“What makes you think you have anything important to say? Anything interesting?” This is my brain talking.
”How do you know people will give a shit about your boring story?” This is my brain on her high horse, kicking me when I’m down.
Just moments before these thoughts cropped up I had been lost in the idea of my yet-to-be-written, best-selling memoir. The book would be about the beautiful life I had always intended to lead, verse the disenchanting one I had enlisted instead. It would be a tale, not of great misfortune, but of casual disappointments along the way. It would be about youthful naïveté, and the way a little girl dreams with foggy vision, only to wake up hung-over and with a strange dick in her bed.
A majority of my daily thoughts are constant, nagging reminders about how I’m not good enough, and the many ways this idea has been fostered and reinforced over time. For these moments laughter is my solitary shield – my only defense – as I struggle to decide if life is a tragedy or a comedy, after all.
To be honest, I can’t say for sure if anyone will give a shit about my boring story, but maybe it’s not about that. In one of my college writing courses my professor put such a weighty emphasis having a strong storyline that it was almost nauseating to me: I always disagreed that plot need be the main focus of a successful piece of literature. “Why can’t it be about the way it’s written?” I had asked.
“Because nobody wants to read a bunch of pretty words on paper,” he had said.
My hand shot up again, “What about ugly ones?”
It was from there that I arrived at this profound conclusion: so what? So what if no one takes the time to read my dull tale, my colorless spectacle? Maybe the success of it will be in its creation rather than it’s critical acclaim (or lack-thereof)? The book will be will be a forthright statement detailing my human flaws, my selfish desires, and how I’ve come to learn that on the inside, we’re all a little bit troubled. It will be my self-portrait in progress: a bunch of ugly words on paper.
( via my brain )
