I apologise if some parts of this post do not sound altogether coherent, or are even grammatically incorrect (O! The horror!).

While lying awake in bed with nothing better to do than to reflect on life and life's great problems (tried thinking about determinism and such other great philosophy concepts but I kept getting off track - the more analogies I tried to draw up to understand the concept, the more the concept slips away from me. I swear that the ancients simply enjoy working complex issues into even more complex sentences to torture lesser beings a couple of centuries later. First comes the figuring out of the language, then after the language you gotta figure out what the hell they're talking about... fun, yes, on a lovely afternoon, fanfiction-less, but very much sweat-inducing and sleep-chasing at 3 a.m.). Ahem. It seems that I have managed to meander about the subject without actually coming into contact with the subject matter.

Okay. I was in bed, yeah? Let's return to that. I don't look particularly ravishing in bed or anything, but lemme get to the point. So I was reflecting on my writing and the various ills of my writing attempts recently and my lack of talent and shameless purple prose, then one thing led to another and I thought back on the feedback given to me by various teachers + well-meaning people who have read my work and given me feedback.

The general consensus was that one: my language was complicated. Two: my concepts aren't helping any. Three: My characterisation, or lack thereof, was piss-poor. Technically they did not say the third, but my Arvon tutor more of less implied it, and I do agree with her. The only 'gift' of mine, if it may be termed that way, is my way with imagery, and nowadays I don't even have that.

So now you see the nascent link between my earlier seemingly desultory ramblings of philosophy and my writing.

In short, Good imagery + convoluted writing + near ostensible lack of plot + poor characterisation = purple prose.
Then, the most recent development: cheesy imagery + bad metaphors + nonexistent symbols + putrefying characterisation + no plot at all + no emotion + trying too hard = Stephenie Meyer.

Oh no. I'm turning into her. *rips hair off and screams like a banshee*

Now you know why I am so bloody miserable. Writing was all I had to distinguish myself, a part of my identity. I took pride in it. "I'm a writer, and a failed poet," I would announce proudly to whoever I met. "That's why I'm different. That's why I have crazy ideas and want to try them out. That's why I meander off sometimes and stare at people and their smiles and frowns and bad hairdos. That's why I stay up at unearthly hours in the morning to blabber. That's why I use such odd words to express myself, and have an strange opinions.

You'd think that I would feel right at home with a group of fellow writers. Oddly enough, I didn't. I felt like a nervous thumb sticking perpendicular to a fist, a bump on the road, a curve in a spine. I felt like my lips were melting, or perhaps they were sewn on in thick, controlled stitches like patchwork dolls. In short, I felt even more out of place, even more an oddity, even more useless and undeserving of whatever I've managed to achieve. I have an inferiority complex a mile wide and an ego made of plastic containers bought at the dollar store. At first glance it looks sturdy and perfectly normal, able to withstand normal pressures, then you pour hot water in to sterilize it first before readying it for the cocktail of life there's the smell of melting plastic hooking its fat fingers into your nostrils and the bottle is a little bent, a little warped, never quite the same despite the damn hot water being there for a few seconds.

I have a lot of cause for blame. I know I shouldn't be whining about it like a petulant five-year-old who's denied ice-cream before dinner, because there are people out there with fates worse than mine, like abused spouses and child prostitutes and muzzled whores and the many people out there with relatives in hospitals. People with AIDS or cancer or some other animal disease gnawing at their eyes and voices. I know all this, but sometimes being mature is kinda difficult. Something has got to give.

You know when you're a kid looking at mummy or daddy or watching those movies you'd think how glamorous it would be to be an adult - no supervision, being able to walk to the local cornershop without someone tagging along, earning your own money, voting, marrying, falling in love, buying a car, buying whatever you damn well please. Movies and adults, sadly, don't really show the tedium of being one. The neverending bills and work and more bills and taxes and hungry mouths and a marriage, maybe dying or soaking up shadows of people's insecurities, things people throw in closets and lock them there so they don't have to deal with it now, but eventually they run out of space and everything comes spilling out. No, movies don't show that - even prisoners of afganistan or russian spies, in movies, are still amazingly beautiful and they somehow get their happy ending at one point.

I'm tired I guess. Part of it is physical, because I really should be sleeping but my brain is like this hamster which overdosed on crack and is still hallucinating lovely dreams of purple afternoons. Some of it is borne from frustration - frustration at how stuff you imagine never quite turn out right when you apply it to paper or onto Microsoft Word. Characters which refuse to walk off the plane of your mind and slip into neat rows of characters (pardon the weak pun) and spaces, instead ambling off like a past thought and burying themselves somewhere in the graveyard between subconciousness and forget-ment. Forgetment sounds nicer than forgetfulness and forgetting and forgotten, anyway. It's like the process of forgetting, but past tense since the present is the future's past (I probably sound like an idiot) but less past than 'forgotten', which is a definite. Nevermind. I'm confusing myself too.

Perhaps my age is an advantage. I'm not too sure how many people look back to their teenage days and wish for it, but it's still a pretty crucial growing period. Since I'm in this minty stage I might as well use my perspective to my full advantage and capture the prevalent sentiments of hope, of fear as well as impetuosity of teenagers. I think I know why most of my writing failed. I failed because I did not fully understand the issues I was writing about - huge, life issues like love (bloody difficult to define and capture), hatred and family. Rootedness. Responsibility. Lust. Sure, if I'm a good enough writer I can fake it, but I find myself lacking. I find that the pieces I wrote on a subject matter I've had the opportunity to examine up close and lend my own perspective are actually my most successful, and not those where I tried biting off more than I could chew. Teenage jaws are still in their formation period, I guess. My jaws are too small, I can't bite into the core of the matter, the glistening, golden bead every poet wishes to touch and present in their cushioned stories.

I guess it is only when you, as a writer, as a person, understand an issue, then you can properly teach or share your perspective. It wouldn't do to come off as brash and ignorant.

I need sleep.