A Promise

Today I went out and got myself a notebook in which to do all my creative writing stuff. That will be it's sole purpose. This is to avoid the massive spread of writing projects I have all over the place. The bigger projects, like the radio play and novels and what not, will probably still be in different notebooks. But this one will be for short stories, random ideas, etc.

Notebook and Pens!

I plan on writing at least some every day. Some of it might make it on here. It'll be really exciting!

A Farewell

I have just discovered through Facebook that my grandparents are giving away the toys that have been in their house for not only my entire life, but also the majority of my parents' lives. They're the toys that entertained me and my cousins for hours on end during family reunions and visits. It's weird.

I've never really considered myself to be that nostalgic. I have memories I enjoy, yes. But I've rarely just sat around and reminisced about the good old days. This year seems to have started that. I suppose it makes sense, as it is truly the end of the first part of my life. I've had many little milestones in between. Learning to walk, going to school, birthdays, driving, my first novel. All that good stuff. But it really all has been just the beginning. After graduation, it'll basically be shoved into a little box labeled "childhood" to be brought out for the youngins way on down the road. I'm not sad about leaving it behind, really. But it's a weird feeling, when you realize what's about to happen. All the familiar things will be gone. It's a whole new world.

Let's kick it's ass, shall we Reader?

Write for your life

I had exciting plans for tonight, really. I just can't do them anymore. I'll probably just play League of Legends and sit around writing stuff all night. It'll be really exciting. Yep.
Anyways, since I'm currently trapped at my house I'll explore a really exciting topic with you, dear Reader. For once, it won't be the future, which is something I usually write about on here. Instead, I'll do a weird sort of self description and write about writing.

Awhile back I did something called NaNoWriMo and I wrote a novel. It was a very exciting time for me and I felt accomplished and intelligent and dedicated and all sorts of good feelings. It's been the first time in a long time I've really gotten into one single activity with intense dedication to the exclusion of a fair amount of sleep and time with family/friends. It felt good, really good, to have that kind of dedication to something. It made me, for a short time, contemplate a career in writing of some kind. Maybe novels, maybe television, maybe movies. Who knows. But that idea was pretty much abandoned shortly thereafter in favor of more realistic and practical career options. Like teaching and such. After all, when my parents and relatives and other such people ask what I want to do with my life, saying "I'm going to be a writer" make them ask other questions about what I want to write. And they'll want to see the other stuff I've written. And so on and so forth, going down a slippery slope into annoying relatives.

That, and the fact that I don't have the confidence in my own abilities necessary to say that I want to make a living purely off my ability to entertain and dazzle people with my words. I like words, I like messing with them, and I speak and write fairly eloquently. According to others I do, anyways. But to make a living off that is kind of a scary thought. And it seems almost unnatural, really, to do something that you would be doing anyways in order to earn money. Seriously, it seems too good to be true. Like the people who do write for a living must suffer some horrible price in order to do so. Do you have to sell your soul in order to be a writer? I might go for that deal if I could be the next Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman. A lack of self confidence is sort of a running theme in my life. It's rather unfortunate.

I re-read some of my novel, titled "Jump!", today. It's actually not awful. Significant improvements to be made are glaringly obvious, but still. I didn't hate the idea, and even some of the writing seemed to flow surprisingly well. But it's still difficult to say that it would be at all a viable option for my livelihood.

I want to make people laugh and think about things. But so do a lot of people. I don't think I can beat them.
Why does it always come down to who can beat who, Reader?*

*I lied. It ended up pretty much being about my future. Damn it.

Mormon dances and radio plays

On Saturday, I went to a Mormon dance with a group of people, including Samantha. It was quite an experience. I realize that when saying that, it sort of sounds negative. But I don't mean it in a negative way. I mean ii in a very positive way, actually. It was a really fun time. Not at all the weirdness you may imagine going down. There was nothing in the way of grinding, which was awesome. They had a varied music selection, which was also awesome. It was a lot of fun.
The biggest difference is the expectation to dance with a different partner every time a slow song comes on. It wasn't as awkward as I thought it might be going in. People don't make a big deal out of it, since they do it all the time. I got to meet a variety of rather interesting girls, especially one who did this weird bounce thing the entire song. She certainly had character. And, apparently, 7 guitars. A pretty awesome collection, though questionable in its usefulness. That's kind of the point of a collection though, I believe. Another one was currently in the cast of her highschool's production of Hairspray*, and another looked extremely familiar but I couldn't tell where from. Anyways, from the guy's perspective it wasn't that bad, provided that you could work up the confidence to get over the initial culture difference. For guys who were used to it, I would think it would just be kind of fun. I do wonder what it would be like for the girls though, since they're expected to wait to be asked. Although one girl did grab me randomly for the last dance of the night.** I felt that similar selfconsciousness thing last year for the Sadie Hawkins dance, and I could imagine it not being pleasant to feel every time a slow song came on. I wonder if Mormons ever do a Sadie Hawkins thing for every song? If not, they should. That could be interesting.
I could talk about the spring charity dance here, but I won't. I'll save that for later. There are radio plays to discuss.
Samantha and I plan on writing a radio play about awesome stuff that'll be awesome. It should be fun. And challenging. It'll be an entirely different experience than novel writing. My dream is for it to appear on NPR. My life will be complete if it goes on This American Life.
Keep on dancing, dear Readers.

