Writing

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

I started writing regularly in a journal when I was fifteen. At the time, I called them quotes because they were only one sentence. Back the I didn’t really care who saw them. I guess I liked the attention I gained from them. Even my literature teacher’s mother had wrote them down and had me sign the sheet of paper so no one could plagiarize them. I never really saw her after that. But that’s more of a good thing. The following year I threw away the journal and focused more on my artwork. By the time I was eighteen I was bouncing back and forth between making decent tattoos and crappy character designs to writing short stories. But the only reason I would write short stories is because the school district announced that every Wednesday during third period, every student in the district would have to read for the first thirty minutes and write a summary of what we read. I have the attention span of a squirrel so books were out of the question. Our teacher did allow us to read comics on our phones as a replacement. Even though I am pretty sure me and my friend were the only ones who did that in our class. Although there were times where I didn’t feel like reading anything, so my teacher allowed me to write short stories for the entire period.

Now here’s the part of the entry that gets very depressing.

After I was let go from my first job at the golf course at nineteen because of the winter season. I started doing TikTok. I was going to try and find another job during the winter season, but that’s when the pandemic hit and next thing I knew I was forced to stay at home. I mostly did Harry Potter themed stuff but I would also post my awful art work. About a year later I before I turned twenty I got a job as a cart pusher. From there I befriended a coworker. We became good friends. We were first shift cart pushers so there wasn’t much to do in the mornings. Cart garages were filled, trash is taken out, the parking lot has been vacuumed. Not a whole lot to do after the first hour. Mostly because one guy would show up at six, I would show up at eight, and my friend would show up at ten. So a lot of the tings we do has already been done. Which also means the third guy would sit around as well. In any case, He wanted to become a poet and was hella good at it. It was because of him that I started writing again. Or at the very least started writing in a diary again. Which is how I got the idea to make the first diary entry which he helped with.

Ever since then I have used writing as a way to try and express myself through words I didn’t know were possible. Sometimes it would be therapeutic and other times, it would just be shouting in my own head. Often times I would cut myself before or after writing a personal entry. I write to release my thoughts onto something and not someone but other times the thoughts won’t go away. Sometimes I look back and wonder how I even got the idea of self-harm. I was a freshman three months into high school. I had a computer in grade school but I only used it for homework, CD movies, YouTube, and others things of the sort. In junior high I didn’t have a working phone or computer. Then when I got to high school I got my first touch screen phone. I was listening to my chemical romance at the time and really getting into the emo culture. But nothing really prompted self-harm.

For a couple years now I’ve always wanted to put my writing out there. To be heard without being known. As well as wanting to entertain people with my stories. Even though they’re not great. Or not going to be great. But I’m going to do it anyway because I guess why not. Dare I say why not. As far as videos go I’ll copy and paste them from my diary onto a text-to-speech website I found called natural reader. Then I take the audio into Filmora and edit videos on my off days. I want to do animations for them but with my crappy art designs and little to no attention span, I have to refrain myself from doing it. I took me six months just to do a drawing a friend’s MHA characters and that’s six months of restarting it over and over again just for it to still turn out crappy.

My entries are divided into three categories. There’s purple entires labeled, personal, which are the entires I put my most darkest and depressing thoughts into. Next are the blue entries labeled, neutral, which are the entires that are not about me and in a way, are entries made to try and help people. Finally, there are the yellow entries labeled, story summaries, which for every story I make I explain my thought process behind it all.

When I am writing my stories, they usually based off of a dream I had. First I would see if I could combine the idea with another idea. I have always wanted to write a book before but nowadays I think I might stick to short stories. I want to convince myself that I can turn my current stories into whole books, but at the same time I want to get these stories out. The way how I go about making stories is the more complicated part. Whenever I am making a story I use Microsoft One note and divide the story into four categories; notes, characters, chapters, and questions. I right down the notes starting with genre, then the main setting, and lastly how the story will play out from beginning to end. After that I create the characters and divide them from protagonists, antagonists(if there will be any), supporting characters, and background characters. For chapters I take what I wrote down in my notes for the story and break it down to be a little more specific. I also jot down the chapters title, setting, and word count. Finally for questions, I like to ask myself different questions as I am brainstorming, seeing what’s can fit, what doesn’t fit, and what sounds better. It’s a bit much but I like to stay organized.

Although this entry is about my writing I wanted to bring in my drawing venture. As I’ve mentioned before I am not a good artist and I don’t have the attention span to sit down and draw. Especially compared to all the other artists who, just like me, have been drawing since childhood. I haven’t completely given up on drawing but I also want to put all of creative liberties into my writing. I should probably also mention that when I say drawing I am specifically referring to character design. I’m fairly good at abstract art, but I can’t find a good art style for myself. Hopefully one day I will be able to, but for now I’ll put my art to the side unless necessary. Even though I have a drawing I need to do before December for my other mother. She’s my friend’s mom but she considers me her son and my friend considers me a brother.

In any case I would like to one day start animating for these entries and stories if I haven’t already done so before I upload this entry. I guess time will tell. I still have yet to plan when to upload any stories.

Word Count: 1,302