19. 05. 2024.
Dear Internet,
In front of you is a window.
Nothing special, just a regular window with wooden sills and glazes covered with dust. Outside your window is a bustling street full of cars and people and bicycles and whatever the fuck it is that makes city life barely tolerable. You fan black smoke out of your face and choose to close that window.
In front of you is another window.
Nothing really special, still, just a regular window with wooden sills and glazes covered with white dust that sparkle, somehow. You look up. Outside your window is the universe presenting itself in front of you. Nebulae and galaxies slowly zoom out of your view, making way for a pod of flying humpback whales to cross your window.
One of the humpbacks swings their flipper a little too excitedly, creating a huge wave of cosmic dust and asterisms splashing onto your windowsill. Wonderstruck, you run your hand across the wooden frame, letting your fingers be covered in glitters.
But you close that window, too.
Outside the third window is a vast expanse of white nothing. You stare at it, trying to make out any semblance of sense.
And you do, after a while.
Because you're a writer, deep down. Everyone is. Because humans are born to tell, to communicate, to share, and to think.
After a while, a vertical line appears outside your window. The only black in your sea of white. Then it disappears. And reappears. It's blinking. It's mildly annoying. It's a text cursor, waiting for you to fill the space outside your window with your own world.
The windows mean nothing. Or maybe they mean something, that depends on your interpretation.
But that doesn't matter,
because in front of me is a wall.
An empty beige wall. It is impersonally cold, but I've talked to it a lot in the previous years. Recently, not so much. Adulthood happened, and the world demanded too much from me.
This is Untitled Part 13. I've tried thinking of an awesome title for this new first chapter that'll lure new readers into reading further and strapping their seatbelts on for the rollercoaster ride. But I also thought that a title like "New Beginnings!" is the cringiest, hackiest, people-pleasing shit I'll ever do (aside from my entire career, really) so instead I counted all the previously published chapters, clicked "+ New Part", and let Wattpad create the title for me.
And it works a treat because some of you may have read the previous twelve parts, whilst some of you are left wondering what the bloody hell is this book all about, who is this piece of shit writer trying to push his middle-of-the-road writing beliefs and opinions, and why does this sound like a big deal?
Untitled Part 13 is an ode to the previous chapters, hidden by that sane part of my brain that can still feel shame.
Untitled Part 13 is an ode to my dreams that waltz with death, slow dancing to a ballad of voices singing that my art and my craft will never be enough.
Untitled Part 13 is me trying to put myself out there once again. Me trying to continue all my works in progress, me trying to write like I did before.
Untitled Part 13 is me trying.
I have the "Dear Internet" chapter (the very first chapter in this book) opened in another window as I typed this. Yes, I am dying of cringe. But I love that chapter. It physically hurts, reading the words of sixteen-year-old me being aggressively positive to boost other people's confidence in their own craft, but it was sixteen-year-old me who had the most time and love for writing.
Sixteen-year-old me loved writing as I would my partner. I treated writing as a companion, a best friend, and a place of refuge. Writing was always there, through thick and thin, through the highs and the lows, through word vomits and writer's blocks.
Sixteen-year-old me has loved writing with a fiery passion, but the present me loves writing with a mellower, comfortable warmth. It's cosier, and feels more like home.
The present me loves writing like how I love the warmth of the sun on my skin. Like how I love the vivid blue of the skies, and the green of the seas. I love writing like how I love the sweetness of chocolate in my sundae and the richness of caramel in my tongue. Like how I love hiking mountains and swimming on beaches. Like how I love looking at pretty flowers. Like how I love cooking, and biking, and running, and reading, and living.
The present me thinks that to write is to breathe. That to write is to live.
But fuck that anyway.
We're here to talk about what my wall usually hears so be prepared for my usual sentiments, why you deserve to love and be loved, why you should publish the draft that's been sitting around in your files, why you should never trust rabbits, and why you should ask your motherfucking crush out for a date. (No, not really, no. LOL.)
Untitled Part 13 is a slow beginning.
