“And you know this.”

Matt — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:50:17 +0000

If it weren’t for the videos, this site would most likely no longer exist.

2007 Trailer Release Date

Matt — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:56:11 +0000

Collections 8/07

Matt — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 02:45:49 +0000

[Things I wrote down at one time or another. Some in the fewest words possible.]

What do we really do? The generations before us fought wars and struggled through depression in hopes of making it out the other end. Today we’re a generation of people wandering around, waiting for something to happen. And for must of us nothing ever will.

We’ve created a society that’s conditioning us to be bitter, to hate the lives we have. Our jobs are terrible, our house isn’t big enough, our car isn’t fast enough, gas is too expensive, the interest on our credit card is too high, we’re too fat, and our penis just isn’t as large as we’d like it to be. It seems we’ve forgotten about the miracle of life, that we’ve lost our hope as a nation and the belief that tomorrow anything, and everything, is possible.

How can I tell someone’s story if I don’t have one myself?

Noise is all around us. Television, the Internet, billboards, public service announcements, pamphlets, self-help books–everything trying to influence our decisions, voices in our heads refusing to yield. I wonder how much of this pollution composes me.

And in a moment of clarity I see without impediment the world I no longer wish to be a part of.

There is danger in that question that resides in the darkest recesses of our minds. It holds the ability to begin and to end, create and destroy. And when a man utters those simple words, his life will irrevocably change forever–Am I really, truly happy?

We are a nation of escape artists, choosing to live in worlds that do not exist rather than face our own.

With every negative phrase I encounter I feel a piece of myself die.

Disconnect to reconnect.

The Children of Change, always wanting, morphing, pursuing an idea of perfection that does not exist.

A loving spouse. Beautiful children. A place to call our own. Purposeful work. All encapsulated by lifelong memories in an existence without boundaries. The American Dream obtained but never realized or appreciated.

When I die, I hope to close my eyes and hear music.

Suppose we stop manipulating it. Suppose we stop talking about it. Suppose we stop trying to plan a perfect day, that we just let it happen And in twenty years, when we tell a stranger the story, we can realize just how lucky we are.

A life of subtleties. Moments go untainted by words or explanations.

Hope.

First.

Matt — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 10:06:45 +0000

Aw shit, Tigas.

