Mag Light Masterpiece (Autobiography)

"It was Saturday night in America, and I felt like a native son." 

~Hunter S. Thompson

I have always loved the written word. As far back as I can recall, I loved to read. I cannot explain in words (which is an odd thing for a writer to say) how much enjoyment I have received, and how much I truly care, about the written word. As a matter of fact, the only reason that I don't pursue it as a career is because I'm a goddamned coward. 

I guess that my first experiences with writing came at an early stage in the middle school "development cycle." I understood words and how they fit together better than most of my peers. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that all of my best times in any of my schooling years were the times when I was doing some sort of writing or literature class. I loved reading the books that were mechanically handed out to me by Mr. and Ms. Whoever, and the fact that I had to write papers that not only explained that I was fully and cognitively aware of what I had just ingested, but also damned near blew whatever poor bastard that was teaching the class away. It was like my own personal middle finger to the rest of my teachers in whose classes I was miserably failing, either due to lack of interest, or whatever happened to be going on in the nightmare of my life at the time. Not only were these things important to me, but on some level reading and writing were not only a means of escape, but they were a way to completely express myself. I was at once free of all inhibitions, yet completely escaping the madness of the yahoos around me. 

As we take a trip forward in the Way Back Machine, you'll notice that I have brought us across the days of youth (which was ripe with ideas, fantasies and poorly conceived short stories), and landed us right in the middle of bad poetry Hell. I'm sure that if Dante had still been a functioning member of our planet, he would have edited his great work to include one last circle of the Inferno: my teenage poetry. This was the worst kind of slop that you can feed swine and have it survive. I'm not exactly sure what made this acceptable to me at the time. Perhaps it got me somewhere, but I don't recall it all at this point. I just remember that it was a dark time. A time when the page all but pulled back from my approaching pen in horror and disgust. Oddly enough, this was probably the most important thing to ever happen to my writing. Through all the bourgeois and bullshit, I actually found out (though it took me quite a bit of time) that I loved to write poetry. I guess if I'm to be honest, I could basically just write whatever collection of sentence fragments and lopsided ideas that I wanted to parade to people of that (the poetic) kind, and they would always find some deep and intrinsic meaning in it, even I was just completely wasting time. I was a goddamned folk hero to these people and it was quite a thrilling sensation. Through this walkway of smoke and mirrors, I finally found a group of people who were actually good at doing this sort of thing. The poetry, I mean. I should probably take a second here to explain that I was actually making rounds in my home town, reading this awful jazz to people and even doing open mics, slams and whatnot. Through these individuals, I gained a bit of knowledge on how to actually pulverize people with timing, alliteration, metaphor, clever subtext and specific writing style. It was then that I knew....I just fucking knew, that I would be doing this for the rest of my life. And not much has changed.

To be honest, if it weren't for taking ENG 101 because I had to, I probably wouldn't be here. Denise Wilson basically talked me into taking this course because I had such a great time with writing again after such a break from it. Well, not really a break. I write. Often. I still write poetry from time to time, though it has all seemed to take on this "Me vs. Whatever Is Out There" tone to it. I'm an active maker of music and writer of lyrics, as well. It's something else that the gentlemen poets of North Carolina got me into. So there is plenty of practice going on. I guess I just hadn't written anything about anything in quite some time. While I fully appreciate the artistic side of writing, I feel that there is much more that goes into writing something that is meant to be delivered on a deadline and with a content specific theme to it. You really have to understand what you're trying to convey and form it into a manner that is understandable by anyone who happens to pick it up. That being said, as of today I am taking another step into the growth of one of my favorite ways to spend time. I can only hope that my level of skill and my ability to function within said parameters are the better for it. 

I fail at punctuation, my grammar is absolutely unforgivable and I don't have an objective bone in my typing fingers, but this is the time when I feel the most alive. I actually lie to people and tell them that it's when I'm cooking (don't tell that to my culinary instructors, though), because I just don't have it in me to pursue a career in writing. I don't know where to start, that is. Perhaps I'll write a cookbook. Or become one of those assbag food critics. Either way, I'm in this for the long haul. Professional, amateur, "artist." I am writer.