I had an interesting weekend. Today I got a second opinion on the current subject of my blog. It has to change. I’m sorry it can’t be about my students even if I omit names and locations. I can’t write about my student teaching experience even if it is positive. I enjoy writing and talking about history and the interesting things I face from day to day. I’m not going to stop blogging but the subject will change. I will surprise you later. Sorry, but I don’t want to hurt my chances at getting a job in a career I have worked so hard for.
I’m currently in a writing group with two very creative friends of mine (Clint and Dallas). The purpose of this group is to give each other feedback on the things that we are working on. I am both impressed and a bit intimidated by both of them. They both have degrees in creative writing. I have not taken a class over writing, so I grit my teeth whenever I present what I have written. They have taught me a lot and have given me a lot of help. I am thankful.
We all blog and have writing projects. Dallas is revising a novel and has written screenplays. Clint is working on a screenplay and has written screenplays before. This is probably the first time that I have had friends that share the same interest in writing that I have so I am thankful (I’m not being mushy just stating facts). All I can say is that I’m looking forward to completing my own project. Okay here it is I’m attempting to write a Screenplay. I don’t like mentioning that to too many people because it is not always a good thing. It is easy to fall into the trap of feeling the need to be validated by the accomplishment of being published or selling a script. All my life I have struggled with trying to figure out what my “spiritual gift(s)” are and have been frustrated by the lack of results.
When I was in fourth grade I wanted to be a cartoonist. I took a lot of art classes in high school. My senior year I moved, to NC. The AP Art teacher didn’t like my work so she had me taken out of her class and placed in Commercial Art where I learned to use Photoshop and create Ads and logos. At the time I was crushed and embittered and gave up painting. I decided that I’d give up on going to Art school. Time passed. (I am now grateful for being placed in Commercial Art. It wasn’t that bad)
In the summer of 2007, I saw a movie that changed me for the rest of my life. Transformers, directed by Michael Bay, after watching that movie I got back into filmmaking (In 10th grade I took a video and film editing class and loved it). I bought “Screenwriting for dummies” a few days after seeing Transformers. I planned on going to the New York Film Academy after I graduated from Southwestern Christian College in 2008. That did not work out I was too scared to go for it.
One thing I can’t deny is that I have written things all my life. I went to school (in Ohio) in the South Euclid-Lyndhurst school district from 1994-2005 (First thru Eleventh grade). Just about every year there was always a project where we got to write a book and “publish” it in a white blank hardcover book. I enjoyed writing those and drawing the pictures in the books. I still have all of them sitting on the bookshelf in my room back in NC.
While I was at home this past break I flipped through a book I wrote back in the sixth grade. The name I gave the book was, “The Deliverers” the main character was a guy named Zeus who was taught how to fight and was given this magical sword. Zeus could turn into a tiger and do mad damage. He had two friends that could do the same. I still like that story. When I went to the “comments” section in the back of my book I noticed a comment my dad wrote in the back it said, “Good story. Looking forward to when you publish your first bestseller”.
My gift was revealed to me way back when. The good thing is that I’m on my own schedule and if I get published or not it does not matter as I long as I keep writing. And that is what I’m going to do-even if I have to change the subject of my blog from time to time!!!
Here is a quote, “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.” John F. Kennedy. True statement. Ideas live on. Stories live on. After the writer has drifted into the sleep we call death, their words live on with us in libraries and bookstores. As an aspiring writer I have found that I am constantly constipated (too soon?) with an entire “universe” of my own. Being made in the image of my creator, that is right I’m talking about God. I realize that my gift is to create. My creativity is the best thing I have. I plan on using it, “By any means necessary”-Malcolm X. Have a goodnight…
Good stuff, man...I was wondering if you were going to have to change your blog. I read that stuff about that teacher, crazy. Anyway, I really dug your last paragraph there. My entire thoughts of God changed in my first philosophy class when my professor asked us what we thought it meant to be created in the image of God. He suggested that some of us might believe that being created in the image of a creator makes us creators. Now, it's probably my creative/artistic slant that makes this view appeal to me, but still I like it. Keep it up, man.
ReplyDeleteJ.R.R. Tolkien referred to this gift as sub-creation through which we emulate our Creator.
ReplyDeleteI'm right there with you on not wanting to tell a lot of people that I'm working on this or that. Publication doesn't make you a writer though... writing makes you a writer.