Cleaning off the slate

Sometimes, you just need to sit back and look at what you've become.

I'm a guy who lives in the future.  Always considering the what if this, what if that.  I do it so much that I don't participate in my life in the present.  Then I woefully hope I do things to make the futures I dream of possible.

Kind of hard to do things when you're always planning for after they are done.

My girlfriend pointed this out to me yesterday, and I had to face something I had known was true.

Part of my desire to change direction in my education stems from a fear of not being good enough at what I'm studying (filmmaking/new media art).  Instead of working to better myself, I've been trying to flee.

The time for fleeing is over.

As it happens, I place a dangerous amount of faith in my degree choosing my life path for me.  I pick classes meticulously and obsessively, and stress over them to the point I change them all a billion times.  It's a miracle I'm making such good progress towards my degree, as a matter of fact.

I've changed it a billion times already this summer since I registered, flinging myself down various life paths.


Now that I want to combat this planning with some actual doing however, I've reverted back to what I was advised for..


Filmmaking and art, here I come.-

Ambition

It is now, in the summer before my senior year of college, that I realize my sister was right.

I don’t have the ambition I need for anything I ever wanted to do.

That hurts.
I want to make excuses, but there aren’t any really.

All I ever wanted was to be a writer. To one day have my own name on a book I wrote, with people enjoying the stories I had to tell. The frustrating part: I want to write fantasy, and science fiction. I’m good at that. I started my writing in the sixth grade with a short tale about Eurotopia, a floating city destroyed in a dark invasion. That story became the origin story of the world I built afterwards, with culture and history and heroes. I finally finished a work in the 9th grade, my 40 page (notebook paper) story, Arabad, which was about the kidnapping of the hidden princess of Indria. I lost the notebook later, when a teacher who was going to type it for me never returned it.

Eventually high school and social life caught up with me, and my reading and writing were a thing of the past. I was able to mature my literary tastes through my high school English classes, but that was about it.

College came around, and i applied for English- Secondary Ed.
After a semester of hearing about how I would never get a job in English, and pressures from family, I freaked out and decided to change my major.

But I was having a hard time choosing a new one. Family was pushing computer science, I didn’t want to.

I eventually stumbled onto Media Arts while inquiring about a manga production class (Japan is a huge influence on my life since high school) and switched when I discovered I could also take a course in TV writing.

I signed up for the pre req Media Writing class, as well as a Creative Writing class in English the very next semester.
I had a blast in both, and between the two, my idea for a tv series, RIFT was born. I would take that story into Manga, and TV writing, and am still developing it.

But since then, I have also been plagued with thinking that writing is just too risky to get a job in, i should focus on art, filmmaking, design, something to have even a remote chance at a career. I started my grad school panic. I’ve been unable to find a film production program I think I would be happy with, and I’m pretty sure it’s cuz I don’t actually want to be a filmmaker. I’m looking into creative writing programs in dismay, because I don’t feel like I have a good enough English background now to get in.

If only I had finished stories when I was younger.
If only I had been able to discover the governor’s school for the humanities.
If only I had been confident enough to just do the Creative Writing concentration in English.

But,

if only is worthless to me now. Lamenting the fact that I didn’t do those things isn’t going to help me get where I want. It isn’t going to get a script sold or a novel published. Right now, all I need to be doing is writing. Writing, writing, writing. I need to get work done and get stuff out there to be workshopped. I have a chance to make up for the lack of ambition, to really go after the only dream I ever had. There is no more time to be scared. I have to stop with what if’s and if only’s and just try my damnedest to prove that writing skills I was always praised for, the ones I loved to use are still there and worth their salt. And if they aren’t worth, then I have to get them up to scratch.

I just can’t be scared and wait for someone to notice me. I have to jump out there and make myself seen.

Yo.

After enjoying blogging for a class I took this past semester, I’m trying again to maintain a blog. What’s this one gonna be about? My journey to figure out what I want to do with my life and what I try along the way.
I’m about to be a senior at USC (in South Carolina) and time to apply to grad school is coming. Picking out a program for advanced study is proving more difficult than I thought it would be though.
To put it all in perspective, here’s a little background about me.

1. 21, from a rural southern town, with parents of neglectful dispositions
2. lover of science fiction, and fiction in general, as well as Japanese culture and language
3. currently studying Media Arts, but started as an English major
4. overcome with looking for a more glamorous job than the one I always wanted: writer

That sums it up pretty well.  I switched to Media Arts so I could study screenwriting, incidentally, but after taking 3 of 4 classes, I decided that wasn’t good enough and started to focus on filmmaking.  Filmmaking is really fun, and I’ve enjoyed learning how.  But now I’m just one class from finishing my major, and having a hard time seeing me doing it in the future, but whatever.
I started sifting through MFA programs, one after the other, but just couldn’t find a program that really felt like something I wanted to spend money or time on.  I decided to look at writing programs for giggles.
I found so many that I had a good vibe from.  The catch? They were programs in English departments, for Creative Writing and not just Screenwriting.
So now I’m debating catching up on English courses (the major I quit)  and working my butt off to have fiction samples to send off with grad school apps.
Kinda crazy to think life is bringing me full circle.