Opus 20 - Dustin O'Halloran

Writing is this tenuous and awful challenge. Writing is putting together 1000 words each day and saying that I’m happy with that and calling it there. Writing sometimes, makes me feel like I want to be smashed against a wall and fall into one thousand little pieces of brick, each piece a petrified word.

So, I’ve been going through it, lately. I realised my frustration was the only thing I was feeling. I needed to change my input, and hope that could cause a shift in the output. I’ve been watching video essays, old childish cartoons and whatever offering Youtube gives me, often something inane, but vaguely interesting. I needed to read something again. I’ve been trying to get through Tehanu, of Earthsea, but it's taking its time. I’m taking a break from Earthsea, and reading Wild Words, by Nicole Gulotta.

Yesterday, she asked me ‘what is your writing origin story?’

Looking back, when I was 10-11-12, I really really enjoyed comics, in a new and refreshing way. I loved The Beano, and was writing my own comics during class time. These were strange, bizarre little things. I wasn’t writing them to get published, I was writing them for the fun of them.

It was a strange time. It was before the divorce, when the house was a bit more green and I was awful. I was the annoying preteen. I was struggling with something that my partner called ‘childhood depression’. This was realised humorously posthumously. I was in primary school, going into my last year, where the friends I had were changing. Everybody was going far away. I never had much connection, aside to a few friends. Meanwhile, I was becoming weird and more of a freak. I played football, faked getting injured, made and lost friends, lied about failing my class tests to my parents, and barely did any homework. What’s changed?

I passed the entrance exam I had to take, with the help of a dreaded tutor. The people I knew then, Jason, Kyle, Reece, Harry, David -- All these people now don’t mean anything to me. These were people from a very different time and me. I think I picked up this comic thing because I was enjoying the influences of my friend, Sam H. He was reading all sorts of things shounen at the time. I have no idea what attracted me to it. Whatever I did pick up though, tropes, elements, and ideas, I adopted into my own work. Too, it was all hand drawn by me, giving me the only drawing credit worth my while. And, as such, all the spelling mistakes were my own.

In reflection, these are nonsense, but, they have the element of creativity within them. They were stupid, childishly so, but I was worried about tings way less then, than I am now.

When I was 14-15-16, Writing was amazing.

I was doing English Language at GCSE-Level. It was a subject that I enjoyed a stupid amount. It engaged me and my creativity in such a way I was always and consistently excited for it. It came accompanied with a creative writing controlled assessment, which was something that brought life to the end of my fourth year in secondary education. I talked it through with my friend Ryan. We played D&D together. There was this rush of like, oh my goodness, now THIS happens, and being totally escaped from reality. It was these elements that we were so endeared by within D&D. It took me out of reality and put me in warm, different and eager settings. Around this time, I was watching Adventure time. Between that expanded universe, and playing Oblivion and Skryim, and seeing all the small details that could be found, I was thinking of creating a world that could be as colourful, diverse, and elemental as the media around me. Even remembering what worlds I wanted to create was with a flow and feeling of whatever I wanted.

This creative assignment came around and I was working on it ruthlessly. I said to Ryan we could just use a story from D&D. Neither of us did, but it was an interesting, although presumptuous idea. I went for an idea from my alternate Skyrim world. Ryan went with a The Wolf Among Us story, which worked super well. I remember the night before the deadline, I was in my bedroom at my Dad's, and I was playing out each and every scene, narrating it to myself, knowing I would have my extra time to finish it. I worked on it during those hours, but I really wish I could have typed it out. It’s a world that I’ll remember only in the scribbled hours of the last day of school. I wrote all I could, and got a high B.

We didn’t have a working printer, so I just used whatever paper I could find. It worked for about three years.

When I was 18, I felt horrible in my existence. Before that, there was an open mic at Queer as Spoke.

I tried writing three poems. There was LMR’s creative writing society on Tuesdays at school, became the reliable outlet. I had energy and I could pour it out into the world, this smallish English classroom. I felt explosive, creative, and momentous. I was figuring out who I was, and was becoming myself in the process. As it was, I was working the best I could, especially at the time. Arguably, I was overworking. To myself, I was underworking. There were stupid nights of tremoring anxiety. Still, I knew what I wanted to be doing. I kept writing, expanding into poetry. Little fragments. I wasn't really reading poetry as I should be now. But still, I was trying. Queer as Spoke was an event established by and for the 343, for gay poetry. Queer. I went with my beloved buddy, Billie. I was wearing my best skirt and silver lipstick. I wrote a poem called Terf Bangs, another called Red Lines, and read out a weirder, smaller one in the middle. I can’t remember what it was called. I read Terf Bangs last, and hearing laughter as a genuine reaction to my work is a feeling so unique and potent. I think people understood, and people enjoyed what I had to say. I felt happy. I felt loose, especially in that last poem. The first two, were frankly, overwritten, uninclusive and explored nothing of note. The reaction I got from those in attendance was humbling and delightful.

I was in the middle of the second half, and I tried. I think I succeeded. It was a shame how depressed I got thereafter. The next time I read poetry on that scale was at the performance night, still in the 343. I read my shit poems, and between each one, I said my name was Hailey O’Gorman, if anybody wanted to talk to me. People laughed and applauded. There’s a video of my whole performance, or, the second half of it. I was probably in my shorts, and my denim jacket. Rain said I was a great thing for the whole show, or something along those lines. Ash said she had enjoyed it very much. I felt appreciated.

On reflecting, I enjoyed writing these each of these stepping stones. On reflection, I had so far to go, and yet, I have come so far. I still dance in front of the teetering edge of boredom and giving up, and it's a regular jig. I have absolutely no idea where I will be going next. Still, I can hope. It will involve reading poetry quite a bit, ideally. I needed to keep writing, and keep creating in ways like this. Words that are my own, that are expansive and weird and, ideally, funny. Not all enjoyment comes from laughter, but, I enjoy making people laugh. So, still, I’m yet to fall out of love with you.