptance without the trials of friendship, and we're destined for low self-esteem. It's a beautifully ugly serenade of a mockery to what those of you who aren't us view as a daily life.
It's been a while since I actually cared enough about something to give it more than a few winks, half a nudge, and move on from. But nothing, can prepare a person for the outlandishly sinister feeling that is creative inspiration. Transferred you become. No longer a living breathing being, but rather a divine vehicle for this cluster of deduced movements that sometimes you can't even comprehend. You place yourself in front of the chosen canvas, and it all just vomits out. And the only validation that convinces us to leave that piece alone is the approval of a single human being that we deem well enough to understand some of it, yet not insane enough to fully grasp the strokes between every key-press.
"Art is never finished, only abandoned."
Want to know the best part? When we are done, we hate it. I despise these phrases even as they fly through my barely conscious mind and into this laptop. Even better, if we DON'T do it, we beat ourselves to a pulp every time the sun sets, because we should be doing it. Damned if you do, Damned if you don't. It's unfair, yet well deserved. Uncalled for, yet somehow begs to take place. And it wasn't until someone who is paid to diagnose sickness told me so, that I even noticed I had those traits.
Who can I blame for a poison in my blood that keeps me alive yet harms my very life with every moment gone by? Well there's the simple ones. My parents. Both of which are avid readers, lovers of art, and cultured souls in their own right. My dad, who's my kind of fucked up, and can weave a story that will spin your moral compass so many times round, that you'll be facing your intestines by the time you realized what was actually written. My mother, who can embrace music even more adequately than those I know in the business, a woman who can sing like there's no tomorrow, and make you forget that yesterday happened.
Then there's these folk. Influential and mind-alteringly catastrophic entities of word that molded my bewildering young mind into someone capable of supplying these empty documents with life. I take my crazy from Hunter, my structure from Ernest, my twist of words and imagery from Douglas, my thrill from Harlan, and my fearless attitude and intimate ability for realistic provocation from Anthony. My heroes. Sure, there are plenty of other people whom I've enjoyed and devoured along the way (and preferably many more to come), but there are five names that I idolize. A handful of figures and minds that I adore to the extent of flatteringly mimicking. Thompson, Hemingway, Coupland, Coben, Bourdain. Each for their own reasons, each with a piece of my heart. These are my wise men. To whom I owe a lot of sanity, and lifetime to. To which gave me medicine, patted me on my tiny ignorant head and said "boy, it's all going to be alright. this instability within you will give you everything you ever need to succeed. just look at us!" *audible exhale*
What does it look like when I bleed?
Writer to writer, it looks like you think it would. A deceased corpse slamming meat-hooks on a keyboard trying to keep the skeleton in my body from disappearing down a road more suited for it's naturally physical creation.
Human to human, it's pretty boring. I'm a non-being. A hundred songs that I love and know every hook to can pass through the air surrounding my head yet I hear not an ounce of their beautifully synced lyrics. If I'm not in a rhythm on the page, one could find that a foot attached to the bottom of my legs may bounce. A toe could dance without the heart you'd see in a disco. If I'm in a super productive swing, and the pauses in between convulsions is short, then I'm still. As still as your equilibrium is now reading this. Eyes dart, but temples float at the exact same distance from the each. Everything beyond my wrists flick and race around while that before hand remains frozen in a catatonic horror. If I was a smart man, I would take my camcorder with me to the coffee shops I frequent and revel in the gasps plastered onto onlookers. I couldn't even imagine seeing a ... thing... my stature just lifelessly lurking over a glowing screen and a flashing cursor. There's probably insane amounts of humor had at my expense. What I would give to see it just once.
Funnily enough, Vancouver seems to have a void of extremely talented writers. At least when compared to other major Metropolis in North America. Which only makes me feel more at home here. Vancouver sees its share of screenwriters, hollywood north wannabe's, but when was the last time you read something from an established Lower Mainland penman (or penwoman). There is no real tangible point to this entire paragraph, just wanted to include it as the flashing outside my apartment window distracted me from the task at hand. I'm carving a path to land on that vacancy atop your bookshelf. That void among the spines that irks you with every consideration.
This, being the first meaningful thing I've made in months, feels good. I missed you. I'm a weird version of me lately, and I am not too keen on keeping it that way. I sit here, as I attempt to get back on my vaporizer, smokeless in a 24 hour period, panting at the thought that once again the world wide web will be privy to my thoughts, anxiously awaiting the arrival of my dear Maradona, so I can finally enjoy the Chili being brewed, that I've had to inhumanely smell for the past three hours plus. Two months into a new day job that not only sucks all of the politeness out of my system by the time I get home (to which forces my relationship to suffer), but also relieves me the burden of having any sort of self-confidence. Experience-wise, I couldn't have asked for a better story, but for mental stability, it has been an abomination. A detrimental spiral downwards. As I've seen every major hurdle that was once overcome fly through my view and back into territory where I will once again have to deal with defeating it.
I pray, to whatever deity will listen at this point (I'm sure that I will permanently receive the cold shoulder from some), that I can take yet another bump. Growing further and beyond the means of a man-child with my exploits. What I've become, what I'll still see, where I'll end up; all of these things astonish me. Which is why I try to ignore them in theory. It doesn't always work like that. I'm proud enough to start writing, smart enough to walk away at the right moment, and bold enough to let you read it.
Until next time,
"My friend here's trying to convince me that any independent contractors who were working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when it was destroyed by the Rebels." - Clerks