Why I Write

Matt — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 06:45:26 +0000

A little while back a fairly inebriated journalist friend of mine asked me what seems like a simple question to answer: why do you write? I froze. Then I gave my normal reaction when I encounter a question I have no idea how to answer—I shrugged. It was too complex. Answering that question with a nice little sentence is like trying to fill up a water balloon with a firehose. After I reflected on the issue I saw that no single reason existed for why I feel compelled to pursue one of the most lucrative, frustrating careers out there, but rather a multitude of events and traits that laid the foundation for what will most likely drive me insane for the rest of my life.
I write to create and feel inspired. The first story I ever wrote was called, “The Adventures of Laffy Duck”, wherein our hero, Laffy, must rescue his friend from evil-doers who mean only to harm her. I was in the first grade. The story itself consisted of only a few pages, but I still remember my amazement at what I had created. A whole other world that I controlled and a duck named Laffy, whom I quickly considered a friend. All of these things were very real to me, and even at that early age I felt an obligation to get it right. When school let out I sprinted home to show my parents what I had worked on all day. Then I asked for help fixing the ending. “Well,” my Mother started, “is this connected to Daffy Duck in any way?” Her words ring clear to me, even today, because at that instant the world I had created collapsed, its weight crushing my euphoria as a couple of ducks and bad guys fell back into nothingness. I realized that my creation wasn’t mine at all, but just a regurgitation of some stupid TV show that I didn’t even like. A quiet, “No,” fell from my lips. Reworking the ending was easy then, I no longer cared. The personal connection I felt with the story had died and I was too busy working on ideas for my next tale, making damn sure the hero’s name didn’t rhyme with any cartoon character I knew of.
As an adult I recognize my feelings that day as inspiration, and since then I have been inspired to do little else but write. I could never bring myself to do my math homework, but one day in junior high I saw a music video that consisted of a man walking through a tunnel while he continuously got hit by cars, and spent the rest of the night writing a story that my English teacher called, “Very sick. Very disturbing. Very entertaining.” I’ll see a picture, or notice a friend’s expression, or read a strangers thought written on a trashcan, and I’m gone. I’m done for the day, too inspired by my ideas to focus on anything else. I’m trapped in my own world and the only way out is to write.
Creative inspiration is almost impossible to describe to someone who has never felt it. But if I had to try, I would tell them to imagine standing next to train tracks, a locomotive in the distance. Suddenly you hear it, a spark, an idea. It grows louder and clearer, the gargantuan metal wheels churning it ever closer to you. Louder and louder it becomes until you can hear nothing else. Nothing is around you but the locomotive, the train cars of ideas locked in step. It reaches you with unbelievable force– the astonishing creative power of man on full display. Your body vibrates along with the ground until suddenly it passes and you are left with complete silence.
Writing like this, to me, is like listening to your favorite song for the first time, every time. This inspiration, what I heard Stephen King refer to as the “white heat”, gets everything that composes me, every molecule and abstract thought, moving in sync. Suddenly nothing else exists but the story, and I’m no longer writing it—I’m there, and it is in this moment that I find happiness.
I write to escape. I don’t find it surprising that the reason most people read is one of the reasons I write. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that life gets hard, and then life gets harder. Eventually we all require a boost, and writing supplies that for me when I need it. I get lost in the stories I write and maybe someday, if I’m lucky, you will too.
In the summer of 2006 I was working retail and retail was working me. My patience, sense of purpose, and overall good feeling I held toward my life was tested everyday. For the first three weeks back I worked without a day off. After being treated like I was less than human for five to eight hours a day I found no solace in late-night television. I needed something to look forward to after work, a reason to get up in the morning. On a whim I restarted an old project after an image came to me: two large, brick, city stores next to each other with space enough in between for another building—a man wearing a suit and holding a briefcase standing in the middle. It fit the theme of the movie and my current life situation perfectly. The image represented the idea that something huge was missing there, something common that was supposed to be present but simply wasn’t. Without warning the locomotive came and I quickly began filling two notebooks with ideas for the screenplay. Within a week I had the outline and knew the characters better than I have ever known two characters in my life. The script was unlike anything I had ever written and, to those who know me, would seem very out of my mode of operation. I created the world I wanted to live in and two characters, as lost as I was, who would fall in love with each other in this ridiculous, fruitless, but awe-inspiring happening we call life.
If my writing wasn’t constructive it probably would have been deemed obsessive. I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning to come up with new ideas, and I couldn’t wait to get off work to write them. At my peak I was writing as soon as I got home and kept going until the sun came up. The story became my life and with it I could not be bothered.
With the ending of those hellacious three months came my increasing lack of progress with the script. The last sentence I wrote before moving into my college apartment still remains the last sentence in the screenplay. I still loved the story and characters, and that love holds true today, but all the reasons I worked on the story were no longer in place. I could easily get through the day without running to my protective shelter made of words. It was what it was, and for that I am ever grateful.
I write to express what I could never bring myself to say. I’m terrible at expressing myself verbally. I just am. It’s to the point where I very rarely try it anymore. Call it a guy thing, call it a Matt Adams thing, wherever that filter came from it succeeds brilliantly at blocking any word or phrase that would otherwise serve to reveal something personal about me. Recently I had one of those long 3 AM conversations with a friend of mine in which I spoke more openly about things involving myself than I normally do. At one point in the talk I realized that I hit a topic I was no where near comfortable talking about. In almost a subtle panic I began throwing in “likes” and “you know”’s as if they were quarters I was putting into a slot machine about to cash out, creating what may have been the most incomprehensible sentence structure ever uttered by man. “Wow,” she said, “that was incredibly vague.” To which I replied, “Yes, yes it was.”
Crafting stories and characters allows me to insert bits of myself between the lines. It will always be hidden or subtle, but it lies there. Maybe it’s a line of dialog that seems distinct, or an action given special emphasis. My first completed story in college, “Trashcan Sentiments”, is one such example. Most of the story’s decent amount of success stemmed from the unusual backdrop and offbeat conversations, but the reason I wrote the story was to communicate an observation I had about the American dream. I believe very heavily in my own conception of what that term means, and was growing disconcerted with what societal figureheads believed to be the truth. I wrote the story in the perspective of the people I observed, adding a bit of morbid satire as well. The characters could not understand art or abstract ideas, but could only see material items and dollar signs as showings of success, eventually modeling their lives around the misgivings of others.
I am not every character I write. I do not believe in all the ideas I write about. I have not experienced all the events in my stories. But I am there, on the page. And if you look hard enough—and in the right places—you’ll find me, and I’ll be glad to sit and talk with you.
I write to tell a story. I believe that some people are born with the storytelling gene. It flows in your blood, and like asthma, will flare up every now and again.
My mother enjoys telling a story that involves my late arrival into the speaking community. For longer than it seemed normal, she would say, I didn’t talk. This silence went on for so long that it began to worry her. She wondered if I would ever start talking. Then one day I started and she wondered if I would ever shut up. I followed her around for hours on end, telling her stories so extravagant that all she could do was smile. Stories about how I traveled around and met interesting people. Being so young at the time I remember none of this, but apparently the day I started talking became the day I started telling stories.
There’s a driving force inside of me that I can no more explain than identify. Plot lines will build inside my head, relationships will build between people that don’t even exist, until one day I decide to sit down with a pen. Stories are how I think, how I dream, how I communicate. When I come along one intriguing enough, that I’m connected to, my first instinct is to share it. I don’t hear music that hasn’t been recorded. I don’t see a landscape that hasn’t been painted. I don’t envision a device that has yet to be invented. I hear lines of dialog. I picture someone I don’t know in the moment that will change their lives. There is no idea in my brain that does not have a dramatic counterpart, no set of events that does not fit into a plot line. I feel a responsibility to organize these things, to myself as much as to anyone else.
I am no more than the stories I have not written yet.
I write to remember. One of my greatest fears is losing my memories. Without any knowledge of who I used to be and where I have been would leave me no understanding of who I am. Writing, in a sense, is like scrapbooking your life. Every story is a benchmark, a point where you believed so strongly in something that you jotted it down. In my view, stories serve the same function as photographs. They make it impossible to forget past events that have invariably changed me, and every once in a while I’ll stumble upon them and be reminded of another time.
The strong sense of my own mortality drives me to experience everything and forget nothing. Putting something onto paper is a way to commit it to memory, whether it be in the form of fiction or otherwise. I remember everything about the day and am able to live it again, if only briefly. I am able to go back to places I thought I had forgotten, some distant memory in the far reaches of my brain sparked by a few letters. And in some moments, like this one, I put down my pen and lean back from my words, remembering a little boy with a story who ran home happy to his parents, and I smile.

