A Writer of Words

Some famous guy once said that words are like drugs. Or that reading words is like doing drugs. Can't quite remember. Either way, I think what he meant is that we can't survive without words, or that words feed our addictions. I'm actually really reaching here. If I had said the quote, I would have meant it to say that words are not just scribbles on paper, or noises you make. They are fuel to the brain, like food is fuel to the body. A word, a sentence, or a phrase can dampen your mood, lift your spirits, make you question your entire existence, or make you fall in love with someone you just met. I've always wanted to be a writer of words. These addicting things that can be strung together melodically, artistically. Unfortunately, their beauty is becoming lost these days. The mangled syntax and disappointing lack of grammar that seems to ooze out of all forms of social media makes me weep tears of sorrow on a daily basis. Figuratively.

Even as a kid I knew I liked to write. I wrote elaborate stories in elementary school about famous people whose names I'd heard on tv, or from boy bands I was crushing on. My teachers loved my stories and often had me read aloud to my classmates or the younger grades. I'm not sure where the love came from, but I'm assuming it had something to do with the time my parents spent reading to me as a toddler, or all of the books they supplied me with as I grew up. I always seemed to spend my time surrounded by literature, whether it was spending the afternoon at the library with my mom before I was old enough to go to school, or a couple hours at the second hand book store in the city on the weekend. I always left with a new Goosebumps book, which was hardly a literary masterpiece, but a 12 year old knows not of quality.

Once in highschool my love grew, and I started to form this wild idea that I could take this passion and turn it into a career. I'd write plays! Movies! Magazine Articles! When you live with your parents and have no concept of money, you assume you can support yourself doing anything you want, money doesn't factor into your life's goals and dreams, which is perhaps why they are the most wild and honest at that age. Once in grade 9, I was faced with a new form of writing. The Essay. Now, this aint no grade 5 report on Chimpanzees, or the write-up you did on Venus in grade 7. This is serious stuff. Upon completing my first attempt I was informed that I was in fact terrible at writing about, well, facts. There were rules, a writing style, sources, quotes, and a...gasp...bibliography. I had to actually tell the teacher WHERE I found the information. I don't like being questioned on how I obtain information, can't you just trust that I didn't Google it or use Wikipedia? Side note, we didn't have those back when I was in highschool, we used the legit stuff, aka the Encyclopedia. Or we just asked our parents, cause they were old and knew everything. The next few years of school would continue to face me with this dreaded demon of a task, and I flawlessly fumbled each and every time I wrote one. Book report? Splendid! Short story? Perfection! Haiku on the Holocaust (not kidding) A++! Essay? KTHXBYE. I finished each year with a pretty good mark in the class, and when I graduated my average was nothing to sneeze at, but those filthy hoes of a writing requirement would forever haunt me.

When I was a few months away from graduation I sat down with the guidance counselor, to see if she could help guide me to my future as a badass writer. She asked me what I loved to do, and I told her I loved to write. She asked me what I wanted to be when I 'grew up' and I told her a writer. She asked me how I figured I'd get into the profession, and I stared at her blankly before saying something along the lines of "uhhh...I'll...write?" Up until then I had not put much thought into how you became what you wanted to be when you grew up. I thought you got your diploma and it transformed into a magic carpet that carried you to the point in your life where you're married, have a couple kids, drive a rad car, and live in a bright pink house with your best friend living across the street. Since I met my parents when they were in the 'giving birth' stage in their lives, I had never witnessed someone in the 'struggling with your identity, living off Kraft Dinner' stage. Mind you, my older brother was in University by the time I was in grade 12, so I knew secondary education was the next step on the stairway to successful adulthood, but factoring it into my dream of writing teen fiction novels hadn't quite occurred in my brain full of fluff. The guidance counselor pulled out a book which listed all of the programs at the local community college and suggested I look through it, see if there's something I wanted to take. 

