"What I'm Not" Officially Canceled

***”WHAT I’M NOT” OFFICIALLY CANCELED***

It’s not often than I scrub a piece of creative writing I did off the face of the internet. The last time I did it was in 2014 with a PG-13 erotica short story called Tainted Love. Six days after my 29^th birthday, this stinker managed to piss off the entire world with the way I objectified the lone female character and glorified her Stockholm Syndrome. I own that black eye on my track record and promise never to do those horrible things again. So what could I have possibly written this time that would deserve such a thorough cleansing from the web? I’ll tell you what it was: the first and final episode of What I’m Not.

I’ve had the idea for What I’m Not for as long as I’ve been fantasizing about having a You Tube channel. Many of my closest friends encouraged me to do my own You Tube project and I’ve been hesitant to give it a try, for fear that the ungodly amount of stress would send me into a schizophrenic hell all over again. But let’s say for instance that I had the guts to bare my soul to the world in front of a phone camera. What I’m Not was supposed to be a vlog series detailing all of my worst mistakes as a semi-professional author. In other words, it was a cautionary tale to rookies to not fuck up as badly as I did. I made the mistakes so nobody else would have to.

In theory, this would actually be a good idea. I don’t have much in the way of writing expertise except for what not to do. I still can’t craft a 3D character worth a damn. I still don’t know what the fuck a “character-driven story” is. What I’m Not would have been a comedic and lighthearted look into my worst decisions. So when I wrote the first episode, which was about admitting unemployment to strangers, audience members, and bosses, I decided to have a little fun and pepper in some jokes here and there. I was so excited to have this episode written that I didn’t even proofread the damn thing before posting it. That in and of itself would have made a fine idea for a What I’m Not episode.

When I finally read what I had written (twice), I was frozen with horror. There’s no way in hell writing this awful could have come from my imagination. I’m not even talking about first draft standards, because let’s face it, all first drafts by their very nature suck. This episode was by far, no exaggeration, the WORST thing I had ever written. It was so bad, in fact, that I scrubbed it from the internet before it had the chance to be critiqued. At least with the first draft of Beautiful Monster, it had potential despite the glaring flaws in the way I handled the subject of rape. At least with the first draft of Silent Warrior, it was…well…something! This episode of What I’m Not was a disaster from the get-go. It had no such potential. My big fat ass cat Oswald could have written a better episode than this and all he does is lie around and piss himself while waiting to die.

The tone of this episode could only be described as a whiny rant. I whined about my job hunting past. I whined about classism in dating. I ranted against people who were just trying to be nice and make small talk with me. All of this was supposed to be done in a comedic tone, but trust me when I say there was nothing funny about what I had written. A burning orphanage is funnier than this. Childhood cancer is funnier than the garbage I had written. Lily Singh’s “comedy” is funnier than…eh, you get the point by now. Wouldn’t want this blog entry to be a whining mess either, so I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

After I had wiped this episode from my social media pages and taken a few deep breaths to chill my anxiety, I questioned whether or not future episodes of What I’m Not would be just as bad as this one was. Fearing the answer might be an emphatic “fuck yes”, I decided going forward that the What I’m Not series had to be permanently canceled. I’m sure there’s a market for advice on what not to do as a writer, but I’m not the salesman. Not anymore. But did these episodes have to be funny? In my mind, they did, because that was the only thing they had going for them. If I tried to make the episodes serious, it would have sounded even whinier than before.

While my social media accounts have a small audience, You Tube would have had a lot more eyes on it. Can you imagine if I translated my writing into a video and a gajillion people saw it? I consider myself fortunate that I can toe the line between a private citizen and an internet personality. This is not a microscope I want to find myself under. This is not a hill I want to die on. If I ever decide to do a nonfiction series again, I’ll need a different topic and it’ll have to be a topic that doesn’t require a comedic edge. I can be funny from time to time, but not all the time. I don’t have the charisma to keep my funny streak going forever and ever. Drama is much easier than comedy, but whining will not be tolerated.

Will I ever create a You Tube channel given that What I’m Not turned out to be a dud? I think I’m more comfortable writing my nonfiction out instead of being in front of a camera. Yes, I know that staying in the comfort zone is supposed to be a bad thing, but then again, so is falling so badly on my ass that I can’t recover. My You Tube audience wouldn’t have let me hear the end of it. At least on Deviant Art, Good Reads, and Blogger, I don’t have to worry about supreme failure, because the audience for those platforms is smaller. But a small audience won’t bring me a great deal of success. Then again, success doesn’t always amount to fame and fortune. Everyone’s idea of success is different and sometimes it doesn’t mean being glared at under the world’s most powerful electron microscope.

If this blog entry sounds too whiny to keep my message consistent, I apologize profusely. I don’t know who was really looking forward to the What I’m Not series, but it’s been officially canceled as of now. My main priorities at the moment will be editing Beautiful Monster, reading my books, drawing my pictures, and watching my movies. Drawing and movie watching in particular are both excellent ways to get away from the writing grind and restore some of my lost energy. Sure, I write reviews for every movie I watch (Star Wars Episodes VII-IX be damned), but at least I have the energy to do those by the time the movie is over. Funny how that works out. As far as Beautiful Monster is concerned, I still have chapter seven staring me in the face, but that’s okay because it’s not a time sensitive project. Editing jobs aren’t supposed to be. Slow and steady wins the race. I’m Garrison Kelly! Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I want to go home, take off this uniform, and leave the show. But I’m waiting in this cell, because I have to know: have I been guilty all this time?”

-Pink Floyd singing “Stop”-