Reserved

Matt — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 08:10:39 +0000

Post coming.

Exciting, right?

Ads [part 5]

Matt — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 05:58:57 +0000

Two posts in one day. Combined they almost create a high-quality post.

It’s Like a Transformer, Except It Doesn’t Fight Giant Robots

Matt — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 05:41:00 +0000

Someone buy me this:

My wrists are beginning to make writing for any real length of time a little painful, and I am relying on you all to fix this problem. Sure, this ridiculous-looking keyboard may be expensive, but are you really willing to put a price on our friendship?

Plus that thing also has side mirrors. That’s right, mirrors on a keyboard. If that doesn’t get me the ladies I don’t know what will.

P.S. I also want a new mouse.

2007 Trailer Poster

Matt — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 03:36:58 +0000

Also, if anyone has any videos from the previous year they’d like to submit, don’t hesitate to let me know.

“Allow me to reintroduce myself…”

Matt — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 03:48:29 +0000

Wait, whoa, what happened?

It seems that over the years I have an increasing talent of creating sites, working hard at them, and then abandoning the idea almost overnight. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as I’d like to think that they get better with each new go around. I Have No Words accomplished it’s goal, just like all the others. I set out to accurately depict the college experience. No filters, no bullshit. Well, that wasn’t entirely possible, but I think it turned out alright. And don’t worry, all the old posts are still there, conveniently labeled IHNW for future remembrance and carefree nostalgia of things that happened all of one year ago.

So that brings us around to Junior year. I’m 20, soon enough I’ll be 21, and I suddenly find that I have no real continuing interest in “accurately depicting the college experience”. At least, not in the same fashion. We’ve all changed and so this site will change as well, hopefully representing the writer in a more clearly laid out fashion. I’m not saying that things won’t still be vague. They will be, it’s my thing. I guess, in a way, this site will now succeed even more in my original mission, if only in a roundabout way.

But hey, wait, what the hell exactly will be changing? Well, the videos will still be posted here, and I will still take my sweet time making them. I’ll still post ads, mild superheroes (don’t know what this is? I only did one.), and revelations if I think of anything funny. Hell, maybe I’ll even bring it back old school and pepper in the occasional third person narrative. The main thing I’ll be adding to this site are posts that didn’t fit that IHNW feel–the posts about writing or storytelling in general. The posts about music and movies. The posts that I invariably kicked to the curb because I couldn’t find them a home.

Fiction and English in general have become a large part of my life, perhaps more than I had originally intended or figured on. The shit that I write about and work on, the shit that never happened, will hopefully take the forefront on the internet battlegrounds against boredom. Bonds will be forged with procrastination and screwing around to bring you something that may be amusing, hell, maybe even helpful in a way. This is what I do, how I spend my time, and now this site is my outlet. I have no hopes, no plans, no set anything. I’m just going to ride this one out. Maybe it’ll go on for a while, maybe it’ll be gone in a week and this will be nothing but empty space on Tigas’s server. Who knows. History, however, is leaning in one direction…

So that’s the skinny. Things are changing. Perhaps what will be most notable is that I will no longer be writing primarily in third person. This will please a great deal of you. Instead, I’ll be writing in the second person. You think this is a great step toward internet greatness. Your knees begin to sway back and forth in excitement. Sitting in your chair, staring at the bright screen you smile and gently rub your bottom lip with your index finger. You believe this is an awesome idea, perhaps the best.

But then again, you were only kidding.