Hi, I'm JT

I love the idea of writing a blog. Well, to be honest, I love the idea of writing. I love the feel of my keys gently pecking at the keys and letters appearing. Those letters slowly form words, sometimes misspelled, then you hit the delete key a few times as those letters return with a more cohesive order. Those words form sentences, those sentences join together to create paragraphs, and paragraphs create chapters. It resembles life where one piece builds upon another. That first sentence ran away from me a bit.

I cannot remember when I started writing. I remember sketching figures of Power Rangers with pencils on taped together sheets of writing paper. I then colored them in appropriately so that each of them faintly resembled the Power Ranger of appropriate color. I then fastened them to the wall with tape or sticky tack. Eventually, they fell down taking small pieces of paint with them. I did the same for the pictures I elegantly colored with crayon. Those too fell down or ripped off the wall. For almost a decade, Jasmine’s delicate hand held out for a flying dove remained taped to the inclined wall of my bedroom. I remember coming up with alternate adventures for the Rangers in between the ones on television, but I never wrote them down.

In High School, I wrote fifteen thousand words of a story about a young boy finding out about his dissensions from ancient deities. He went to the mythic world of gods and fought monsters with others like him. He never triumphed, mostly due to my own inability to finish a story.

When High School ended and college began, I wanted to continue to write, but never felt I had the appropriate outlet. Then I took a couple English classes, decided an English degree would do me little, switched majored a few times, and returned to English a newfound man. I resolved that words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and books remained the only place out there to truly make me happy. Sure, I experienced love, friendship, heartache, fear, panic, and pleasure throughout all those years between my leaving English behind and returning, but why did I decide to keep running away from writing and literature which could give me all those experience in a single sitting?

I joined a Creative Writing course, where I wrote what I wanted and edited my way into an A. I then took a Poetry course with a Professor who eventually became a trusted confidant and mentor; I may even go so far as friend. I took another course on Travel Writing, and then spend a semester surrounded with literary analysis papers as my only outlet. Now, my final semester of school encroaches on my writing life, and I decided I needed an outlet for my words.

This blog stands as a testament to my continued writing. I decided to start with a story instead of an introduction like this one. I plan to look over the stories I post and make a few changes here and there. I want to practice short stories working on the very basics of storytelling; beginning, rising action, climax, and falling action.

The preceding story started while I worked out at the gym yesterday. I listened to Darren Criss singing teenage dream and got a flashback to the Katy Perry music video. I remember seeing an innocent-looking Katy with straight hair and a simple dress making her look more Church-going than the majority of the scenes within the video. She watched a man throw his fists against a punching bag with a longing look. I took that idea and created the story you read blow. I still need to do some cleaning up of the last paragraph which makes me wonder whether I want a positive/hopeful ending with the running back’s friend and the running back himself looking at the narrator or make the running back himself say the line and take away any sense of hope that narrator has at a relationship.

I will answer these questions with time. Right now, I just hope to keep on writing another story this time about a transgender individual or perhaps about mirrors, looks, and changed appearances as years progress. As always, the story will appear as I begin to put those words, into sentences, and into paragraphs.