So, I'm beginning a series of journal entries that I like to consider some kind of pseudo-fiction. It's like fiction, but with commentary. There's going to be a story developing and there are definitely characters, but then there is also this generalized commentary about life. I think it's interesting, I guess I'll see what people think. This is episode 1.



There comes a time in every writer’s life when he sits down to his computer, or his typewriter, or his notebook, his fingers tingling in anticipation, to delve into his mind and produce a masterpiece – but he finds that he cannot. He cannot produce a masterpiece, he cannot even produce a single coherent thought of any consequence. He tries a different tack. He pours drones and masses of words from his head onto the page, like an army of monkeys working tirelessly for eternity, in hopes that Shakespeare’s Macbeth might suddenly spring forth like God’s creation – a spontaneous generation of genius. But still nothing but babble. What does the writer do in this circumstance? Some give up. Some never write again and decide to go to college to become business majors. Some fall into a bored despair, despising life for all its promises broken. But a rare few write anyway.

~

“Write, damn you! Write like your very life depended on it! For, perhaps it does!” screams the angelic figure perched upon the writer’s right shoulder.

“Why on earth would he do that? He’s just tried, there’s nothing fucking in there!” retorts the devilish figure perched upon the writer’s left shoulder.

“Shut up, both of you! I’m trying to concentrate!” the writer chastises them.

He starts again to throw words onto the page. He delves into his own memory and experience. He begins to simply retell the classic stories of his youth, but finds them boring and painfully realistic. The characters are insignificant, and the plots are so normal he wonders how he ever lived them in the first place. It’s not the end of the world. It’s actually a pretty good start. I’ll just take this, and then change it into everything I wish had ever happened to me, the writer thinks. So he excitebike’s his autobiography up a bit. Fist fights with the school bully, car crashes, and death. His friend Charlie never died of alcohol poisoning, but the readers would never know that.

“Ooo, I like that. Death is always good,” the devil pokes the writer in the back of the head with his pitchfork.

“Isn’t it?” the writer agrees, “Seriously, who doesn’t like to read about death?”

“As long as it serves a purpose, I suppose,” the angel crosses her arms.

So the writer goes on like this. But he finds that all of this jazz he is injecting into his own past is just as boring as the real thing. He has taken every cliché he could find in that handbook of his and vomited them all over himself. He finds himself disgusted at his own unoriginality. He destroys the work to start over again. There has to be something new to write about, some other way to write a story that is meaningful and satisfying.

“Maybe take a break from prose and try your hand at some poetry,” the angel suggests as she lies down propping her head with her arms.

“Poetry? Are you kidding me? Who actually reads poetry?” the devil argues.

“I read poetry! Fuck you!” the angel turns the devil a cold glare.

The devil starts to laugh, but the writer flicks him saying, “Yeah, so do I. Fuck you, Jeremy.”

Yep. Devil’s name is Jeremy. After Jeremy the Devil shuts up, the writer goes back to his work. Yeah, poetry might be a nice break. Now how does it go again? Meter. Poems have meter. Meter? Hmm, Iambic Pentameter. That’s definitely meter, I mean it has meter in it. Penta-meter. Five-meter. Five stressed syllables and five unstressed syllables that’s it. Okay, let’s try this.

“Takes him awhile to switch modes doesn’t it?” The devil smirks.

“Jeremy…” the angel rolls her eyes.

“I’m out of here. Fuck poetry. I’ll be back when he’s got his head screwed on straight or whenever you decide to take your clothes off, babe, whichever comes first.” The devil poofs away in a cloud of red smoke.

“Fuck you, Jeremy…” the angel whispers and chokes off a smile, biting her lip.