Thinking about doing some work...

This narratives business got me to thinking. Then thinking got me to procrastinating....

I once thought I understood the term 'narrative.' In fact, until recently, I really thought I understood a whole lot more than it turns out I actually do. The first step to becoming wiser is admitting that you know nothing. And personally, I like to think I know everything. It's apart of the rites-of-passage, coming-of-age hoopla that we all go through between the ages of 18-21. I'm a student, it's my stubborn and oblivious right to be ignorant to the facts through self-absorption and be smart-arsedly flippant about everything and everyone. I don't mind being an asshole if that's indeed what I have to be. I do wear sunglasses indoors afterall.

The objective of the post was originally going to be an attempt to discuss the narrative on a selected piece of television and how it works in a linear or non-linear capacity. I cannot, unfortunately, bring myself to do this. I have thought long and hard about it but just feel too preoccupied by thoughts of essay and script writing to tackle it satisfyingly. Truth is, I simply don't get it. Not the narrative thing, but the whole analytical deconstruction thing. Yes, it is true, it will help me to become a better writer. Yes, maybe knowing the rules and being able to analyse the conventions inherent within those rules will allow me to one day be able to break them in my own cute way. But in the end, this course is merely gearing us towards a schematically mundane future of disappointment where unfulfilled potential is a mandatory requirement on your Curriculum Vitae. We are slowly being prepared for mediocrity I believe. There is no belief, or that is, no true belief that real inspiration, real creativity, actually exists anymore and that's probably true. At least not in the hands of inexperienced and idealized, young 'wanabe' writers. This is why the academic portion of said course is leaving a bitter aftetaste I think. Is the destiny of the aspiring writer to never exceed the limited boundaries of their peers or mentors? If the jaded cynics before you could not excel beyond their own dreams and ambitions, does that mean we ourselves must prepare for the worst and accept the crushingly pessimistic present as our anonymously written near future? Is there a difference between cynicism and being realistic?

I don't do this for fun. I do it because its the only thing between me and spiralling into the mundane depression of everyday life. Writing keeps me relatively sane, and gives me hope that I will not live out my years in anonymity, filing papers and nursing paper cuts, advising customers on the softest type of toilet tissue paper or scanning numerical barcodes until my brain falls out of my ass. Writing releases me into my sacred imagination where I create my own reality that others may experience without having to compromise on their own. It's a fluid process, and yes, no matter what I write, I understand it will get rewritten, by me or by other countless people, but it's the journey of that process which no matter how painful, is the only journey I want to take. But I don't want to invest all this time, energy, money and creativity into three years just to work on "Emmerdale." Had this course been advertised as it is in reality, it would be called SCRIPTWIRITNG FOR TV. Film is only relevant in the cleverly marketed name of said course. We are tempted and lured in by the film focused first year, before being deflated and let in on the mission statement a lot later. It's like Tom Cruise in The Firm. Let the dude live it up in style, dig in, soak up the sun, then tell him its all under the thumb and at the whim of the mafia when he's at his most comfortable.

So, as for this narrative business? Yeah, I wanna get charged up with the learning but my brain doesn't absorb stuff like it used to and I'm getting worried. I won’t deny my understanding of screenwriting is of a competent standard (even after ten dedicated years I have much to improve on), and that I revile the essay process like it was a cancerous growth on my penis, but I feel constrained, disillusioned and betrayed in many ways by my own lack of personal commitment.

I like to inject personality into my work. With essays, you must concede to this lethargic instruction manual mentality where as a writer you are asked to castrate yourself and be just like any other academic student. Should the rules not be different for our course? Is the marriage of the academic and the creative too much a contrast of opposites to one another? Like here I could discuss "Heroes," as I intended and waffle on about how the narrative in the first few minutes uses montage and music to reflect on the last season's underwhelming events while subtly foreboding what is to come. Narrative is simply a structured series of events that are determined through the nature of cause and effect, or the consequences of action (or inaction). Narrative also informs not only the structure, but thematic points and subtext built into the material, which can be determined by genre, culture, history, or even socio-political standing. Is that an adequate summary? If that represents my basic grasp of narrative, and if it is indeed correct, does that mean I need to prove further that I can dissect a piece of 'art' to evidence this? Is that what these essays ultimately are for? Evidence of understanding? The pending essay is making me shit bricks. I wish I could write about something that I can invest with passion, though still abiding by the confines of this narrative unit's needs. Is that naive of me? Am I that idealized 'wanabe' writer I mentioned earlier?

If I decide to go my own way, I fail in the eyes of my peers, but I retain my own creative integrity, at least on the most personal level. But then I prove that I have thrown money at something that I do not truly believe in nor want to follow, and for all I know my lack of investment led to my own disillusionment, and it was nothing to do with the course itself. I don't like to do things I feel to be unnecessary, unrelated or superfluous in conception and execution. I could analyse a film until the cows came home, put their feet up on the table, smoked cigars, watched 'Oprah,' and commenced an orgy in the barn, but will that help me to become a better scriptwriter? I would love to write a thesis on something I truly love (whatever the aspect), and would give myself over completely to the process, if I could only maintain my own voice. I get the message that writing will ultimately be all about selling-out (an inevitability of the industry), watering your ideas down and then whoring them out, suffocating creativity and settling for what is convenient. I am to compromise and neuter myself in every way until all I am is exactly what I was striving to avoid becoming - another anonymous face in a crowd, where my own, unique voice is drowned out in a cacophony of murmurs and mumbles. The struggle is to either be the academic achiever (who can learn and consume the information handed to them, then apply it to their work) or the creative mind (the writer who invests all their time into producing the 'art' and nothing else).

Narrative is the last thing on my mind I am afraid, when it should be a priority. But I digress. In the end, I will do what is asked of me, and whether I succeed or fail, I guess it's all up to me in the end anyway. Independent learning really means to learn alone. I just wish I knew whether I was the idealist 'wanabe' or the jaded cynic. And which one would make me the better writer.