The self-criticizing evolution of a writer.

It's funny to read my words and remember who I used to be and realize that I'm not those people anymore. I wonder if snakes or spiders see their shed skins and criticize their shapeshifting ways as much as I tend to do.

About a month ago, I sat in the public library and read stuff that I'd written in high school. Most of it was precious, trite crap. I had attempted to be worldly, cultured, nuanced. Instead, my head was so far up my own ass that I confused my colon for my heart.

Twenty minutes ago, I reread my latest post on here and noticed that it was disjointed and unwieldy. I could go ahead and revise it, but this is a journal and life does not get edited. This meandering of my writing is a trend that I've noticed. I think my goal was to put as much information as possible in each of my pieces, to make each work a grand masterpiece with every ounce of newly accumulated revelation. I wanted my work to encapsulate a sprawling worldview. I envisioned pieces that blew peoples' minds away just with their spindly synopses.

But the truth is, a lot of what I've been working on can be shortened and condensed. I've misunderstood my own analogy of my being a diamond with many facets. I've been trying to show people all the facets at once; I should be concentrating on showing off the facets that I need to show off. Each of them has its own distinct personality, with layers and dimensions all their own to understand. I must work on building up my ability of articulating each of these facets and rendering a clear and concise verbal picture of each of them, before I can ever hope to write a piece about more than one of them.

This is all so telling of my personality. In high school, I fancied myself a misunderstood outcast masquerading as the bell of the ball. Sure, I had my share of admirers and wacky high-jinx, but I made myself believe that the real me was some mysterious and otherworldly being that no one could possibly comprehend. Hence why my writing from that time was so cliched and dull.

When I was writing This Girl's Life for The Kingsman, there were moments when I really felt like I was onto something, and that confidence showed in my writing. Unfortunately, the fact that I had sometimes misplaced this confidence also showed up; a short time ago, I reread an article that I wrote four years ago and laughed at the holes in my articulation (and personal beliefs).

And now...? Well, I think I'll let you decide who I am. If I'm a skilled enough writer, my narrator should shine through and I shouldn't have to define her. You should know her without ever having to meet her in person. In fact, you should be privy to an inner evolution that most people would glance over - and this would make you her closest confidantes.

No wonder English lit professors always ask what the writer was thinking, what their motivations are, etc. The grammar in a skilled piece of writing is as telling of a person's psychology as its subject matter. That's also why good writers often anguish over a single semi-colon or the point of view of the story. It's these little things that give way to a subconscious understanding of who you are as a person. Every mark is a statement of a writer's composition.