Writing About Writing

"A writer writes, not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others."- Leo Rosten

That, my friends, is what my interest teacher calls an ICD, or Interest Creating Device. Hopefully, I just got all you non-existent readers interested in whatever I have to say about writing. And when I call you all non-existent, I mean that you exist the way my homework exists. In my mind and in my mind only. At least tomorrow is a late start day...

So, now I will write about writing, as the title implies. Writing is probably one of my favorite things to do. I write about lots of different things in a lot of different formats. For example, on this blog I do long-form blogging and on tumblr I do short-form blogging. I don't know if that's what you call it but I heard someone saw short-form blogging once and it sounded smart. Then there's Facebook, where I type witty statuses and comments with the intention to make my friends laugh, and Twitter, where I exercise writing in 140 characters or less. I also have a journal for journaling, a dream journal, and an idea journal. I always forget about those though, they're drastically underused. I also create To-Do lists on my mirror every morning and I take notes in three different spirals for history, English, and math. I'm supposed to take theatre notes but that doesn't always happen. Spiral notebooks are so awesome. I love them so much. And I love writing in them. And I love writing.

I had a long (well, not for my standards, but I guess sort of long) conversation with Sydney about writing. Because I kind of want to be a writer. Isn't it word that there's no feminine form of the word writer? A female actor is an actress but a female writer is still a writer. Anyway, back on topic. For a long time people have told me I should be a psychologist. I thought I should be a psychologist. I'm good at understanding other people, and I do think psychology is really interesting. But I know myself, and I know that if I end up being a psychologist I will feel like I gave up. What happened to that little girl who wanted to be on Broadway? I'm not that little girl anymore, and I don't really want to perform on Broadway. In theory, I would love to, but in practice it's not going to happen. I guess what I mean to say, is I still feel the need to do something creative. I like to do things that make other people smile or laugh or think. And I guess writing is the way to do that. I usually do that through talking, but I don't think being a professional talker will work out for me. Once again, this is something that seems awesome in theory, but not so much in practice.

Honestly, can I just be professional person-who-does-whatever-she-wants? Because that seems like the kind of life for me. Or a travel host, because Samantha Brown has the best job in the world. She gets paid to go on vacations that are paid for by her network. She just has to be filmed while it happens. Lucky.

If I don't start my homework now, I will fall asleep while I'm reading Lord of the Flies, and it's not that that book is boring, I just get tired. And if I fall asleep while reading LOTF again, I'll have to read it really quickly before school, and I'll get a bad grade on the quiz again. I hate bad grades.

Happy birthday to Frederick Douglass, Florence Henderson, Tiffany Thornton, Freddie Highmore, and Paul Butcher Jr. It is also the birthday of other people who I may or may not have heard of.

Happy anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre!