practice – Trevor's Notepad

Posted on August 31, 2017August 31, 2017 by Trevor Elms

What I Write When Not Writing.

Really haven’t had the gumption or self reflection to want to sit down and write something that I find meaningful. Which are the things I want to post on this website for the most part. My last poem did enough for some time.

I do however find other ways to continuously write and one of them is watching & reviewing film. Recently I have been introduced to letterboxd.com and have created an account. If you have interest in any writing I may be doing in between things that get posted here then that would be the place to go.

Megan and I often watch a new movie together every day so the profile will be updated regularly with films I watch or re-watch. This is a way for me to keep myself motivated about writing without bogging my site down with things like movie reviews.

The Elms’ movie collection as of 8/31/2017.

We have a lot of movies and the collection is growing every day, it is one of my very favorite forms of art & media. A form that my grandfather really spent a lot of time nurturing within me.

If you have interest in my thoughts and writing in general you may like this letterboxd profile.

Please check it out here.

Thank you for taking a look.

If you have interest in reading anything else I have written please check the Table of Contents, here.

©2017 Trevor Elms

Posted on May 7, 2017May 7, 2017 by Trevor Elms · 2 Comments

Vinyl.

I just wrote this about… ten minutes ago while watching Alan play Metal Gear Solid Five and listening to Maurice Jarre’s magnificent score for Lawrence of Arabia, on a first print vinyl.

Took a great motorcycle ride to Ma & Pops’ house and finally got a hold of my moleskines from when I was in college. Those always prompted me with their size to write the very particular kind of poetry I love to write. I was sitting on the couch and begining to wallow about still not being able to write poetry.

So I said, “why not?” to myself, picked one of the unused ones except for a single line — crossed it out and began to write beginning with today’s date. This post will be going up at 4:00PM Sunday, but I am typing this out at 11:50PM Saturday night. May 5th, 2017. My second poem now in many years.

Vinyl.

These records we listen to give us such bliss,

With many a note,
or just a few.

The obsidian architecture spins weaving the sweetest of nectar.

For the scene we see in abstract is an indoor campfire,
with no matches,
but tracks.

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms

Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2017

Posted on April 28, 2017April 28, 2017 by Trevor Elms · 4 Comments

School.

Previously I wrote in my article successful college dropout about how school and I don’t get along very well. There was one school, though. One school that made a very big difference for me.

There’s some people who may think that there were some bad influences in there, but I believe with everything I know about myself that I was going to go in the direction I went regardless of the school I went to. It was this school I went to that gave me the tools and the opportunity to do what I am doing today.

September School.

Bear in mind this is less about traditional education and more about what they gave me in terms of knowledge, encouragement, and experience. There’s a lot of little things the people working for that school did for me as a student — and showed me parts of them as people, that really made me feel like I mattered. That I was somebody, someone besides my parents, actually cared about.

That’s really all I needed sometimes.

I don’t know what it was about me growing up, but kids didn’t like me. They really liked having me around so that they could put me down — and honestly, because at that time I just wanted friends. I let them do it.

It wasn’t always this way, of course. I don’t know if it was the age or the area, but this started when we first moved to Colorado and I was going to elementary school in Longmont.

Before then I had plenty of friends and we all got along in Halifax, Hong Kong, & Andover. Seriously, always. There wasn’t really any bullying or fighting. We were just laughing and having a good time regularly.

Well, there was one time in Andover.

We were riding on the bus and one of the fifth graders (I was in second grade at the time) was turning around the seat making fun of my friend, Jamie. Jamie and I haven’t spoken in years, but he was always really kind and generous with his things. He had more video games than me and a trampoline, so I loved spending time with him and getting to know him.

This jerk of a kid kept calling my friend a “lonely fat ass loser”

And so I looked him dead in the eye and said “Hey! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size, mongoloid!”

This was funny for a number of reasons. One, I think that’s the first time I had ever used that word and I heard it on an episode of the Simpsons… or Beavis & Butthead.

Secondly, I was a second grader telling this to a fifth grader about twice my size.

Thirdly, this is the very first time I was punched in the face.

I can’t remember if I got a suspension or just a stern phone call from the school for this, but I remember running up to the front of the bus crying to the bus driver.

The driver asked, “what’s going on?”

I, being of the healthy vocabulary I had at this time properly responded with the timeless:

“He punched me in my fucking nose!”

And that’s about the last conflict I remember with anyone in Andover before we moved. I had very many friends after that, all who wanted to spend time with me.

I really wish I was given a chance to do something like that early on in Colorado.

In Colorado I think kids quickly figured out I had something wrong with me way faster than I ever did. They spent a lot of lunches riling me up just to see me get angry and have a fit. I have fairly good equilibrium with my anger issues these days thanks to my meds, but back then I think kids got a lot of entertainment from me losing myself in a maelstrom of rage. I’m talking about the vein popping, murderous kind. There’s nothing about it I am proud of and I am glad to say that there are very few people now who can remember seeing me in that shameful state.

There’s a lot of details about those years that don’t need to be gotten into. What does is that when I went to September School, I was accepted.

I honestly really hurt myself there a little when I went. There were lots of kids I could have made really close, lifetime relationships with. But, being the person I am,

I found a girlfriend and completely absorbed myself in her.

I think, at that time, it was everything I wanted for my self-confidence and it honestly did help me focus on school, especially writing. Which looking back I think a lot of the teachers there very much focused on trying to get a lot of writing out of me. Getting me to practice it.

I was very often, almost constantly encouraged to write while I was in that school. It’s something that maybe didn’t mean as much to me as it should have then, but I can’t stop thinking about now.

I do still have some friendships from that school — though more acquaintances these days; it’s more my fault than anything. They were really nice and accepting kids that I am glad I got to know. I still miss a number of them as I was truly beginning to garner some really close friendships before moving off to college and losing my mind.

I really want to focus on the teaching, though. That is the thing that is really beginning to impact me now.

I wrote about encouragement earlier. September School is pretty much built from the foundations up on it. Now, it’s been about 10 years since my graduation so I am not entirely sure how much things have changed. I do know that while I was going there homework was not a priority.

Being there, being accepted, encouraging one another to be ourselves. That was pretty much the biggest deal that went on, and the teachers did this as well. I feel like they often tried their best to get through to the kids they were teaching to try and ignite something in them to apply themselves to.

Back then, I now know they were seeding some really good roots in me.

I still had my legal and mental problems after graduation — though looking back I have absolutely nothing but respect, admiration, and gratitude for what that school did for me.

I was actually able to graduate, for one! I could not apply myself enough in public high school for me to have been able to get a degree there. It would not have happened. I can very easily say I would not be where I’m at today without their schooling. At least not in the same way.

Now, with all this writing just coming so freely from me, I just don’t think there is a way to truly express my gratitude enough.

So I am going to do what I am doing now. Everything I have ever been encouraged to do. I am just going to keep writing.

I think, the deeper meaning I am trying to find from this piece is that maybe

it’s not always about how the person does in school — but how the school does for the person.

Were it not for September School I think I’d be far less successful and happy than I am now.

I wish there were more teachers like the ones at Sep School, the ones before them gave up on me pretty easily.

Thank you for reading.

Posted on April 26, 2017April 26, 2017 by Trevor Elms · 13 Comments

Imagination.

One of the things I am doing with this site to keep me inspired even when I am not — is to find words I love and write about them. I want to take one word and turn it into something more.

Recently I was incredibly inspired and am feeling a bit drained. However, I feel like a difference between a successful writer, and a hobbyist — is that they can push through times of drainage and learn to force inspiration out of themselves.

So that is what I am doing today. I picked one of the tens of drafts of words saved during times of inspiration and am looking to find more within it. I believe I have chosen a good word for my first drainage since starting this website.

Today I want to write about the word imagination and what is has meant to me as a person.

My imagination has gotten me through just about every day that I can remember. From as early as nap time making finger fights between knights and dragons — which truthfully just looked like two hands kicking each other.

Imagination is something I never, ever want to lose. It’s something that I feel I have certainly lost sharpness to over the years. Even feel like part of me starting this website was to fight for it back. To not just sit on the couch and satisfy my creative desires by consuming others’ hard work. Not to say that is a bad thing, but I have spent a lot of time in the last few years just consuming media wracking my brain for what I could do with myself.

What I could apply myself to on my free time that could be supported with my full-time job, while not distracting me from it. I’ve needed a true outlet for my imagination for some time. I work in design for a living, but there are guidelines, and decisions that are not my own. I do not begrudge these things, this is part of being a working professional and I quite like what I do and how I do it.

I did need something that is 100% completely my own however. Where I make the decisions, and choose how things look, feel, and express.

When I first created this website I didn’t even know how it would be perceived. And I am not saying it is a success, far from it. However it is already a success in the way I have wanted it to be.

I have spent the last week crying, almost daily, about the things that have been written. I have broken through a wall of creativity that has been blocked (excepting small, important doses) for nearly 10 years. I’ve been able to use my imagination again.

I love to use my imagination in my writing, even when writing non-fiction. Which I seem to be writing a lot more lately and find funny. I grew up always wanting to use my imagination to write fiction, but believe I am better served using it to illustrate real things, and real perspectives. At least at this time, that’s what’s pushing me to write more.

I don’t necessarily think people deserve to or should read these things, but want to get them down. I want them out of my head for more space for more imagination so that I can continue to do things with these words that have been missed so much.

Words and imagination go hand in hand in for me. My parents spent a lot of time teaching me the value of money growing up — but one thing they also valued was books.

My Mom would take me to the book store to buy one any time I finished the one I was previously reading. No chores needed, nothing. They would buy me books without question while growing up and I cannot thank them enough for this. I was reading adult literature like the Lord of the Rings by around 11-12, and studying it.

That is how I learned to love words and how they can be used to paint any kind of picture for any kind of mind.

Books and books and books and books. So many books that I don’t even really read them any more. I read way more comic books. Almost 100% of my actual personal reading for entertainment comes from comic books these days.

One of the reasons for this is that I really don’t want my own imagination, and my own prose affected by another’s. I really need to keep myself away from those things if for no other reason than I am terrified of accidentally being influenced by something — and then being looked at as a fake because of it.

I know I am already influenced by everything I have ever read. Though now I feel like I have a strong grasp on the English language, and would be better served by speaking to an editor to learn more.

Maybe this is a bad choice, I am not sure of it, but I am not interested in reading books so much right now. We still have a bit of a library in our house — sometimes I will pick up a book already read and crunch a good 250 pages into it before it goes on the stack next to my side of the bed, almost certain not to be cracked open again.

I’ve been trying to find some larger meaning here, but this time I’m not so sure there is one.

I just love the word imagination, and what it brings with it. I want to make sure I never lose mine, because I feel if I do I will lose a very large piece of what makes me.

Thank you for reading.

Trevor's Notepad

Tag: practice