Now, at this point of my life writing wasn't the ONLY thing I liked or was good at. I was also a dancer and had dreams of touring with Justin Timberlake. I liked to bake and had dreams of owning my own cake shop. I was the editor of the yearbook with dreams to be a big-time magazine editor. Understanding computers and their programs came easily to me, so a career working on the ol clicky-box (what?) was in the back of my mind as well. In hindsight, I probably should've tried excelling in something like math or science. Useful things, you know? I can't even tell you how many times I've googled what 65% of 908 is, or whether or not you should mix Advil Cold and Sinus with a Bacardi Rum Cooler. Math and science my friend. That shit's useful. If you ever want to know when it's appropriate to use a semicolon, are keen on brushing up your knowledge on the use of the oxford comma, or need a word that describes "sorrow and despair" for the poem you're writing about the guy who just dumped you, give me a ring-a-ding. Back to the confused brain of a 17 year old, I read through that program guide and didn't see one course on writing, nor did I see one on how to be the back-up dancer of a teen idol with frosted tips. What I did find, though, was a program called Web Design. It looked fun, and interesting, and like something my left-brained self could manage. My parents would have been supportive no matter what I chose for myself, and were just as excited as I was about my upcoming venture into the new age of technology.

After two years of community college I ended up with a technical certificate, a huge hangover, and a 50lb weight gain. One thing I didn't gain was any progress on my way to becoming a writer of words. Just a writer of gibberish called 'code'. Blech. Not my style. After finishing a practicum I hopped on a greyhound bus with my suitcase and sense of self-discovery, and showed up in Southern Ontario to find the elusive 'career' and 'adulthood'. To me Southern Ontario, Toronto in particular, was the quintessential hub of the creative industry. It was my Emerald City. Luckily, my big broseph had moved to Kitchener shortly before I showed up, so I asked him if I could stay for the summer. I did a bit of freelance web work, but I grew increasingly unsatisfied with the career choice and found a full-time retail job selling clothes and folding sweaters in a quiet mall near my brother's apartment. Since my bro is a wiz with money and budgeting, he coached me on how to save so I could go back to school for a do-over. I ended up living with him for 11 months.

When researching schools and courses, I had the luxury of choosing based on the program and what it would offer me, since location was no longer a factor. I was a free bird. I knew I enjoyed graphic design, and writing was still a passion, albeit a small one, so I came up with the idea of Advertising and Marketing. The perfect mixture of writing, designing, and making up stuff as you go based on what sounds kinda accurate. I took my hard earned sweater-money and moved to a small city between Toronto and Ottawa, eager to learn all about how to be rich by doing something you're pretty good at.

During my stint at the college I was taught by a terrifying writing teacher named Charlotte. For our first assignment we had to write about a commercial we had seen on tv recently. I filled 4 pages with what I believed to be a truly masterful creation, and got a mediocre mark. When I went to her to get some feedback, she asked if I'd ever heard of a comma. Puh-leeze. What does this woman know? Well, a lot, in fact. Turns out punctuation wasn't the only area I was lacking in. Syntax, sentence structure, and spelling all needed a brush-up, and boy was I schooled when it came to oxymora and hyperboles. I also learned that "no self respecting copywriter will ever use the word amazing." At that point in my life I discovered I was merely a beginner when it came to the art of writing and an infant in my knowledge of words. My dictionary went everywhere with me, and my trashy celeb gossip magazines were traded in for my new Bible, The Little Brown Essential Handbook for Writers. By the time of graduation I still had oodles to learn, but I did well in the program and finished the 2 years with a seat on the Dean's List as well as the top award for proficiency in writing. Huzzaah. This was the first time I actually did well at something. Not just average, or mediocre, I excelled.

Now I work in the marketing industry, writing Facebook statuses and Tweets, and a press release here and there. A writer of words, you could say. I still play with the idea of becoming a badass writer, who drives a rad car and lives in a pink house (salmon, if you're fancy), but I can't quite put my finger on which form of writing I would be the bee's knees at. I'm terrible with facts and have the memory of a whatchamacallit, so journalism wouldn't be my strong suit. I never ask the right questions, and am a socially awkward penguin, so I'd fall short as an interviewer for a magazine. In order to write a novel you need patience and the ability to work at something for longer than a week, so there goes that idea. I'd love to write songs but I lack musical talent and bitterness. Poems are too fancy for me, and require a wider knowledge of words and their meanings. If you want to hear a killer poem about breakfast cereal or different kinds of ice cream, I could probably whip one up for you. Haikus will cost extra. 

For now I'll write this blog. A blog full of words, common words, but words nonetheless.