Dispatches from an Ex-Creative Writing Enthusiast

So I was cleaning out some of my folders to create hard drive space and came across the following beginning of a story. I think it’s interesting for a few reasons. First, to the extent that it represents a part (stress: part) of myself, “drawing” should be substituted by “writing” and “listening to music and pretending I could articulate creativity in that way, while simultaneously regretting quitting piano in seventh grade.” But, less obviously, it reflects portions of me in form as well as content.

The document title is “Firsts.” That’s because the concept of new beginnings was intended to frame the protagonist’s love of drawing in terms of each drawing containing a new possibility for the world. As the plot progresses, (though I don’t recall really coming up with too many specifics on that front) he interprets each event as either more or less conducive to being reconstructed into something new.

That I never really got further than I have (and certainly never conceived of an appropriate ending) is reflective of the way in which the concept itself is intriguing to me. It’s an idea, wrought out of an impetus to rearticulate a notion, creating something new and mine out of it. Once, by writing the introduction, I had created something new, moving forward seemed redundant. A new beginning contains no implication of closure.

At this point, I run the risk of turning this self-critique into a manifesto for why I shouldn’t finish what I start (the lack of dedication is symbolic, bro). That’s not quite what I’m saying. I do hope to finish it sometime, though that probably won’t happen anytime soon. It’s more, to me, an observation about the difficulty of applying focus in circumstances in which it seems irrelevant or even counterproductive. It’s also a comment on the transparency of whatever results when that focus is not applied. Finally, it’s an open question as to whether that transparency in form is really so bad:

“Firsts”

So have you ever noticed how it feels when you’re drawing something and you focus really hard on it and then finally look up? Like that’s the moment you realize the outside world exists—just then, at that moment. Not that you actually didn’t know it existed, but that you suddenly remember that you are, in fact, where you are.

I crave the feeling. It gives me hope in where I am, and with reconciling that place with where I could be. And I really do like the idea of raising my head after drawing and suddenly being exposed to a sun with a shine that actually feels warm. I draw to articulate my stimulation from the external world, and, somehow, I expect it to pay me back for the trouble. I really do. Every time I expect that sun.

Most times I draw pictures of myself, except I have longer bangs. They have a really unique wave to them, like the sand on those beaches you’ve probably seen on calendars somewhere. The sprawling ones that look like they’re spooning with this clear, sexy body of water. It seems impossible that there would actually be real beaches like that since human activity would ruin their wavy perfection, right? Maybe someone decided to set aside some beaches, to be curvy and spoon and look perfect.

My hometown has no beaches. There are two sandbars and just enough grass growing on the first that I’m not sure if it’s a grassy sandbar or a sandy grassbar. One time we—me and my friend Jeff—we tried to pick all the grass out of the first sandbar but we had to stop because we weren’t sure where to put all the grass. We didn’t want a big grass pile on our sandbar, and the river had enough shit floating in it already. We kind of just left it halfway, with some grass scattered around and making the river a little bit more opaque, and I went home feeling bummed out. All my life I’ve wanted to take things, put them aside and make them good: that means not unfinished, confusing, or indistinguishable from how they were.

But I digress. I swear it’s not just escapism that accounts for my love of drawing (though sometimes I do like to pretend I work for a plastic surgeon, sitting there in the operation room, sketching my suggestions to the doctor and patient’s family). It fucking definitely isn’t talent that drives me, either. I don’t have the attention span or manual dexterity to make my pictures lifelike, nor do I have the dedication to craft these shortcomings into a cohesive style. Revisiting my pictures is like looking at bird shit on your windshield after a long drive. You can tell everything came from different places, but none of the variation matters because it’s all equal manifestations of Unwanted.

So why do I do it? I mean, to keep the metaphor going, I guess I’m waiting until I come up with some windshield wipers, right? Something to make my world better, and to make all its imperfections loose their obfuscating power.

Maybe then, when I look up, the sun will come through.