The 2024 Reflection - A Big Bite
It's been a long time since I’ve found myself thinking “Boy what a good day, I’ll remember this day for a long time” and then roll over in my bed, tuck my hands under my head, and fall asleep satisfied. That's not to say 2024 hasn’t been fulfilling or exciting, but this year came and went like a restaurant waiter and I’m dying for a refill of something refreshing.
When it came to my writing, I wrote some decent short stories this year. Some clever enough for me to be genuinely proud of. In March I challenged myself by writing something dystopian and in May I returned to previous works to touch them up. I wrote a funny satire about reality TV and a humorous horror concept about a spider. As for it all, in a way, I feel none of my stories are exactly done or polished. Sometimes I feel I'm only accumulating more work for myself for every new thing I write. With every insatiable work I complete, I end up setting aside the perfecting for later.
This year worked me.
After graduating from community college I spent two summer months rewriting my drama novel. I changed the entirety of its tense (300 pages, practically costing my sanity) as well as trying to solidify the interjecting plots and make the story and characters interesting enough for a reader to see it through. The book is almost done, or at least ready for a final rewrite and an ending. If I weren’t at university it would be finished by now.
I know I can’t keep blaming school for my lack of dedication, because if I cared so much about finishing and making it good, I’d make time for it.
I’m not balancing my work and I can’t figure out why aside from the fact that the pressure of school burdens me more than my writing does. For a while that might’ve been a good thing, offering me a break from what I love, letting me recharge my juices, and maybe even learning something of the real world, but lately, trying to get my bachelor's in marketing has absorbed me. Luckily I haven't lost my passion for working out and I haven't lost my interest in socializing. I’m far from a shut-in and further from the stereotype of a writer who takes great lengths to avoid complete human contact. I just feel my brain is worn out and my vocabulary and ideas for good stories have been dulled. I must remind myself that this year I have written a few good ones. There’s still creative hope for me but I need to be optimistic about my situation.
Over the fall semester, I took a creative writing class just for the Hell of it. I took a geology course, history, music appreciation, and even a creative writing class. All of these don't pertain to my business degree, but I had to take them to graduate (not the creative writing course, but yeah, I had to take that). The only business course I took was an economics class and I crushed it. The academic advisors are telling me, despite being in school for almost four years now, that I gotta hang around for an additional four semesters. Realizing this has destroyed me and it only stresses my need to write even more. I need to figure out how to balance my work before I'm totally hooked on marketing and I’m wearing ties on a daily basis.
And yet, I know I won't ever be a successful businessman. I am a writer. That is something I’ve never felt more sure of.
I need to get back to writing every day. My writing habits haven't been the same as last year and I worry I’m becoming dull and painfully mature. I find myself in a constant cycle of dissatisfaction. I know I can fix this problem by writing only when I want to write and not making it a tired operation. I worry so much about writing something good that I avoid writing altogether. I fear I won’t take the time to sit down and be thoughtful, whereas I’d rather rush the process as I do with school. I just want to be done, but that is a murdering mindset when it becomes tangent to my writing. My desked frustration has seeped into my daily life, or rather the other way around.
Sometimes I feel the words I once utilized have run away from me and I can’t help but think it's a result of the circumstance I live in. Every day at university feels the same, like a hassle, like it’s literally killing me. I feel like I’ve been in an educational purgatory for years, it never ends and I’m just waiting for something to happen - hopefully something righteous and divine.
This year I posted and revised several stories, which was good, but I feel like I’m underselling myself in terms of what I could have accomplished. Patience is a virtue, I haven’t forgotten that. I still believe I won't be an excellent writer until I'm old and gray. My best bet is not to become revered until long after I’m dead. I’m fine with that. My focus needs to be on constant improvement. Bite-sized improvement, that follows year after year, where writing better and better is the goal, but the problem is all I think about is my credit hours, my shitty house and I’m miserable.
Even with my constant need to write better, at the same time, I need to accept that I’ll never touch that ceiling. That's the misery of being a writer. I can arrange words however I like, but there will always be a better way to use them.
