A Pause

Writing will never leave me.  I know that now, more so than ever before.  It is intrinsic in my natural, my being to be able to make words out of what I'm feeling.  To put myself in haunting places and scenarios, places I may never even dream of being, but it is where my characters take me.

I used to worry when I didn't write for days on end - that this was it.  That was the last thing I would even put down on paper, into words.  But more often, now, I find myself ever forming stories - random bits and pieces that I come across throughout the day, ways to keep my brain entertained - and sometimes, on the moped ride home, I create fabulous lyrics, ones that can never be heard again by anyone but myself as I sing softly along with the hum of my motor.

I worry less because this is me, it's what I do.  My day job, whatever it may be, will never change the solid fact that I am a writer.  When I stop writing, it is my pause, my time to reflect, my moments to gather myself for the tasks ahead.  Although, I feel more of a desire to finish my unfinished pieces than ever before, I still don't have the motivation and drive to sit down and produce them.  But the desire is there, hungry, gnawing away at my heart valves.  One of them will burst someday and a fountain of words will spill out onto the page in a unyielding, passionate rage.

Until then, I will sit down and read my books, watch my television, and be the constant observer of people, facial expressions, conversations that shouldn't be overheard.  I am the creep that sits by you at lunch staring into the distance, a long look on her face, and you wonder - is this girl listening to us?  Yes, in fact, she hears every single word.  When you look away, she studies your face, feels your voice and your words, takes in your essence, only to use it some day, covering the white blank page with your secrets, or words inspired by your secrets.  And you'll never think, connect two and two together, that she was there while you were conversing with your co-worker, that you, in fact, inspired her.

I am the quiet observer, and I'm taking my time off from writing to gather new materials, new phrases, new words to stitch together my sentences. 

In the past three days, I have read the Young Adult novel FLIP, by Martyn Bedford, and half of Ender's Game.  I haven't felt this desire to read since I was much younger.  Maybe that's why my characters have been lacking - I haven't kept up myself.  I feed off of words formed by others, I am motivated by seeing, devouring finished pieces of work - I see and feel all the possibilities of my own life, my own ideas, just by reading.

FLIP was actually pretty good.  The one downfall of most YA Fiction is the lack of intelligence in the characters.  I really think we should be challenging young readers - especially if we assume that these readers are high school, maybe middle school level.  When I was in ninth grade, I had finished Moby Dick - and at that point in my life, yes, it was the most boring read ever - but looking back, it was a huge challenge.  I learned so much from just one challenging book.  That's not to say that FLIP is bad, I guess I was just hoping for a more challenging read.  And yes, I'm an adult, but I was reading books like this in sixth grade.  The concept - awesome, the characters - great, believable.  I think it is definitely worth the read, especially if you do have a child, you should get them to pick it up.  It is probably one of the more solid YA Fiction novels to come out in awhile.

As for Ender's Game - I am so upset that I didn't read this earlier.  I cannot put it down.  So many of my friends read it before me and I always wanted to get around to it.  But I thought, "Well, I'm not THAT much into Science Fiction, so maybe later."  Then I started reading it.  Goodness, it is like The Giver meets space, meets some crazy Ayn Rand novel, meets awesomeness.  Honestly, if you like Sci-Fi, you need to read it.  I found it in the Classics section at the Library (which is, ironically, in the corner, stuffed next to the YA section).  I have three more YA books coming my way - and as long as I'm reading, I might not be writing, but I am creating vastly new universes for myself.

If nothing else, I will at least review what I am reading until I feel the urge to write.  Once I'm back, I'll come back with a huge vengeance.  That's a promise.

The Empty Page

Dazing, empty page,
Empty words, thoughtless phrases,
Pushing, rotating, drifting,
The heat of worry,
Shoved forward - what if
These are no good - what if
They do not convey
All rushing thoughts
My dreams portrayed
With all to bear,
And we move - what if
They do not say - what if
This is needed
End of the day
Dusky clouds, floating
Thoughts, roaming dreams
Curling the muse up,
How it ought to be,
This is me,
Dazing, empty pages.

Jaden

            The lights went down and the energy in the club instantly dwindled to nothing.  I turned on my heels and started walking out the door.  I hesitated for a moment.  What if I'm right, what if he is?  I glanced back to the stage and looked him over - brown hair covering his dark, brooding eyes.  His ripped jeans, his cruddy band t-shirt, everything about him breathed some weird kind of oozing sex drive.  I couldn't peel my eyes off of him.  But I saw the way he interacted with his band mates.  No, he was just another guy, just one of the guys.  And they had their girl groupies already approaching them.  So, I finished my walk out the door and started towards the subway. 

            The street had cleared up a lot in the few minutes that I had hung around.  Thing was, no one wanted to be around here at night - it was the shit part of the city.  Dirty streets, dirty people, and well, me.  I wasn't necessarily dirty, but I'm never going to admit to being the cleanest guy in all of the town either.  But this was also where all the violence happened - and that's what I was thinking about "Geez, I hope no one decides to attack me" when I got dragged into an alleyway by my collar.

            A sharp pain shot through my side, knocking the wind out of me.  "Fucking faggot."  I opened my mouth to scream and felt cold fists cut through my skin, at least it felt that way.  It felt like my head was splitting in two, it felt like my body had given up.  I was caught completely off guard, and I wasn't a fighter anyway.  I was that kid that sat in middle, listened to his parents, and did alright by what "society taught me."  My teachers would call me "goal-oriented."  Hey, no gay bashers, it's totally cool, I'm goal-oriented.  I'm going to give back to society.  Please stop beating me up.  I couldn't even bring my ears to hear what they were yelling, or listen to myself as I sputtered sick copper tasting blood over the pavement.  

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I got stuck creatively.  I continued to write some nonsensical things in a document until something more came out.  This is actually a piece about one of my characters from my novel.  The main character, and the first person, is this guy Anthony - who Jaden meets after this unfortunate incident.  But I felt like, maybe, I should get a better look inside my other character's heads, especially since I can't really write anything right now, this is a good exercise.

But a fun except out of my struggling process:

Tapping my fingers to the sounds of Our Lady Peace thudding through my speakers.  Here I am, now where are you?  The brilliant, creative spirit that has been giving me so much motivation, so many words, and so many ideas.  Here is my time, it's on a platter, open to whatever you feel like filling it with.

Waits.

Waits.

Waiting.

Fine.  I tap my fingers some more at you Sir and/or Madam!

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And later: 

RAWR.

RAWR RAWR RAWR.  This is the most frustrating, non-creative day I've had in a very long time.  I'm still convincing myself that if I keep writing something good will happen because of it.  Something good usually happens when I keep writing.  I just have to focus, breathe, fill my energy with positive, "You can totally do it!" thoughts.

Different music.

And so the process goes :)