Buried Talent?

Something's been bothering me lately, and I'm not really sure how to deal with it.

All my life I've wanted to be a writer. Even at the wide-eyed, wonderous age of seven, I was coming up with tales about a little character I created, an "elfling" named Twon (who was basically Link from The Legend of Zelda). I used to spend hours drawing pictures of him vanquishing his foes with the flaming Sun Sword. At night I would write about a magical portal that brought him from his island home of Albagag to the Real World, where he and I could interact, play, and get into adventures.

Then I discovered Greek mythology in fourth grade via a poster on the wall vividly depicting several famous mythological monsters. When I asked my librarian, Miss Shevlin, if I could borrow some books on mythology, her eyes lit up, she clapped, and she made any number of strange ooo's and aaah's as she piled book after book into my little 9-year-old hands.

I took those books home and read them voraciously. Here I found a world not unlike my own imagined Isle of Albagag, full of heroes, monsters, gods, and supernatural wonder. I convinced my mom to buy me my own copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology, which I read until it literally fell to pieces.

From mythology I discovered the Romantic tales of King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Ivanhoe. Then fantasy (I chose the Chronicles of Narnia and by-passed the Lord of the Rings entirely).

A year later, when I was in the fifth grade, Mom took me to go see Batman, with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson, which blew away my 10-year-old mind. That same day at the gas station I bought a copy of The Green Hornet comic book, which happened to be the very first issue of that series. My obsession with comic books, Batman and the Green Hornet, in particular, began then, and it has continued to this day (although there were a few years in high school when I forgot all about comic books and focused on girls... literally).

All this time, I spent writing stories... mostly boyish fantasies about self-created superheroes, elves, knights, monster-slayers, etc.

In high school, I started reading Star Wars novels. The first couple of books were pretty good, but then they started popping up left and right, and the writing began to suck. Then I discovered Dracula, Anne Rice, Poppy Z. Brite, and the world of androdgynous Goth vampires. For a while I wrote a lot about vampires. I even wrote a stage play that ripped off the Bela Lugosi flick. Shortly before graduation, I saw the movie Desperado, and immediately wrote 25 pages of a screenplay called El Bandido, about a young Mexican drifter searching for his lost love while being chased by South American drug lords. It was full of bars, gun-fights, deserts, and lots and lots of cussing.

In college, my friend Claudine let me borrow her dog-eared copy of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and that was the book that changed my life. I threw away the silliness of fantasy and focused entirely on writing true depictions of existence; raw, visceral, unedited. I began chronicalling the downtown adventures of my circle of friends: music shows, clubs, parties, camp-outs, drunken nights huddled in basements listening to music, smoking joints behind abandoned warehouses, dropping acid and walking the city streets just to observe people...

The rest of the Beats followed: Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso, Snyder, Ferlinghetti, et al. My interest in entheogencs and their relationship with the human mind led me to Terence McKenna, Tom Wolf & The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Heaven & Hell by Aldous Huxley. Adam White sent me a copy of The Yage Letters by Burroughs and Ginsberg. Tales of telepathy, the collective unconscious, genetic memory, outer-body experiences, astral projection, transdimensional travel... these were fasincating books. They, too, influenced my writing.

While I was working at a bookstore in Florida, I mentioned to a customer that I enjoyed space opera. I flung that term around a lot in those days without knowing what it really included. An old man overheard me mention this, and asked me if I had ever read the Lensmen series, by E. E. "Doc" Smith. He told me, if I liked space opera, I'd love those books. So I looked them up and ordered the first two volumes. Again, just like when I discovered Kerouac and On the Road, I was hooked.

For three years I hunted down each of the six books that comprised the entire series. Two I bought from a bookstore. One I ordered on-line. Another my ex bought for me. The last, I stole from the Chattanooga public library (there are much worse things to steal...) And for those three years, I wrote a steady succession of space opera tripe that was all the worst of E. E. Smith's style, and none of the best. Still, I was convinced I had an epic tale of star-kings, space fleets, and futuristic heroes somewhere inside my head. I HAD to get it out.

This space opera obsession continues up to now; although I have been reading more literature, lately. Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, and now, again, Kerouac (Lonesome Traveler).

But now something's happened. It's hard to explain, so I'll just put it blunty: I can't write anymore. At least, not like I used to. And this is where it gets confusing: I think it's because, well, again, to be blunt, I'm a chucharro, a potsmoker. I have to admit... I think I've finally smoked away my talent.

Sure, this stuff you're reading now, maybe it's well written, you can understand it. But when I sit down in front of the computer, or with a pen and paper, the words don't flow. The images don't appear. I'm stuck with a blank piece of paper (or a blank monitor)... which, to the eyes of an artist, just cries for something to fill it. To make matters worse, I'm driven by this desire to BE a writer, to LIVE the life of a writer. But again... what is the life of a writer, these days? Is it like what I read about in my books? Crazy parties, poetry readings, libidinous fans? Or is that just another one of my self-constructed fantasies?

Another aspect is that of my Christian faith. I can't honstly say I'm living the most pious life, but I honestly and earnestly believe that Jesus saved me when I prayed that Prayer so many years ago. Never once did my faith in God's existence or the role of Jesus in the salvation of mankind waver. So, now, almost a decade after becoming a Christian, I'm here, at this point in my life, and I feel like I've buried my talents. Just like that poor schmuck in the New Testament who took his talents and buried them under the ground to keep them safe. When the master returned, he was furious and took the man's talent away from him. And the man was left with zero. Is that man me? Is that what's happening?

If that's so... I have a serious struggle coming up.

Well, I haven't been paying attention to time... I have to get ready for work... There's more to this issue but I've already written waaaaaay too much... I'm amazed if you've even reached this part of the post... I figured everyone would give up after the fifth paragraph. Anyway... Till later...