Secret Origins (Part 2)

This blog is currently read by two groups of people:

1.) People who have met and know me, and likely got here through Facebook

and

2.) Internet people who talk to me more often than the IRL people but who don't know that much about me

Ideally, I would like to add a third group, which is

3.) Internet people who don't know me at all


Essentially, what I want out of this is a showcase. Blogging asserts a self-interest that I don't think there's any worth in denying. I don't know if I'm interesting enough for people to actually want to know about me, but I fear being the kind of person they don't. I follow the blogs of artists and writers I like a lot; I figure there's no harm in aspiring to this nearly completely arbitrary measure of status.

In general, I don't think I'll be doing a lot of real blogging in here, at least not until I have a steady readerbase of people who aren't actually involved in my life (a pipe dream, for sure). I don't think anyone really wants to read about me being nervous because there's a line forming behind me at the self-checkout, or that I read comics for three hours while eating doritos.

However, at this juncture, I'm going to talk about myself, because I think that knowing a person is absolutely relevant to what you get from their writing, whether or not this is a good thing. This may not be your thing or you may already know me in which case it may be horribly boring.

I am 21 years old. I go to college, majoring in English because every English teacher I ever had told me I was good at it. I plan to be a writer, because these same people all told me I should be a writer. I have an apartment, but only stay there during the week; weekends and breaks are spent at home, where I work at my father's restaurant. This makes up the majority of my actions during any given timespan.

I'm a nerd. Like, really super a nerd. I seem to be attracted specifically to interests and passtimes that alienate me from the average person, which I'm actually totally fine with because in general I'm kind of horribly awkward around people. I enjoy liberal doses of comic books, video games, and sappy primetime dramas. I spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet doing pretty much nothing, and have trouble not freaking out when there's not a TV on. I'm not too good with silence.

I write, draw, make music, cook, and engage in other artistic endeavors but only the first one of those is something I consider myself to be any good at. I tend to have an artistic sort of ADD, in which I cannot focus on anything for very long. I'm constantly coming up with things, and usually nothing physical comes from it. It's really not a good thing, I should write way more than I do.

Vaguely tangental story: I used to really want to be an actor. I went to acting classes, got the leads in several of our acting class plays, and basically horded spotlight opportunities whenever I could. Though still not horribly social I was all about performance and attention. If I could pick a moment that it changed, it would be this:

In elementary school, I was a terrific singer, frequently doing solos in our class concerts. In sixth grade, puberty hit me like a brick wall that was being wielded by the hulk who was himself being shot out of a cannon by Superman. I was sort of a showcase of post-pubescence for our whole grade, which manifested quite neatly when my voice cracked, for the first time, during a vocal solo.

It was only a practice. But the whole sixth grade looked up at me from the bleachers, a bizarre mix of confusion and amusement gracing their tender little faces.

This is mostly the last time I was on stage of my own volition.

This is to say, I went from being an extroverted attention whore to an introverted attention whore. The point of which is to express this: I want a shitload of people to read my work. I want people all over the freaking world to be reading my stuff, and to think I'm awesome. I am not ashamed of this. I would like to make money off of writing, but more than that, I want to be read. Art for the sake of art is not my thing; I come up with stories in my head every minute of every day, but when I choose to write something down it is because I intend on sharing it.

As I said earlier, I was always told I should be a writer. What actually inspired me to do it were two works: The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman, and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. I am not going to talk about them now, but I will say this: they changed me in profound ways that I am still discovering. I want to do to people what those works did to me.

Speaking of Neil Gaiman, he always says mysteries are more interesting than answers and he is absolutely right. I have a compulsion to talk about myself because I find most people don't even come close to getting me and I want them to understand me, not out of some sappy inner desire to be closer to people but because on a base level I don't like people misunderstanding me and I want them to know what they're dealing with.

See you on the other side of fame.

(the famous side I mean)

(wow I sound like a total tool today)

(listen I wanna be famous but not d-bag famous, more like cool-guy famous)

(I mean really if I started thinking I wasn't good enough to make it there'd be no point now would there)