Musical Whine

Don't you hate it when people label music?

When a certain music is labeled as a "girl" song because the artist happens to be avant garde and completely out there? Or when the music a band makes is "gay" because a few members of the band happen to be gay?

Or, what's even worse, when music seems to define exactly who you are?

To be honest, it makes no sense. According to some people, since I listen to Scissor Sisters and I enjoy that type of nu-disco/pop sound I absolutely, positively must be gay! Which is stupid. Since I listen to Tupac I must also be a gangster, right? I also listen to Cradle of Filth- does this make me a leather-wearing hardcore goth? I listen to some Japanese metal and I'm not a Japanese metalhead. I have friends who listen to the horrible Nicki Minaj and the untalented Katy Perry- that doesn't make them illiterate, tacky, vocally disabled, or a firework!

Somehow, people have gotten into their head that if you happen to be a part of some type of group, minority, etc, you must listen to a particular genre of music and if you don't, you're "weird"!

Why?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?

For Crying Out Loud, Why!!??!!??

Why do people do this? It's stupid on so many levels! I would understand teenagers and children buying into this kind of juvenile labeling (and to a degree, name-calling) but once you are at the end of the hormonal years and hit the beginning of the end of puberty this stupidity should stop! Seriously, I have grown adults telling me this shit, and it's annoying as hell!

Why should No Doubt be a "girl's band" just because Gwen Stefani happens to be the lead singer? Why does my little cousin continue to bemoan my liking of No Doubt, telling me that I should listen to Metallica and such, despite the fact that I listen to them more than he does?? Am I expected to stay in one genre of music based on my skin color and my choice of friends? Because if that were the case, I'd be listening to nothing but new school crap-rap, techno, and corridos. I detest new rap, and corridos! But if that's what we're basing it on...

And I know that certain groups listen to certain types of music, but how does that affect me?? Am I supposed to not listen to music I like because of stupid stereotypes? I listen to Jeffree Star- that doesn't make me a transvestite! I also like jazz- I don't go party at a motherfucking speakeasy, dammit! I listen to techno and house music and the last time I checked I'm not a Jersey Shore reject! I'm no fucking Oompa-Loompa!

Gosh! Doing this kind of shit is stupid!

I will forever remember that time when, as a high-school junior, I smacked my cousin for saying that "Underneath it All" was a "girl's song."

Too bad I can't just smack everyone who tells me that shit. It would make everything so much easier.

Noveling Pt. 1

Ugh.

This is all I can say.

For the past four months or so that I've been in session, any type of creative writing I have done has been in play-form. It has been thought of, executed, perfected, and then re-written in theatrical style. Ignoring the theatre-formula all plays are written in, as a writer (or at least for me) you have to force yourself to think in theatrical way: anything you do must absolutely work on stage. Every action, every word, every little nuance must be performable and doable by an actor performing your work.

It was a harsh and annoying change.

However, it was a change I adapted wholeheartedly to. I changed my creative style and thinking to suit the needs of the theatrical, of which I did a pretty good job, in my not-so humble opinion. I actually like writing in that manner, thinking of how an actor would execute a character's action or movement.

But now, having been freed from school, I have a problem. A huge one. A problem of monumental proportions, that I, in my nineteen years of existence, have ever run across.

How the hell to I change back?

Very recently, my muses paid me a surprise visit, bitch-slapping me with the force of a thousand ideas and I wrote like a man possessed. I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, researching and meticulously creating this new world I was going to play in, and then, when it came to actually executing the action, making everything happen, pulling out my miracle bag and throwing it in there, I look over to my work and... it sucks.

And it's not the idea itself. At least I hope to the goddess it isn't the idea.

It's the writing. I read over what was supposed to be my first chapter of this new and shiny work I came up with and it reads like a badly written script! I did what I could, but I realized- it's not the writing itself. The writing could work as a script it I adapted it to the proper formula. Idea as a script could totally work.

The problem is that the work is, in fact, not a script. It is a novel, and I would like it to stay that way, thank-you-very-much!

I don't know how to switch from playwright-style to novelist-style! This is not in my handbook! In fact, I don't have a handbook! They never gave me one! I just don't know what to do! I know, it's all me and I should be able to do something, but I can't! It just doesn't work. Apparently I have two modes now, playwright and poet, and neither are interested cooperating with me. What do you do when you're own creative instinct is working against you? Is it supposed to do that? And it's not like I could grab a bat and beat it into submission (although I wish I could!) and just... ugh!

There should be some type of marker for this. This is self-help book moment, dammit! I need help!

*Sigh*

I'm hoping that with enough writing it'll go away, but I don't know...

Anyway, I'm going back to the old grindstone. Only in this case, it's a pen and it's stabbing the fuck out of me.