SOC #23: Manifestos suck.

I've only glanced over two manifestos written by criminals that have shot innocent people. The Los Angeles ex-cop who shot other cops, and that one kid who went on a rampage in Isla Vista where I once partied at 4 years ago. And dear God, how these people are boring writers. I mean, if they were willing to commit those tragedies, better leave things unsaid if they can't write worth shit. The first line of the Isla Vista shooter was, "It was on that day I took a breath of life." And that's all I could read. Toneless and as lively as a burnt puppet. I guess that is what these mass-shooters are, nothing more than mindless buffoons with nothing ahead of them in life, if there even was in the first place. People have asked me why my first novel was about such a subject matter such as I've just described. Someone years ago was afraid I'd carry out such an act as the narrator, Ronnie Filbert, did in the first chapter of the novel. Ignorant bitch. Anyway, I guess I'll tell those who want to know why I wrote it. It was the first story I imagined that was worth telling. There you go, that simple. And I'll tell you where it stemmed from. First I'll tell you that one of my favorite novels is American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. Stephen King said it was "bad fiction," but fuck him; he's a pussy for taking his novel Rage out of print. That's just my personal opinion when it comes to an author censoring his own work. The reason American Psycho is one of my favorite works of fiction is because of it's complete, total, and devout desire in honesty when it came to Patrick Bateman's narration of the murders he committed, the sex scenes, and the awkward, heavily detailed descriptions of the cloths he wore. When Ellis was interviewing real Wall Street guys during his research for the book, he realized how boring those fuckers were; all they seemed to talk about was what they bought with their money, so Ellis asked himself, "What if one of these guys was a serial killer?" And thus he created Patrick Bateman. Ellis' basis for writing the story of American Psycho was due to his disappointment of adults, how they lived, how they thought, and how the world was run and controlled by their weakness and greed. I don't think my book Rosemary and Despair comes close to American Psycho; it's not nearly as long, nor is it detailed in it's narration. I kept what Ronnie Filbert told the readers as simple and to the point as I could; I didn't want the dude to philosophize any of his ideas because he himself knew what he was doing was ultimately pointless and inane. Now I want to get into the conception of when I came up with the original story: it was when I was a sophomore in high school, I had this English teacher that no one liked because most kids in the classroom thought she was "weird." She wasn't a bad teacher, she did her job well enough, but due to her weird nature I guess, the students who didn't want to learn caused disruptions, interrupted her, and so on and so forth, to the point the vice principal called her stupid one day. "Wow," I thought. "Like the insane controlling the insane asylum." All I wanted to do was go to school, learn, then go the fuck home. It's so fucking simple. Due to this frustration, and my imagination running wild during that time, this scene popped into my head of a kid sitting quiet in the classroom while other asshole students argued with the teacher, tension building in the kid as he listened, annoyed, rubbing his thumb against his bottom lip. Then, BAM! He slams his hands on his desk over and over again as if it were gunfire. Right then and there, I decided my first story was going to be about a school shooting from the point-of-view of the shooter. The original title was simply "School Shooting." It took me nearly a year to come up with a title I liked, and once I did, the story of Ronnie's High School romance with Rosemary came immediately to fruition. It might not be an excellent novel, but I'm extremely proud of what I've accomplished. People have joked around with me, asking, "Hey, man, what's the title of your manifesto again?" I reply, "It's not a manifesto, fool. Manifestos fucking suck."