*Don't worry, I broke out singing "Welcome to the 60's". You may continue your lives un-panicked.
**I like to believe it was because of my immense levels of attractiveness.

A Lack of Posts

The one act play is now over, meaning I have some semblance of a life outside of theater now. It's a bit weird, actually. So much free time. I spent the majority of it so far watching all the Dr. Who specials, and I've now officially caught up on the series up to season 5. Which isn't on Netflix yet. That is a problem. Although when I think about it, it's probably a good thing. Otherwise it would consume every free moment I have. My friends and family would probably get a little irate.
One act ended fairly well. Our score was a lot lower than I think we should have gotten, but it hardly matters. The last performance went phenomenally and the audience loved it. We got superior awards in a lot of things, including staged fighting. We did the best we could and, to be honest, another week of one act would see a lot of burning out with a lot of the cast and crew. It would have been totally awesome to make it to states, but it would have been stressful as well.
Other recent news... well, there was Valentine's Day. I didn't do anything particularly out of the ordinary. Just hung out with my significant other and watched some movies and talked. Really, I think those moments are the best. Relaxing and fulfilling, along with giving you the chance to vent or discuss or geek out about whatever you want. Some people like their elaborate plans, but I like just being there.
Swim unit in gym. Ergghhh. It's not awful, I suppose, but it just brings out all those little insecurities you have about your own image. You realize just how skinny, pale, and awkward looking you are in comparison to the other boys. I've never been hugely worried about my image and even now it's not a huge concern. It's just one of those wonderful little things about high school and adolescence in general; it's nearly impossible to be comfortable with one's own body. We get over that eventually though. The main concern of mine is that it's rather cold when I get out of the pool, and people steal my towels.
Musical is starting. How excited am I? Really frickin' excited. I love musical. It's a whole bunch of fun and almost as much in the way of jazzhands. Life gets no better.
More regular posts from here on out, I think. Until hell week cometh, when I will post pretty much nothing.
Sing on, dear readers.

On the Future: How it Terrifies and Excites

The future is an exciting place. I plan to visit it one day. Perhaps tomorrow.

The future is basically all I've been thinking about lately, for good reason. As stated many times before, I will graduate in not too long. And when that happens, the controlled and regulated part of my life ends. Not entirely; after all, college has advisors and stuff to help you along. But basically, I'm getting tossed into something that my whole life has prepared me for.... not at all. If my stepmother decides to read this (she's read my rants before, so I might as well acknowledge it), I'd like to make the point that independence has really never been cultivated in me. I've more or less had to force it along in what seems to be opposition to my parent's general will. Not the kind of independence where I get a job and do my own laundry or anything. I mean real independence. Thinking for yourself, coming up with plans, experimenting with stuff. Doing one's own laundry and being able to put up with mindless drone work is important. Sure it is. But it's not really what gets people where they want to get. They're sort of the things you can figure out as you go along, hopefully without mishap.

Not that kind of independence. I refer to the independence that makes people point at something and say "I want to do that" and then go out and figure out a way to do it. The whole school structure and the way people are encouraged to raise children touts how it stimulates creativity and whatnot. But I've mostly just found it to be rather confined. Giving you one assumed avenue for success. And for a lot of people, it works. Maybe not perfectly, but it works. I'd love to have the confidence to say "fuck it" to the whole idea of a linear path to suburbia and do something extraordinarily exciting with my life. But that's not the kind of person I've been raised to be. I can talk about it. But I'd probably never be able to achieve it.*
So I'll keep on the whole college bound path thing. Maybe I secretly wish they'd kick me out so that I'm forced to do something new and interesting. But it's far more likely that I just gravitate towards the nearest locus of order and stability. Even if I don't really fit there. Maybe that's why the college selection process was easy for me?
None of them really fit.

Self confidence is the key, dear readers.


*This ironic summing up of the problem is... well, ironic.