29 January 2013

head-ramblings of a restless writer-person.

i saw this video on the internets the other day.  you seen it yet?

"...and i loooooove space jam."
you and me both, kid.

anyway, i've been thinking hard about something the kid (or whoever wrote his script?) said:

create something that will make the world awesome.


have i ever told you about my one beef about the creative writing program at arizona state?
not enough writing classes.
too many literature classes.
sometimes i'm tempted to tell people that i double-majored in literature and creative writing.
it would probably be more accurate to say that i majored in literature and minored in creative writing.
sad but true.

i have nothing against people who are literature majors.  i know a ton and they're all great people who are wayyyy more intellectual and patient than i am.  for me, the problem with the literature classes was that i felt stuck doing the same things.  it didn't seem like i was doing or making anything new.  i don't think i ever had an original thesis topic for any of the papers i wrote that hadn't already been covered by someone else in the world.  i read the same books/stories/poems over and over and over again.

writing was always different for me.  i could make something new that had never been written about before, however poorly formed/focused/described/etc it was.

i still feel that way about writing.  i struggle a lot with my own personal purposes in writing and whether or not any writer can actually be original.  and i have every skeptical eyebrow wag perfected when the desire to write something that will help people pops into my head.

but lately that desire has stuck real hard to my brain.  enough to put "write something inspirational and helpful for people" on my list of life goals.  i'm not exactly sure, but i think i mean "something" to be of a more substantial nature?  like, dare i say it, a book??  be still my soul.

crazy right?  and then i think, what could i possibly write that someone better/smarter/more skilled hasn't already said?  isn't this goal extremely literature-paper-esque?  my anti-literature-classes self is furious that this goal has been written down.

them's the breaks, i guess.

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