Sunday, May 6, 2007

"Dude..."

"...your last blog post was lame. Sorry."

Who cares? You might say that if I keep writing lame blog posts, no one will want to read it. Why would they want to read lame posts?

Well, why the hell would they want to read interesting posts? Why does anyone want to do anything? I honestly don't care. I don't care if you're entertained or provoked into some deep philosophical thought. Guess who has their name at the top of the page? Isn't you, sweetheart.

Anyway.

I've been thinking a lot about Grad school. More importantly, I've been thinking about what specifically I want to accomplish at Grad school. Looking at the requirements for most Creative or Professional writing programs, it seems finishing a novel of some sort (genre fiction or what have you) is the big one. Do I have ideas for books? Sure.

It's a very intimidating thing to actually explore an idea to the end. I've always been high concept, low application. I would much rather plan something in my head and ponder the concept than actually make it a physical reality. I can handle quitting but rarely can I handle failing. Embarrassing truth. This is something I have to fix.

The style of my writing does not match the style of my thought. That might sound confusing and trust me it is. I cannot help but be "funny" Andy when I write assignments, short stories, etc. These are the pieces people respond to. Everyone wants to know about the time I nailed my mother's friend or the time I saw a homeless person reading the Da Vinci Code on the London Underground or the time I crashed through a girl's window in the middle of having sex.

It's fun to write those stories. But is that what I dream of writing? I don't really think so. The problem is, I tried to write the stories I had in my head. They didn't work. I'm becoming a typecast simulacrum of myself. I went to see an author speak on our campus recently and he kept saying..."Don't write for your audience, write for you."

That's fine and dandy...but he's already successful.