I am a bad writer

I explored a lot of creative avenues in my lifetime, probably the standard ones that most people have. Music was a natural first to try. Mom signed me and my sister up for piano lessons and we were subjected to horrors unlike anything either thought possible from a house and owner who should've been condemned or closed down by the health department. I can read music, I have a limited knowledge of how to play the piano and the guitar to this day, but I lacked the discipline in order to become a real musician. Drawing and painting I always had a knack for, I nearly didn't have to try with either save for some techicalities (types of paper, utensils, use of special products, etc.). And lately I have liked adding sparkles and glitter and other stuff to my paintings, and I'm quite happy with them. It does something for me, to be sure, but since it was never very challenging it didn't give me the greatest of joys to see others enjoy my work. In my case, the true artistic joy came to me in the form of creative writing. I started writing when I was in 9th grade, keeping the basic diary / journal that everyone does under my bed of my angst riden thoughts and feelings. Then I started writing short stories which turned into bad soap opera plots. During my college years (the first time around) I jumped on the then pre Internet blog phenomenon of zine writing. I wrote a lot in that creative spurt, and then I got burned out, and I gave that up too.

And now that I am in the position that I am in today, I look back on all my blogs since the advent of the Internet and everyone started putting anything and everything on the Internet since, I realized I'm really not a very good writer at all. I got over all the angst (although I have some adult angst, but granted for different reasons), and moved on from some things in my past. Priorities also shifted, as I am no longer a slave to seeing live music, have reduced the partying to nil, and gave up pretty much all the excess. I no longer see the value in fiction anymore because nothing that even the best or the worst writers can come up with has either been done before, or is about dysfunction. And I've done just about everything, and I would like to think I am far from dysfuntion. Or at least, I don't seek it out. I'm not addicted to anything like Hemingway or Thompson or Bukowski. Dare I say, I'm rather boring in that area. Tortured soul? That's open to interpretation, but I keep a rather sunny disposition rather than a medicated one most of the time.

I have done one thing right, despite the fact that I am no longer filled with the angst that most famous writers seem to have carried with them through their lives. Like I mentioned before, when I do write it tends to be non fiction, taking even the most horrifying moments in life and turning them into tall tales. Because I learned the hard way, sometimes all you can do is laugh. So instead of being in misery, I choose happiness, perhaps the greatest illusion of them all. And, perhaps the best of the best trait of a writer, I still make it all about me. Because creative writing is the most vain and self centered thing one can possibly do. Oh happy go lucky me... I'm a bad writer.

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