I’m A Writer…

I’d like to say a few words before I begin.  Thanks Jim Thompson.  Alright, from the top.  My name is Dyer.  Drake Dyer.  I’m a rising senior at Hendersonville High School, thriving off of nothing except my recently published book and the art of writing as a whole.  My life started prematurely, at just six weeks from my due date.  I was four pounds and ten ounces.  I was born Monday, April 4th, 2005 at 10:42p.m.  My twin sister was born two minutes before me, and often rubs that rash more than I can accept.  It gets irritating from time to time, but nothing I’m not used to.  Let’s get started, shall we.  If writing were in any kind of prescribed supplement, I'd be first in line to take a few bottles and overdose on it.  It's something that I can struggle with--and have with before--but can succeed with once in the flow of my brain.  It comes easier when I'm stressed or angry.  It took me six days to finish writing my longest short story to date; it was ninety-seven pages altogether.  Becoming more concrete and coherent with my writing has been a massive struggle for my brain.  All of those English classes drill the essay writing into my head, and now I can't structure any piece of writing correctly.  But it comes easier when I don't try.  Or if I've been AFK for quite a while.  Two years gets you thinking more than one can think in a jail cell.  In jail, all there is is a vandalized wall, a pair of bunk beds and a small plastic toilet tucked in the corner.  In life, there's people and places and entertainment and food.  Colors and feelings.  It's so full of emotion, life is.  So much, you gotta soak it up before it dries out and leaves you yearning for more than you began with.  I can't say that I went through this writing trek alone, I just can't.  With the constant support of my friends and family is something important.  But the novels I read, the authors I came to love and adore more than my own friends.  There's something about creating a universe that's your own.  My universes are very finite, at least for short stories.  But you take a four-hundred page manuscript, that's something right there.  Something beautiful.  My next goal is to start and finish a novel.  Color will be a recurring theme in that book.  I can tell you that.  A novel so brilliant and fascinating that it will leave people hungry.  A bitter saliva will hang in their mouth, with only their minds to fill that tastelessness in their brains.  It will be harder to obtain, but those hungry folks will search day and night for it.  I did and found it willingly.  I wasn't patient, I just gave up easily.  Eventually is a word that echoed my mind through six years of writing.  When my folks asked me if I wanted to write a book, I'd always say "eventually."  I wasn't sure if I had what it took.  I still don't.  If I've learned anything from my long, arduous journey in improving my writing skills, it's that this process takes more patience than waiting for the next Star Wars movie.  It's a repetitive exercise everyday that makes my mind stronger with more imaginative thinking and less crumpling up paper or deleting words.  It's your wordless plane to create on.  It's so overwhelming that it makes me nauseous from thinking about it too much.  Anything could happen.  You're in control.  Burroughs said, "your universe, your rules."  He couldn't be closer to the truth.  I love literature more than life itself, I think.  I don't know anything else.  Haven't been exposed to anything else eye-opening enough to matter.  To change my mind.  Progression of time has shown me that the way to improve my craft is to stay up until 2 a.m and work tirelessly at my keyboard.  I'll take a few staring contest breaks with my pages and get right back into the flow.  At least, that's on a good night.  Rarely will I have those.  I need to make my point and say that I'm no expert.  I know for a fact that I'm not.  I'm seventeen for crying out loud.  But given that I had written, finished, edited, and published my first book two weeks before my seventeenth birthday says more about my perseverance--or lack of in some instances--and how I can commit to something if I'm passionate enough for it.  I'm a passionate person, with many interests, and writing is the main output of that passion for things.  It's something that I can not only use to express myself, but to express through countless characters I create and words I write.  It's more sly than coming outright and claiming that I'm going to kill myself, or just give up on everything that makes me happy.  It's a better alternative to therapy and a massive overlook at the world around me.  I've always been an observer and take notes constantly of conversations I hear, things I see, events I go to, people I meet.  It's all very curious, and maybe someday, I can write a book and fill it with the tiny mannerisms of the world that I find interesting.  Maybe others can enjoy the outlook as much as I have.  Little things have such an effect on me.  I've also started recording my thoughts and feelings in my notes when I dream.  Now that I think about it, I can remember some dreams I've had that are ten years old.  It's more remarkable than curious.  I've considered going to a shrink for some time.  I've considered becoming one for even longer.  Any and all personality tests I take tell me that I have a dense and unimaginable mind that works more complexly than the sun.  I can't wrap my head around it much.  But in some ways, I don't understand myself.  When I place myself down in front of a computer and raise my hands to type something.  Nothing comes out.  Everything comes out at once.  It's so confusing.  I'm like a crappy coffee filter; I have one purpose in life and if I can't complete that then I'm useless.  I've told myself on multiple occasions that I'm useless, I have no meaning in my life.  I can complain sometimes to others, but mainly I hide my feelings so as to not seem weak.  It's extremely hard to accomplish right away.  I've had years of practice to hone my skills right.  Expressing myself in writing is the only way I know how to get my thoughts down.  I'm never thorough when that happens.  It's just a word after another word that only means something to me. My notes are filled with a few poems about suffering love and passionate dream affairs I've relished in the past.  It's provided more joviality to me and my mind than any girl or warm touch can ever do.  Writing has, unfortunately, become my number one priority in my life.  No matter how many times I give up and come back, it'll still be there.  Waiting patiently for me, with welcoming arms and a cool cup of coffee to greet me.  It's like a cold, uninterrupted kiss on my cheek.  An unfamiliar feeling that words can describe briefly, but only visuals can describe thoroughly.  The lips of a New Yorker writer, a woman in her late twenties, greets my cheek with more burning passion than a winter fire.  It leaves a craving on my tongue, something itchy behind my ears.  Something irritating on my back.  I haven't the faintest idea what it could be, but I have my theories.  If the idea of writing embedded itself in a woman, then I'd go to Tiffany's, buy a diamond ring, 18 karat of course, and propose on the spot.  I'm in love with writing.  That's the only way I can spell it out for a way that you and I both can understand.  It doesn't make sense to me, but it's the most valid and intriguing theory that I've come up with.  An abstract picture can paint itself in my tasteless mind more vividly than I can write this.  Through a year of struggle, awakening, cold chills, observations and calm relationships with others, I've developed an idea of myself through the internet and how others view me from the outside.  I promise to you I have no idea what's going on inside of me.  Nothing, everything.  Something I hope. It's so prolific, that it's unfathomable to process fully.  I probably won't ever understand myself.  Does anyone?