I DECIDED TO READ AGAIN HOLY SHIT

The last time I just sat around and read a book was February break, when I got through the first three books in the Maze Runner series and got so pissed off by how the third one ended that I was too mad to read the last one. It has been sitting on my bedside table ever since, and today I decided to try and read it, and holy fuck it is intense (although I don't know what I was expecting from a book with the title The Kill Order, so...)

My other plan for today was to write three different blog entries, but I can't really remember what two of them were now. I was looking at a bunch of stuff about education reform the other day, and it got me thinking about how perhaps the way I chose to spend my last two years of high school was less of a good idea than I've made it out to be. But that deserves its own post.

Reading this book reminded me strongly of my own writing. Not in terms of the content- I don't tend to write a lot of post-apocalyptic stuff- but just in the way it was written. I always look at my own writing like this and think it's cheesy and bad and poorly written. But then I realized, this is just how YA is written. Since I've adamantly refused to grow up and read books for adults, I've read a lot of YA. Consequently, it's kind of all I really know how to write.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, certainly. YA is a lot of fun to write. It's breezy, especially the way I write it. This is partly the reason for trying to write something a little less YA-ish than I normally do in November- I'm trying to branch out. I don't know. More so than that I'm just trying to write again, but I guess learning to write other things can be a side effect.

Most of the time in the past I just wanted people to like my writing. I just wanted them to find it funny, and figured that that must mean it was good. And there isn't anything wrong with that, either. But at the same time, I wish I had the ability to write things that were powerful, and moving, the kind of stuff that people keep thinking about long after they've read it, you know? The kind of stuff that moves them. I'm not saying it's impossible to develop that ability, just that I've never tried. Everything I write comes out so.... cheesy.

I feel like part of this is the fact that I can't write real poetry. All the poems I write are horribly literal. My experience with poetry is that if I can't really understand what's going on, it must be real poetry. Which is why poetry pisses me off a little bit- quit being so vague, you asshole, and just tell us what you mean. Poetry is all flowery language that dances around the point and never quite gets to it. It's awful. This probably also explains, though, why I like Robert Frost so much: I can easily just read the surface of his poems and get an understanding of what's going on; I don't have to do an English class analysis of symbolism and imagery to get the point.

But at the same time I wonder if part of powerful writing like that is that it never quite gets to the point? Or maybe it gets straight to it? I don't really know. Now I'm just thinking about how much poetry pisses me off, and how jealous I am of people who can both understand it and write it. But I'm trying to think of examples of writing like that that moved me, and why they did.

Really I think it all boils down to being able to suck people in. If I can get really into a book, become really concerned about what's going on, become invested in the story, it has a much larger effect on me than if I read the book, can't ever get into it, and just think "this is terribad" the whole time through- which has happened in a couple of YA things I've read.

I'm able to get sucked into some of the things I've written so far, which I would take as a good sign except for the fact that I wrote them so I don't think I'm allowed to judge. I know I'd have to cut a lot out of those stories, too, and that's so much work, especially considering that one of them is Camp Lame-o 3-- if I want to edit that one, I have to go back and fix the other two as well (might even just scrap number two altogether, since it was that bad, and just put the rockslide in the first one or something... but then I'd have to change some of the rules of that story universe, and ... or maybe that's what causes the nightmares... yes.... YES, AN IMBALANCE. Anyway). Plus, the way I edit best is with a real copy (i.e. not on a computer) and it is kind of hard to justify printing off an 80 page story. And I mean, in "a something" I'd have to probably cut out the bit about Sunflower and probably also the Alex thing... probably Nick would have to go too, since he turned out to be so colossally unimportant. Which means I'd have to add MORE adventures, and I mean, what else happens on a road trip besides driving and games of truth or dare? Plus I'd have to make Gabe into less of a potato of a character than he already was. God, he was so useless. DO SOMETHING. FEEL SOMETHING. BE SOMETHING. Augh. Also, Brian was kind of a plank of wood in that story, despite my best efforts. I'm really, really bad at character development, you guys.

Who knows, maybe I will do some editing one of these NaNos. In the meantime. I'll plan for the story I currently have in my head, and work on convincing Redbeard to do NaNo with me (DO IT, YOU TURD. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO).

yer pal,
swegan