Metacognition: I'm stubborn

 
In general, anytime I write something, the two most prominent emotions that arise seem to be stubbornness and doubt. Usually when I write I'll come up with an idea very quickly, and then become so attached to it that I can think of nothing else. This is probably one of the greatest downfalls of my writing, because it doesn't allow me to take constructive criticism very well. I become like a horse with blinders on, obtuse to everything around me, only able to see the bigger picture straight ahead. The problem is that I get so invested in what I'm writing that I don't think anyone else's suggestion could help it be even better. I'll make up some excuse that they don't understand the point or they can't see where I'm coming from, but really I'm just incredibly stubborn.

Usually, the next step in my writing process is a slow decline into hatred for whatever it is I have created. Most of the time I start out completely enthralled with my idea and where I've taken it, but then gradually I run out of steam. I start to lose interest in the story and my brain seems to turn to mush, I don't think I've ever written something that I was totally happy with in the end.

Part of this is my refusal to accept advice from people. I won't take their suggestions into account and then when I hit a wall I start to doubt what I have written. I’ll scrutinize every little detail and soon I won’t be able to think of anything because everything just seems so… stupid. This was my biggest struggle when writing my short story. I started off so strong, with a concept I found interesting and I was excited to write about, but then I became fed-up with the story because it wasn’t going where I wanted it to go. The most frustrating part was that in my head, it all made sense, the story seemed great, but when I tried to put it on paper, something just wasn’t translating. My words were muddled and the message was lost somewhere that I couldn’t determine. I had sought help on my story but decided to only follow part of the advice because I didn’t want to compromise its integrity. In the end though, I was left wondering if accepting someone else’s thoughts would have stopped me from ending up with a story that left me content, but not completely satisfied.

Someday I would like to not be so stubborn; part of me understands that I don’t know everything, but the other part of me in crushing that part. And while I am proud of myself for standing up for the things I believe in, I wish that I could just accept what others have to say and not turn everything into an argument with myself that will probably just leave me frustrated in the end.

An inconvenient truth: Love is weird and everything is Romeo and Juliet

In reality, the movie Once is just Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Two people fall in love but the guy used to be in love with another woman and the woman is either married or engaged to be married to another man, the only difference is that instead of dying in the end, our irish Romeo gets on a plane, while Juliet gets a piano... that she then plays for her husband. Basically, it's just a story of star crossed lovers who weren't meant to find each other, but they did, and then couldn't be together in the end because of odd circumstances. The resounding them in both productions is about them being uncomfortable and trying to figure how they fit together but not really succeeding because they are just too damn awkward. Romeo and Juliet are so bumbling when they first meet that they just touch hands and stare at each other, this sense of being clumsy and inept continues throughout the book with them always sort of rushing into things unplanned and then mis-communicating with each other so things get messed up (ie their deaths).The two main characters in Once never really have a smooth conversation, everything is coarse and weird, even the way they look at each other makes the audience feel uncomfortable.But I guess that these qualities are supposed to be endearing and give the characters a sense of reality, because "love" is supposed to weird and icky, just ask any ten year old. 

Another example of this is The Cathedral by Raymond Carver, which is quite possibly one of THE most uncomfortable things I have ever read. But through the clumsy encounters of a man, his wife, and his wife's blind friend, we are supposed to see how much they really care about each other. You could argue that this short story also has hints of Romeo and Juliet sprinkled in it, the blind man and his deceased wife Beulah, or the man and his wife, or the wife and the blind man, or even the blind man and the husband. They all have an element of not really knowing how to react around a person that by some stroke of luck has fallen into your life to change the path you were previously travelling on. Furthermore, all of these Romeo and Juliet like scenarios have this theme of finding someone who is equally as bizarre as you are, and then preceding to be bizarre with them.  

So, I guess, this means that love is weird and therefore every love story should technically have elements of Romeo and Juliet. This makes logical sense if you think about it, seeing as how we've already proven that Shakespeare's famous play was all about being awkward and love is supposedly supremely awkward. If this is true though, it would mean that you could never write a love story that isn't a cliche because they would all just be Romeo and Juliet, a hefty implication indeed. But really, we must admit that love is pretty cliched itself and ridiculously over used most of the time. In conclusion, Once and The Cathedral are just copies of an old love tale, with somewhat modern twists.