You are the bull.

This blog is probably my fifth or sixth attempt to break the wall that surrounds my creative block.

I've made several blogs before under numerable aliases. Sometimes, they got popular, sometimes no one read them. The problem was that I always gave up writing or that I never wrote what I wanted. I've been on numerous other sites under numerous names. I think it's time for me to write under my real name and to surprise the people in my life. (I would list the names of the blogs and pseudonyms, but this blog is meant to serve as a new start for me. If you really are interested, send me a line or something.)

Beyond that, I think I should address what's been on my mind lately.

Writing is an underappreciated art in America. When we think of writing, we think about essays, reports, arguments, speeches, etc. Simply, the documentation of our arguments or ideas for scholarly and/or professional analysis. A lot of people groan at the thought of having to write something, especially students, simply because they never are able to write about what they care about. Granted, a lot of universities give their students freedom or provide creative writing classes, but I think there's too much judgment among scholars and observers on what makes a good essay/story/whatever.

Writing, for me atleast, has always been about expression. I'll admit that I have poor grammar and that grammar is an important part of writing, but I believe the way someone expresses himself should take top precedence. I'm bound to get a lot of flack for saying that from anyone who works in the academic world, but I'm only seventeen years old. I think berating a teen over the internet over personal opinion is outdated. It's 2008, not 2003.

Another aspect of writing that dominates my life is how I use it as a tool of escape, although my love/hate relationship with writing has been around since the third grade. I use writing as a necessary medication. It provides an outlet for my stress and anger but I'm always dissatisfied with the end product. The writing process in my mind consists of five or six minutes of disassembling a topic, discussing it, arguing it, typing it up in fifteen minutes and then bruising myself for being an immature douchebag and having the audacity of breathing.

I think my biggest issue with writing is how insignificant modern literature is with the real world. Yes, I acknowledge what I just said to be the biggest mistake to have ever been said, but when the New York Times puts a book written by Bill O'Reilly on their best sellers list, you know the literary world no longer maintains a hold on the popular culture of America anymore. Hell, modern authors that are worth a damn now are nothing but nihilists who write their own violent fantasies in print and make a living writing about their obscene obsessions of being the leader of a revolution that sends the world into the toilet, or their James Patterson and Nora Roberts clones that write poor suspence/fantasy novels that end up on supermarket shelves. (Though, I would argue that writers like Updike or Gaiman are able to transcend these standards and provide readers great, modern literature, but I will leave that to people far more qualified than me to say that.) I really wish that we could have great writers like J.D Salinger or T.S Elliot in America's public highschools pop out from the pools of mediocrity and write some really ace shit that's relevant to our lives and dreams but that's just another fantasy of mine.

That's why I believe public highschools should offer more creative writing classes, or replace Sophmore English with a creative writing class so that more teenagers can learn to appreciate expressing themselves through the written word and make writing a creative art once more.

TL;DR: I'd also like to know what other people think of writing or how they go about writing their blogs or journals. I really want to improve my writing (and be able to concentrate and sound coherent while doing it) and I think the best way for me to do it is to receive feedback from readers and other amateur writers.

Yes, I promise that tomorrow I'll write something more interesting. Believe me, I will.