What a strange title eh? I mean, how often do you read a 13 year old's blog that is, at the very least, coherent enough to warrant an attempt at reading it? How many of those 13 year old's have epiphanies? How many of those 13 year old's decide to blog about those epiphanies? How many of these epiphanies are of an analytical nature? OK, I'm straying from the entire point of this blog, but nonetheless, I thought my writing on an epiphany I had last Saturday was as strange as it was necessary, and therefore this pointless and convoluted introduction seems somehow to make sense within the bizarre confines of my mind.
So onto the actual epiphany, and the purpose of this blog:
I woke up, Saturday morning and lay there gazing at the ceiling, too ill to go out for my paper round, and too lazy to get up. I lay and thought: 'What to do today?" I could read. I could write. I could play video games. Yeah... video games: let's do that; but then my mind turned to the mountain of homework I had probably amassed somewhere along the line and completely forgotten about. Then it all came back to me. All the homework I had to do. 'Crap,' I thought, 'There's no way that's getting done today!'
And so it was decided. That's what I'm doing today: homework. So, still not bothering to get up, I lay there thinking about what needed to be done, and how I could make it that extra bit special - something I always seem to want to do, go that extra mile, especially when it's last minute. I came up with a myriad great ideas for one particular piece, and thought 'yeah, this is gonna be good'. I couldn't stop a manic grin from spreading across my face. Or at least I couldn't, until I realised something. 'Hold on, this homework is due on Monday.' That gave me two days. Then add to that the fact that on Sunday I would be at stage school, and then visiting relatives, that left me with a day. A day to complete an entire massive project, and about 3 or 4 other pieces of homework. Of course this was entirely my fault, for leaving everything until the last minute - as I do - but I couldn't help feeling that the fact that all of these awesome ideas came to me so late on in the process was a little unfair.
Yet it was this, that led me to thinking even more. I thought of even more great ideas for all of the homework I had to do, but given the extremely severe time restraints, I'd have to make do with the bare minimum. And it was all of this that led me to the big epiphany. A train of thought that combined with other trains of thought from the previous night that just spiralled and spiralled and spiralled until it created a crystal clear picture of me as a writer. I could see my errors. I could see how my writing as a whole - be it work, reviews, whatever - could be vastly improved upon. Things that had never made any sense, suddenly made sense.
The previous night, I'd been watching a ton of movie and game reviews, for inspiration on what to watch/play, and also for assistance with my own reviews, as it always helps to make yourself aware of the work of others involved in a similar field. Some call it plagiarism, yet lets be fair, what isn't plagiarised in one way or another? Nothing is truly original. Things always spawn from an idea, and an idea has to spawn from somewhere. The first few pages of 'Weaveworld' by Clive Barker give a very good explanation of this. Anyway, I'm straying from the point. I was watching a ton of reviews, and there was something about them which really spoke to me. The amount that some reviewers can draw on their past experiences is insane, and one in particular stood out to me. It was a review of the original 'Star Wars' trilogy, and it really surprised me, and enlightened me in many ways. It basically explained how whereas the universe these movies are set in is as original as it is unorthodox, the movies themselves are actually a mish-mash of some of the greatest movies of yesteryear. They base chunks on other movies, making 'Star Wars' into an amalgamation of some of the best bits, from some of the best movies of the time, meaning that this is actually the epitome of film - a walking bucket of awesome, with when you throw awesome stuff into it, it makes it even more awesome, so that it could not possibly be any more awesome if it tried.
What really amazed me though, was not just that what seemed to be such an original movie series is actually not as original as I expected; but how the people who realised what 'Star Wars' was made up of came to draw these conclusions. The juxtapositions, and the ways in which they recognise similarities is insane. I couldn't believe how much bits of these movies were related to completely unrelated movies, but how people actually realised this in the first place is astounding. The wealth of movie knowledge and trivia they must have stashed away in their brains is astonishing!
And it was this that brought me to my discoveries about my own work. I write a lot. This should be abundantly clear to any teachers and classmates that have read my schoolwork, the peoples of 'Gamespot', 'IGN' and possibly my dad's forum that have read some of my video game reviews GCSE level. Yet I complained. I was sure I was analysing. Why am I being marked so low?
Because i wasn't. I don't look into the details, I don't draw comparisons, I don't pick everything apart and look at all the tiny pieces from every possible angle. Whilst I'm told I'm good at what I do, I'm a one-trick pony (yes, that awful saying that they seriously over-use on 'Britain's Got Talent'). I seem to think that the fact that I write a lot, and that I'm capable of making videos gives me a great chance of getting wherever I want as far as this sort of thing is concerned. That my animations and videos impress people. Which they do, but it's growing stale. It's almost like I've made it into a cliche. Every time there's a piece of homework where such a thing is excusable, I create a video. People were really impressed, but now it's just something I always do, and other people are starting to learn how to do it too, so it isn't original and it isn't as amazing as it once was.
I need to think of ways to keep everything fresh. Think of new and exciting ways of doing things. Look at things from another perspective, or if possible, more than one. Try something out of the ordinary - at what point, making an animation for homework was unheard of, and garnered an unprecedented level of awe and respect, but now, everyone has come to expect it of me. The fact that I write in so much depth is no longer incredible, it's boring. That isn't to say that I won't write a lot any more, and I won't make any more videos - far from it - but it just means that if I am going to do more of the same, it needs to take a completely different angle. Everything will be heavily researched, and I will try to put as much effort in as possible, wherever it's practical, and I have the required amount of time. Who knows, maybe one day I may even stop leaving everything to the last minute. We'll see.
Once again, thank you for your time, and I hope that you learned something from this, as I definitely have, and hopefully in the future, the things I do will persistently amaze. So you'd all better prepare for the unorthodox, because I'm letting my extremely warped imagination loose. Stay tuned for reviews, stuff about stuff, and much much more completely bonkers yet well-written lunacy - see you on the flip side.
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