An Act of Violence
Yesterday i cleaned my room. Well i began to clean it, by removing a lot of junk and paper that was taking up too much space. I threw away journals, stories, ancient meeting notes, begginings of novels that i had begun to work on. I tore them up, shredded some, threw them away. Seemed like an act of violence toward my past, erasing memories and writing i had worked so hard to create. But I wasn't angry or anything while doing it. Just out with the old. I have more stuff today to throw away. Sometimes it feels like a burden to have all that old stuff still, stuff that i will never use, writing which i will never complete. So out it goes. After i empty it all in to the trash can, it feels pretty good. I guess holding on to all that stuff is like holding on tot the fast, and it feelsreally good to let it all go finally.
AI Summary
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you should NEVER throw away anything you write. EVER. It's like the #1 rule for writers! You never know, 10 years down the road you could come across something you wrote and love it and develop it into something great. Eeek... that WAS an act of violence! .. unless you're not really planning to become a writer..
yea, i ususally follow that rule, but i guess i've given up on all those old stories. I shredded them, though, cuz even though I dont want them anymore, i dont want other people to have em either
aww, that makes me sad! You killed those characters. :(
heh
I get really attached to my writing.... even though I never have time to write anymore
Unless you think that peice is holding you back. I've read a lot of critiques that talk about how writers seem to form a style too early and then stay with that because they're used to writing that way. A fresh palatte is good, occasionally. I've thrown old stuff away, but kept single lines or phrases from old writing that I was happy with. That way you let your past influence you, not dictate you.
ahhh very good point
i did that last week. it feels good.
ya.. i've done that tons of times, I've gotten rid of like 99% of all my old "crap" but not anything I've ever written... Just can't do it!
next you should start hitting yourself
or you. or hitting on you.
yay go for it
I can't do that. It's so hard to part with some things that are a part of who I am, and why I am the way I am. For example, I love snowboarding. I think I have almost every single lift ticket I ever purchased still. Will I throw them away? I don't want to... Oh, so many little things. I guess I shouldn't be a pack rat, though. Maybe I should start cleaning up my old junk soon.
sometimes the stuff u keep if more a part of what you were rather than what you are now. And maybe what you wereisn't something you want to hold on to sometimes
I was about to throw away half of the songs i wrote, a couple months ago
aww man.. the world was *this* close to being better
i was talking to somebody on a topic sort of similar...what about keeping old letters from important people, but people that aren't in your life anymore? I keep everything, because even if they aren't in my life, they are still important in making me who I am today. The person I was talking with didn't think you should keep that stuff though, because you shouldn't reflect on the past, it'll only make you sad.
yeah, but you learn from the past. It does make you who you are. The choices and interactions you've made and had in your past make you...you. I agree with you, Courtney.
i really thought about this before doin it, and i thought about whether or not i would regret it. (by the way, i wrote this journal). But i don't think i will regret it. it's like pruning a tree, cutting offthe dead leaves os that the living foliage will thrive. I KNOW i'm not gonna go anywhere with those stories and holding those things. basically, they are dead in a symblic sense. so i'm pruning them off, deciding not to persue writing them or fnishing them. I remeber when i graduated from high school, my english teacher turned to me and said "Adam, NEVER stop writing, promise me that." I looked into his eyes and he was very serious. But despite that fact that everyone wanted me to keep writing, i think i've given it up. It's not as important to me anymore. I've only produced about four or five complete stories in my life. I keep those and really love those stories, but I don't think i have it in me to write anymore. It's part of who I was more than who I am. It made me feel weird Having all those papers and unfinished stories that i knew now that I was never going to persue completing. I gave up all the stories that i had wallowing in my mind and instead decided to focus on the real world. Writing used to be an escape for me, and escape out of reality into fantasy. But i don't don't need that escape anymore, and I felt it was right to not try to hold onto it any longer by holding on to those stories that repreented that escape.
are you speaking metphorically or figuratively?
OOOOOoooh ..you wrote this journal. Things seem clearer now.
i am such a pack rat and shall never in 21 years be able to do what you just did in one day. there are book reports and writings i savor from the 3rd grade. goodness, even my phone has old text messages from more than a year ago. i like to vividly remember what i've been through.
strangely cathartic. i did something similar recently.
I wouldn't be able to handle that at all!! I have so much stuff in my room in a million different boxes: old letters, book reports, pictures, writing, notes past in class. I enjoy looking at some of the stuff now and again and it's really fun to show it to people you're close to now that you weren't then.
Stupid TV moment of the day:
There was an episode of "The Wonder Years" where Kevin, Paul & Whinnie let go of something each of them wanted by writing it on a peice of paper, rolling the paper up, tying it to the end of a balloon and letting the balloon fly away. I've always remembered that cheesy scene because sometimes it's therapeutic to just let dreams fly away. I think it's part of growing up.
wow. that's an AWESOME idea. i really like that. haha
I spent a lot of time on a screenplay synopsis once, and some months after, maybe a year went by, I just tore all of it up, in hundreds of small pieces, 'cause I just said, you know what, I'm never gonna make this film, I'm gonna shred this crraziness up. Anyway, some stuff I do keep, 'cause it's so hard for me to throw something away, that I've written, w/o even knowing how I embarked on writing such a thing to start with. When I dig threw papers, it's interesting to see ultra-old stuff, 'cause it's like hmmm, yeh, I remember writing this, but, did I really write this. I guess so, I don't have anybody else's hand-writings in my house. If someone asked me how much I've written, I don't honestly know, 'cause all my papers are floating all over the place. I have times where I'll write consectutively every day, but then, not go months without writing anything. A lot of the stuff I've written like 7th grade & pre-7th grade, I've thrown out, 'cause the stuff was so pathetic.
i never completed a book. but i wrote one about this guy named neo. his life was all fake. this guy named morpheus showed him the truth. i never got to finish it. some guy stole it from me and said he was going to make a movie. i laughed at him. it would have been funny if he did
okay, this is hogwash! theres actually a man named Grant Morrison. an awesome comic writer. he tried to say the ideas for the Matrix were all his own. but he never got the lawsuit off the ground.