On Writing

A guy like me, who's been in college for almost four years and has another year coming up, tends to start thinking about his career.

Yeah, understatement, right? So as I was reading my latest novel which I'm probably doomed not to finish (this seems to be problem lately; currently it's Peter Straub's Ghost Story which I got on a whim at a thrift store), I considered the career of a writer.

That's a lie. I actually started considering it like four or five months ago, after finishing the seventh Harry Potter book. So after that I continued down a path in some lovely, dark, deep woods which terminated with me changing my major to English. I began brainstorming about what I could do with that major. Most of my (English Major) friends are either going to Grad School or teaching. Well, I'm not doing teaching licensure, so that rules that out. And I've got to be super-serious to do English Grad School, which...well, yeah. They tell me that English Majors are actually a whole lot more versatile than all that, which I hope is true. So what about writing?

One of my favorite things to do when I'm reading stories by my favorite authors is to read their introductions. More times than not, there is some little morsel of information about how their creative process works and how their ideas get out of their heads. Not "how they get their ideas," that's a silly question asked by silly people. One of the most common things I've noticed about these writers is they pretty much consistently write something every day.

W-wait. Every day? It should be clear to whoever is reading this that according to the length of time between this post and the previous one that I certainly don't write every day. Unless you consider typing up Instant Messages as a form of writing. You don't? Well neither do I.

This is a similar conundrum that came over me during the years I was a Graphic Design Major. Most of the artists and designers I read about had a near-constant stream of creativity flowing from them. Graphically creative things came out of me, but only about twice a month, and usually because Ms. Schoen didn't accept late work. That's a bit less grave than it sounds. Anyone who knows me would probably agree that I'm a creative-minded individual, but I'm not very prolific when it comes to finished works.

So what's the point of this entry? Well, I don't want my blogspot to turn into some kind of a hub for griping and uncertainties. I guess then it would be a Glob, or even worse, an Un-Glob. Probably the next entry will contain funny pictures and witticisms. I suppose I just needed to publicly vent a little on the Nature of Creativity and its Relationship with Luke Jones. I'm sort of in a well of confusion, since my ideal career is one where my creativity and desire to learn is fulfilled, but most of the times careers like that (a novelist, for example) require a lot of personal drive and self-selling, things which frankly I just don't really have. I'd rather go eat tacos with Alex, play Metroid or look up trivial information on obscure 1980s toylines. And I refuse to feel an iota of guilt over that.

I look at my dad and he went to school at Web, a place where people learn architecture and nothing else. Despite my family's inability to make up their minds on a place to live, he's always had the same career, has loved it, and has gotten enough sustenance from it to allow us to live very comfortably my entire life. Now that's something I would like.

I just hope I can find it with five years of college and an English Major under my belt.

So if you'll excuse me, I have a Wii Classic Controller and 2000 Wii points which need to be opened and used.