"A Description"

Here's a little piece I did last night that just sort of gave birth to itself and then forced its way onto my computer screen via the keyboard. Enjoy.


     "The gentle sun drips off of her hair like so many delicate drips of dribbling nectar out of the sweet throats of a thousand honey dews blossoming strong and bright with an energy that shines out of her liquid eyes and sparkles from her cuticles, her fingertips. Her face is as radiant as a field of dying wildflowers exploding into supernovas across a green night sky with its light boring into my own black hole of a soul as their strongest radiance glows reaching across the distances of cold space into my visual cortex. Her hair frames a picture that not even Vincent could have pictured in the depths of his acutest despairs and brightest fantasies all mixed together in one galaxy spiral of a swirl. Her cheeks, her silken lips are softer than that field in the gentle grip of a latter adolescent spring just becoming truly sentient of its warmth and beauty. Her nose, her chin, her lines of jaw make a simple sketch displaying a not so simply explained splendor more mysterious than that of the spiral all golden."

Your thoughts?

Well, There Goes My Nails

Hello again! See, I told you was going to start making regular blog posts! I bet you didn't expect that resolution to followed! 

Anyways...

     Sometime during last week, I'm unsure of the exact day because without any sort of repetition in my basic schedule I can't keep track of what day it is, I took a bold new step. I submitted a personal essay of mine to a literary magazine. I believe I mentioned it in my last post. I wanted to be super ridiculous and submit it to The New Yorker because then I'd be sure to get a real rejection letter (one that I could frame), but I couldn't find any clear guidelines for a print submission as opposed to an email submission.

    When I posted a status about it to Facebook (yes, I still use it, just like millions of others) I used the phrase "let the three months of nail-biting begin" or something akin to that. According to The Sun's website (which I found incredibly well-designed) it takes at least three months for them to process your submission and get back to you (which seems to be a pretty standard time frame). What I meant by the aforementioned status is that no matter what I'm doing or where I am that moment, the thought of my submission and it's upcoming fate will be ever in the back of my mind.

     I can't help but wonder at what my reaction will be when I get the results. If I am published, I'll probably have the same reaction I had when I received a letter from Christopher Paolini in reply to one I had written him. I screamed and danced like a middle school who just met Robert Pattinson. I'm really glad I wasn't recorded in anyway.

     Now, if I'm rejected, I don't really know what will happen. I'll at least frame the rejection letter because it'll make me feel like a real writer. Other than that, well, I guess it could go a few different ways. I could laugh it off, I guess. I could dig my heels into the ground and become super inspired. I could also sink into one of my periods of depression. None of these are mutually exclusive by the way.

    One thing is for certain, I'll keep writing, because that's just what I do.

    As writers, if this is something you plan stick with (think long hard about; it's a decision not to be made flippantly),  then you're going to have to deal with a lot of Stuff. On the best days, you'll feel one possessed by a muse, the words flowing off your tongue or your pen like so many drops of rain off of a tin roof in a summer storm. On the worst days, you'll feel self-doubt. You'll feel ridiculous. You'll feel like freaking out and screaming. You'll question yourself about why you even bother. At times, heaven forbid, you'll feel like giving up.

    Don't.

    I can't promise it will get better because I am not experienced enough to have that kind of information, 

and, from I've gathered, I don't think it does. You will always have bad days at times.

   If writing, if being a writer is truly something you love then isn't it worth it? Isn't worth fighting for even if the biggest enemy you face happens to be yourself? Like with all truly good things, the answer  is yes.

Growing Pains

     Once again, please insert my usual "speel" about how I'm a horrible blogger, I don't upload enough things for any of you (not that too many read these), and I promise to do better. It's summer now so I don't really have any excuses. In fact, it's been summer for a little while so I definitely don't have any excuses to use.

     So, let's get to the important things.

     My legs really, really, really hurt.

     Oh yeah, I have a job now. Via my English/drama teacher's husband I have managed to procure a job for the summer. Unlike what I suspect many of the jobs are that those my age obtain, it is full time and above minimum wage ($10.00 an hour). Oh, it's also in the sun in a shipyard in a place with a name that I originally believed to be a racial slur, but is the actual name of the town(?) or area. None is truly important.

     The point I'm trying to make is that I'm entering whole new. Compared the existence me and most of my peers, it's different to the point where it seems like being around these people is a whole new plane of existence. I'm not saying that as an educating young individual with a fairly bright future I'm above or better than of them. What I am saying is that I feel like an alien among normal people. I've finally stepped out of the dream of private school education, middle class socioeconomic status into the real world of a forty hour work week in the hot sun. Talk about culture shock.

     As I look forward to the rest of my summer, I wonder if I'll overcome that culture shock. Will I acclimate and integrate to that culture by the end of the summer? Do I want to? Will I perhaps understand them? Whatever happens, I'll certainly learn more of the world.

     When riding around last Wednesday with my father, we were driving so that I could work out where exactly I would be driving everyday for work, he said that this job would benefit me as a writer, and then he made a reference to Steinbeck (at which I glowed secretly with pride). Maybe, along with all of the other writing projects I've assigned myself will be to observe these people, to see another side of existence. I've always thought to understand the world because I've wanted to make it better. For the next several weeks, I won't be seeing it from the lofty and philosophical heights of air conditioned rooms.


                                                                                                              Good-bye for now,
                                                                                                              Jesse Byron

P.S. I'm getting published again. Same anthology, different edition. Also, I sent in an essay to a publication called The Sun. I'll probably hear back from it some time during August.