It’s amazing to realize that it’s been nearly two years since I last posted on this techno-journal of mine. The time has passed by so quickly. I recall it wasn’t too long ago when I was lost in a world of empty spaces (I loved that line from back in the day). I was a poet searching for the starlight that was the every essence of my core. The one beacon that would give me the inspiration enough to keep going. Alas, some of the stars in my universe have faded, but not all stars die at the same time.
It took me years to get over the real reason as to why I started this blog. Reasons that only those close to me will ever know. Perhaps one day I will tell the world of why it was that certain things came to be with me. For now, as I still try to understand my craft, my stories are calling out to be understood and I must listen to them first.
I remember the days when it was anger and depression that fueled most of my poetic works. I used to call my works “Mortal Nightmares”. As a writer, I’ve found every work that has ever wanted to be created, wanted to be spoken, wanted to be written, demanded it. They never ask. When they do not get what they demand, they make you suffer every moment of every day. They rob you of your sleep, your concentration, and punish you for even attempting to create them on a schedule that isn’t their own. Sounds nuts? Have you ever made plans to write something and created every single idea in your head, but when it came time to writing it, you went completely blank? You wonder why some of us writers aren’t completely all there? It’s not us. It’s the stories that take hold of us once we give ourselves that title.
About that title, however. Writer. Perhaps I should find another title for myself. Not that “writer” is a bad title for what I do. But there is a sense of honor that comes from it that must be earned. I don’t think I’ve made the jump from storyteller to writer.
A year or so ago, I lost a very good friend and gained another angel. He was more than a friend, really. He was teacher as all good friends should be. They should teach us the things about ourselves that only they can see. But he, in fact, was literally a teacher.
I had a friend named Richard back during the days when I was still trying to figure out what in the hell I was doing with my life. I spent most of my days hanging out in my old high school’s library. Hey, at least I was hanging out in a library and not on a street corner.
Richard had a way of explaining things about life. He’d been around quite long enough to tell you how people worked and when people were blowing smoke up your ass. Of all the people I had the chance to get to know while I was there, he was the one I connected more with. Such a down to earth man. I still remember this jokes. Only he could tell the punch-line of a joke and walk of being ever so proud of how bad or rude it was. I loved it.
Richard died not too long ago. I think about him from time to time. Now you may be wondering what he has to do with me not wanting to call myself a writer. It has to do with the day that I actually gave him something of mine to read. I told him that I’d had this story in my head since I was 13. I’d never been able to finish it and every so often I would pull out the old pages of my work and look them over. Something compelled me to give them to him that day.
Through a casual conversation, before he had to go back to teaching, he told me something that I have carried with me ever since the day he spoke the words to me. He told me that it takes 10 years to become a writer and even then there’s still a chance that people won’t respect you for it. I don’t remember exactly how old I was when he told me that. I know that I was old enough to completely get the point of what he was telling me: Just because you can write, doesn’t make you a writer. You can write all you want, that doesn’t mean people will automatically give a damn about what you’ve written.
To this day, every time I sit at my computer or I pick up a pen / pencil to make a note in a journal or write a story idea, I remember him. I remember that every time I touch ink to paper, or every time I type a key to make a word on a screen, I’m taking time off of that ten year clock and I’m perfecting myself more and more. I’m not the best at writing and I don’t want to be. I just want people to remember that I could write.
So I guess the most fitting thing to call myself would be, instead of writer, is a creator. Because every time a person sits down to write words on paper or to draw the images in his mind, we spark a dream. A dream that we may one day be more than what we are even if that’s not what we’re aspiring to be. We spark that imaginative sprit, maybe not just in ourselves, but in the mind of someone else who doesn’t know they can create just as well as they can dream.
Right now, I’m sitting in the desk were it all began. The same desk I sat at when I pulled out a whole bunch of paper at two in the morning and started writing the very story that still haunts my very dreams and imagination. It’s my master story. It’s the story, I know and believe, that I was created to create. Heh, God made a creation to create something else.
I’ve come full circle. I’ve spent the days of these last two years wondering why it was my life has felt so empty. I’ve finally figured it out. I’m nothing if I can’t do what I was given the talent to do. The more I deny who I am and what I should be doing, the harder life will be for me. The more I defy the intended purpose of my creation, the more empty I will feel and worse the feeling gets of my dreams slipping away. Ever since that day that I started writing my master story, I can envision myself capturing that dream I’ve had for so long.
It’s not a dream of fame and fortune. It’s not the ability to meet people I might not have ever had the chance to meet ever. It’s the dream that people will know me for one reason. I’m a writer. “Archangel is the pen name of a famous writer.” To me, the immortalization of my name, my works, and the spirit I had when I wrote them will be worth more than what any riches in this world can buy me.
I’m not doing this for the money. I’m doing this for the title. I’m doing this… for Richard.
