For all of you

But mainly Jessica, as she reminded me that I still have this. That in turn reminded me that I have yet to really write anything, I’ve been talking about it a lot though.

I was thinking about how I had decided to start my story, thanks to my friend Dave, it would start in a few places. It makes sense, I had tons of ideas, but none that were really good. I wanted to start it in a coffee shop, on a bus ride home, in a bar, blah blah. Why not do all? Right? Yeah. sort of like “It could have started here, it could have started there, it may have started everywhere, but where it it started it sure as hell started with a bang!” Right, get it? Done right, which shouldn’t be too hard, it should work pretty well. It’s an easy fix, I’ve got a bunch of lame ideas that I couldn’t do anything with, so instead of coming up with a one good idea, just use all my lame ideas to make one awesome idea. We can hope.

But then I got sidetracked, by what you ask? Black beans and corn. No joke. Black beans and corn. It’s a pretty killer combo, and it’s easy to see that I would get sidetracked by their team effort of awesome. It’s not a bad thing, as now I have a new beginning, to nothing. It’s not replacing the above mentioned start(though maybe this is my idea that doesn’t suck), it’s just a pretty decent introduction to two characters, involving 4AM, too much alcohol, a confused, but not surprised girlfriend, and a pretty cool guy making black bean and corn salsa for the chips that he bought earlier that day.

Seriously, BBandC, what amazing feat will that accomplish next? Ending the war? Maybe. BBandC, you could turn them into super hero’s, their arch nemesis could be frozen green beans or something.

Oh wow, I could totally just use both of these ideas. You know, at the same time. Awesome.

Brendan Kelly,

Writes an amazing blog, The Bad Sandwich Chronicles. It’s very funny, interesting, and sometimes well written. This line though, in one of his latest entries, stood out to me.

“Life is one gigantic crappy line after another, get used to standing here.”

So true. Not to be negative or anything, but how many times have you used your best line? Well shit, it’s your best right? I’d use it all the time. And probably have. This blog is about writing, not using lines in real life. But still. It’s all the same. Using clever lines to attract a girl, or a reader. You just want them to like you long enough to finish softly caressing your pages with their fingers, to get a good idea about the body of your work, right?

Well, personally, I’ve stolen countless lines. From movies, from songs, from books. Any girl I’ve ever won over to my side of the bed can tell you that much(not all of them, just the smart ones).

I think what I’m trying to get at, aside from how much I like that line(and will probably, unintentionally, steal it in some way shape or form), is that there is something very fake behind this life, and these words. It’s not just me, it’s not just you, everything comes from somewhere else. All these ideas for new books, and what not, are just recycled from everything else you’ve read. All the lines that get the girl are just the left overs from prior trial and error. You take what works, and make it your own. That’s what I do.

I kind of went off here, once again this blog turned into more than I intended.

I’m not alone.

It took E.B. White 3 years to write Charlotte’s Web.

I’m not the only one who writes slow. Maybe I should try writing about farm animals and then I could actually get something done.

My muse

What’s your muse? Mine is a total lack of anything I feel is worth putting effort into. That happens, and then I write. Actually, there have been a few things that have happened lately to spark my writing. My computer died, taking with it every word I ever wrote that was worth a damn, and some other things that I will blog about in the future, as this blog is quickly becoming longer than I had originally intended.

The computer, as made obvious by the fact that I am once again blogging, has been brought back to life. My hard drive kicked the bucket last week, and I just got it back from being fixed (I’ve been bathing in warm internet ever since). Losing my hard drive was huge though, sure I had literally days of music and what not (until now, I backed nothing up), but all that I can get back from friends and family. More important is all my writing that was lost. Seriously, it’s like Shakespeare’s house burned down, only I didn’t make up as many words (more than that, I’m not half the writer he was). Imagine though, that someone kept a journal for years, of all they’re ideas, thought, musings, hates, loves, wants, needs, and then their house burned down. That’s sort of what this is like for me. All my writing was really any thought I’d ever had that was worth a damn.

Honestly I haven’t written anything of substance in a long time. My head has been full of grand ideas, and better things to do, so not much has gotten done in my small world of James. I wrote all my ideas down though, something would jump into my head and I’d write a page or two, maybe less maybe more. What sucks the most though, is my Zombie story. My Zombie story was kind of epic, for me anyway. I had been writing in for about a year, given that amount of time I got very little done, I’m slow at everything I do. I had somewhere between 15 to 20 pages. 2 chapters and then some, a prologue, and some filthy ideas for the future. Then I got this great idea to rewrite it, with just a slight twist to everything I had already written. This of course was a struggle, and never got done. It was the soul reason I stopped writing it, my need to rewrite it, and my lack of want to do so. I MAY have a hard copy of the first chapter kicking around somewhere, hopefully at least some notes. FUCK.

Some good has come out of the death of my life though (that’s a lie, but I’m trying to be optimistic), my ideas are working again. Going back to my muse, I’ve reached that place of boredom with myself, and have come up with the outline of the new main character for my zombie story. There is a lot crawling around in my head right now, it will be fantastic, should I ever get around to writing it. It will be better the second time around, it was a portrait of what life once was, and a lot has changed since then. In many ways it’s going to be darker, slower, more violent, and angrier, but trust me, it will be happier too.

My writing.

I am at an awkward place with my writing, I am not totally comfortable with myself as a writer. One would think that this is normal, it’s almost like growing up, just growing as a writer. Only, I have grown as a writer, many times, moving forward, and backwards. You see, it’s not that I don’t like my writing, as I’d think you’d assume, seeing as how no one my age seems to ever think they are good enough. Well, excuse me for sounding pretentious, but I think my writing is pretty good (ha).

Having said that, I’m aware of most of my flaws. I know that I am terrible with punctuation, and that having my friends edit for me will not work forever. I know that I need to write more often, if only just to keep my vocabulary, and my charm fresh. And well, lets be honest, sometimes I just have bad ideas.

Those things aside, I have one problem that I can’t seem to just fix with a little effort. Writing for me, and for all writers, I assume, is deeply personal. Everyone writes about what they know, whats happened to them, their trip to the grocery store, the girl they met at the bar, yada yada yada. Every book you’ve ever read has truth behind it. My problem being, I can’t get past it. No matter how fictional I make the piece of writing itself, I can’t help but see the truth behind it. And from that point, I’m stuck. I just hate the thought of people reading the things I write. It’s like an open door to all the things I don’t tell people, and no matter how fictional I make it, I have yet to move past that fact.

This blog, however, is intended to help me work through that issue. I will post my writing on here, maybe. But I will, at least, post my ideas and my troubles.

New Blog.

This blog is new for me. I’m pretty sure I tried to use it a while ago, inspired by how much I love Sarah Lane’s blog, but shied away because it cost money. I might be totally lying about that, but I’m pretty sure it’s true. Regardless, it’s free now. So here I am, I just so happened to stumble upon it, and I have decided to try it out.

As far as a real point to having two blogs, I’m not sure how it will turn out. Like I said above, I love Sarah Lane’s blog, I have been reading since before I’ve had a blog. Soooo, I’ve just had this love affair with this blog site. There are a few things that could happen here:

I could just lose interest, and forget about it.

Use it the way I intended to use my blogspot blog, and JUST post writing, writing ideas, or even just thoughts on writing, keeping my blogspot blog for other blog-like purposes.

Or I could love this blog so much that I just choose to switch completely, leaving blogspot in the dust with all the other trendy people on it. This however, is not likely.

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