back in about 3rd or 4th grade (maybe both), wednesday afternoons were pretty light. kids could go to religious education classes at their local churches if they wanted to (or their parents wanted them to). i never had to go. there were only a few of us that didn't go, so we basically had wednesday afternoons to just play.
i used to write little stories. only two of them i remember clearly. one was about a knight that had to slay a dragon and rescue a princess. the other was about a group of us (the wednesday kids) that found a cave and went on a fantasy voyage to get back to our little burg of hibbing.
there was a program called HAT. hibbing academically talented. i got to go. i was in the creative writing class. we met once a week and wrote and did little mind puzzles to make us think "outside the box." there was another HAT class. the math and science class. i wanted to be in that class, but i was stuck in writing.
i had the notion back then that an artist couldn't change the world. you needed to be the guy to invent cold fusion or faster than light travel or the president to do that. now i think that one person can't change the world. one idea, maybe, but you need a lot of people behind that idea to change our world.
i wanted to be in the science and math program so i could hone those skills. i groomed my education to reflect that fact. i took all the science and math i could in high school. i focused on the sciences and not the arts. i actually only took one art class in high school and it was computer graphics. go figure. i gave up on my writing and looked to formulas and theories instead.
i still read as much as i did when i was younger, but the books were about quantum physics or mathematics (i own a book about the history of zero) instead of just plain stories.
turning my mind's eye back (with its wonderful 20/20), i see that maybe i shouldn't have given up on the arts. maybe i should have stayed with the writing. my dream job for the last couple years would to be a free-lance editorial columnist. not so much creative writing, but the word would be my paycheck.
it's only been in the last year or so that i've begun to think of the art of writing as a serious pursuit.
i don't know what i can write, though. maybe that's why there is no direction to this blog, i'm still trying to find out what i'm supposed to do with the ideas and words and sentences floating through my conscious and just below it.
in my head i come up with fantasic stories. usually about me doing something in the future that is cool or heroic or world-changing or would just make a good movie for a saturday matinee. i have a few that i play over and over again. refining details here and there. changing the characters to fit people in my life at the moment. building it so the story is more real.
but i hit a snag when i try to get the story out of my head. the ink doesn't flow as well as my thoughts. my train of thought is lacking exits to the external world. maybe i'll write that novel, maybe i won't. hell, it might turn into a book of poetry if that's all i can produce.
all i know is if i keep turning the valve a little bit and release more of my mind out into print, i'll hit a critical point where the flow just busts open and then you'll hear about my pulitzer.
No comments:
Post a Comment