I come back to this problem with perfection. I’ll never be able to find that perfect arrangement of words or have pages after pages of stories reach people as I believe it’s reached me. Perfection is futile. All I can do is create either way. If people like my stuff then I'm the luckiest man alive. If people hate what I write then in a way it makes no difference, they’ve consumed my work regardless. Perfection is subjective. My satisfaction only matters to me. I only need to be pleased with myself.
By this point you’re probably sick of me using “I’ll never…I won’t ever…I’m tired, dull, bored” but my hyper-awareness is something that motivates me. I’ve set the bar pretty low for myself but my party trick is always over-doing whatever I set myself to. I’m tricking myself. Give me patience. Let me get through this.
If I had it my way all I would do is write. Screw the degree. Even if I wasn’t studying business, and instead pursued an English degree I don’t think I would be happy either. Ever since I was a boy and started writing absurd and crude chapters of The Enchanted Tale of Bobby Dobby I fell in love with the fact I could create whatever the Hell I wanted and there were no limits to what I felt was funny or acceptable. If I had to crank out essays and stories about the things I don’t care about, or recall my memories that don’t deserve a reflection, then I would start to hate writing. That's the honest-to-God truth.
I love writing horror, comedy, and fiction because there isn’t a grounded reality, there are no rules aside from grammar and spelling, but even then, what the Hell does it matter? I enjoy the way my choppy sentences flow and skip-to. I enjoy the vagueness of my characters and the lack of detail I’ve put in the armchair that sits the storytelling parts. If I want to dedicate a whole page to describing a bowl of soup then I’ll make that happen, but if the soup suddenly requires symbolism because the rubric says so, forget it.
I could describe a bowl of soup for three pages, an unbroken paragraph of description with no meaning at all and for no purpose aside from driving the reader nuts. By the time they finish those three pages, they could be left thinking, “What the Hell was that for” and in truth, it was for nothing. It's like I’m bullying the reader and I find something funny about that. It’s nonsense.
That's kind of how I am, often dry, weird, and unpredictable. It's my style and nobody can take that away from me nor demand anything more.
I don’t care if you get it or not, that's how art is buddy, and whether or not you want to call any of my writing “art” is so beautifully stupid.
My dream is to live in a decent place on the beach, writing things I want to write, and having people read them. I want my beach chair in the water, and my mouth wrapped around seafood every day. I want my hair to feel full. I want to paint and not be financially hampered by the price of paint.
Before I get there I need to get my degree just to say I did it. And along that journey, I must keep this promise to myself that I will write and I will never stop.
I will never stop writing. Even when the words fail to make sense, I will still write them.
A list of things I need to do for 2025:
Watch more TV
Read more books
Question things outside my scope
Chip away at my major requirements
Protect my soul
Stay interested, get interested
Stay driven
Finish The Collective Conundrum of Undergrads and Drug Users
I’m very fortunate to still be here. I want to keep living to see this thing out. Even in some low points of this year, I’ve wondered if I’ve done all I could’ve in my life, wondering “What is my story,” and so far I’ve realized it’s writing absurdities, nightmares, and entertainment for an invisible audience.
Sadly I don’t do much reflecting anymore (a price of living in the moment) but here is a list of all the things I’ve done this year that have brought me joy:
Getting my underwhelming associate’s degree and not walking for it
Seeing baseball games and maximizing being 21 years old
Building a waterfall with Nic
Being a cleaner while I had the opportunity
Reading several, amazing books
Watching Pacers games
Hanging with Tuck, Blake, Rick, Josh
Writing
Meeting new faces
Drawing in my sketchbooks
Making a YouTube video with the guys like old times
Going to Arizona with G
Doing clown face paint for Halloween
Meeting a nice girl
First time submitting stories for a contest
Acing both semesters
Writing.
While I haven't posted much on my site in the last four months, I’m happy to say I have a plethora of content ready to go for the following six weeks. So thank you for another year and thank you God for making me like this.
If I couldn’t create I would be one, dense fella.
— Ty Steinbrunner
(who wants nothing more than to entertain...on his own accord)
