It occured to me recently that writing is something that I love to do. Okay, that realization wasn't all that recent, but perhaps it was a combination of being something that I loved to do and being something that I was good at was the epyphany.
I started writing for a sports blog not too long ago and quickly found some success. I could put words together on my thoughts and the end product didn't turn out too bad. Even though I have been writing random sports blogs for over six years, this was the first time I was given the opportunity to do it to an already formed and attentive audience... and they like it.
I thought that was pretty cool. It gave me a sense of confidence that I hadn't quite had before. When I was in college I took a screenwriting class and we had to share our scripts with the rest of the class. I didn't know exactly what I was doing, but it was the first time I was challenged to not only be creative, but to share it with a group of strangers. All I knew was that I had watched thousands of movies and that maybe I could do that too. I had written a short screenplay before titled "Cutting Class" (I didn't know at the time that this was already the name of an 80s horror movie starring Brad Pitt) but it's not like I shared it with anybody so I didn't know if it was good or not. I just thought it was a funny little script.
In the screenwriting class we were given assignments and then some of those scripts were shared with the class, whichever ones the teacher chose to share for good or bad reasons. I think in total there were 4 screenplays written throughout the course. This was the first time my writing would actually be seen by other people, but I wasn't exactly nervous. When I sat down and wrote those pages, they looked good to me. But of course I knew what I liked, and I just wrote what I liked. That doesn't mean anyone else will like them.
It turned out that the teacher liked what I had written and so do most of the rest of the class. As a kid, I never felt like the "star" of anything. I wasn't the good-looking jock, the super smart geek, or the popular class clown. Indeed, I was a class clown, but my peers didn't always appreciate my antics. I was more like the "class dick." I wasn't a bully by any means, but when the opportunity arose to say something that I was funny, I said it. And loud. Usually it would draw a few laughs from my group of friends, but mostly it landed me in the vice principals office.
But I didn't care. I didn't treat high school like a serious time in my life, and I would still agree with that statement. It's not a place you book learn as much as it is a place you life learn, and I learned a lot about life and who I was in high school. Perhaps I would do things differently, but that doesn't mean I regret them. By wanting to change who you are in the past, it allows you to form who you are in the future. I believe that I am a nice, considerate person now because I don't like looking back and seeing the person who I was back then. Not to say I was a total dickhead, but I interrupted the people who were seriously learning how to learn. I was still, in all reality, a pretty shy person. I used my loudness, my comedy, to cover up the fact that I was too self-conscious about the person I was on the inside.
Today I try to only use my comedy to make others laugh, and instead of doing it at their expense I will do it at my own expense. Making people laugh is what makes me happy and is probably my strongsuit in the relationships I form. All my years have so far led up to a person that feeds off of that entertainment value while learning how to make it non-detrimental to others. I often will sacrifice my humility to brighten another persons day. There are videos on the internet to prove it.
So now I sit here, rambling again, and trying to remember my original point. Oh, writing. Yes, I found out through all of that, that I was a pretty good writer. For the first time I was the "star" of something. And I am not full of myself by any means, there are more things I suck at than I am good at. But in my writing class, I knew I was great at something.
That led me to combine my love of sports with my love of writing and start to blog. Additionally, I have and still have a dream to write a screenplay that gets made into a movie. I can get into the trials and difficulties of that later, but writing is what I would love to do for a full-time job. To achieve the "dream" of loving what you do everyday.
One thing I had never really done though is just write my thoughts. I never had a journal and I rarely let my deep thoughts out of my head. How many of us do? I don't know many people that openly express the shit that they think everyday. Maybe because they find it irrelevant, maybe they're too scared to share, maybe and definitely there are a lot of reasons why not. But I felt that there were so many thoughts in my head, maybe some thoughts that I think others would agree with, that I needed to get out of my head. I needed to write them down and see how they looked on screen. (Feels weird to not say "on paper" but welcome to the new era where school kids aren't being taught handwriting anymore.)
I don't care if anyone ever reads this blog and I don't want anyone to really know who I am. I just need to say some things. I need to make some points. I need to get it out there just to satisfy myself. I am interested to see if anyone else out there agrees with what I'm saying, but if nobody ever does or ever reads this, that's just as fine. This isn't a blog about dogs that look like William Shatner, so I won't be surprised if nobody ever does. And I'm fine with that. I'm going to go look for dogs that look like Shatner now. Goodbye.
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