Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading Ned Vizzini’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story, and I’m proud to say I’ve finally finished it.
Back in freshman year of high school, I watched a documentary on Vizzini on PBS (or something) in which he talked about his quasi-autobiographical debut work, Teen Angst? Naah. That year, I stumbled upon the book in my library and without hesitation, took it home. I finished that book in a heartbeat. It amazed me that someone so young– Vizzini wrote the book back in his high school days at Stuyvesant H.S.– could articulate himself into a published work and gain so much subsequent success from it.
Needless to say, ever since that book, I’ve been in awe of Ned Vizzini.
Then last July happened. My friend Bonnie and I were at B&N and I came across his newest book, It’s Kind of a Funny Story stacked beneath a table of summer reading books. I let out an involuntary gasp as I held the book in my hands. My eyes widened as I read its synopsis on the back cover. While Teen Angst? covered much of the hallmarks of teenage awkwardness, pressures, and humor, this new book (new to me at least; it was published in ’06) seemed a lot heavier.
Vizzini, who himself got checked into a mental hospital some years ago, writes a well-crafted, witty, and oftentimes painful tale of one Craig Gilner, whose pressures stemming from having been accepted into one of New York’s most prestigious high schools nearly drive him to commit suicide. He checks himself into a psychiatric hospital for five days, and there, he meets a cast of fellow mentally ill patients who drive him to rethink everything he once thought made up “the real world.”
I won’t give anything away because this is definitely a work worth reading. When I reached the novel’s end, I was informed that Vizzini started writing the book a mere week after being released from the hospital, and finished writing it in less than a month. I was flabbergasted.
A professor of mine once said to my class that you aren’t a writer unless you write. Sure, you can write a masterpiece on a fluke, then sit on your pedestal and gloat for the rest of your life about how brilliant you are– but that doesn’t make you a writer. Writing isn’t glamorous. Rarely are you afforded fame, widespread recognition, or praise.
When my English teacher in sophomore year encouraged me to enter a poetry contest, this was more or less what I told him: I didn’t want to be the girl on the pedestal. I didn’t want to write for the attention; I wanted to write because I loved to. My teacher said that was fine, but there was nothing wrong with indulging in some contests now and then, especially if my work showed potential.
Six years later, I’m afraid I’ve fallen into that pit that I was so afraid of succumbing to. I’ve entered a plethora of contests, won some, lost others, and as of late, have lost perspective on why I loved to write in the first place. Until just now, I was afraid to even open up a blank Word document or a blank page in a notebook, or what have you, and simply…purge. I was too intimidated by my own successes, my past.
This feeling– that I was about to burst if I didn’t get a word out– has lasted for a while. I can’t say exactly when it first enveloped me, but it’s felt like forever since I’ve felt the presence of a muse at my side. I wrote when I had to, reviews and essays and things like that, but what I really wanted to write– what my heart was panging for me to release– just wouldn’t and couldn’t come out.
Then I finished Ned Vizzini’s latest book. And I realized the contests don’t matter, neither did the possibility of offending/confusing/scaring people with my work. I just have to write. Because I’m a writer.
But on a more personal level, what I really admire about Vizzini is his courage. I myself have suffered from depression of sorts and have taken medication for it for years. I’ve been tossed from one psychiatrist to another; my parents felt hopeless; my relatives were petrified at the sight of me; I lost a lot of my friends. I could only imagine what shit Vizzini has gone through himself that would lead him to be checked into a psychiatric ward. There’s a lot of shame and guilt that goes into something like that, and for him to come out of it and articulate his experience (albeit, fictitiously) into a novel in less than a month? That’s the stuff of brilliance. That’s the stuff of a true writer.
A coworker at GR once told me that no matter what, if I felt compelled by a certain feeling, good or bad, that I should find a way to get it out. Because if I suppress it, it’ll find its own way to be released. It didn’t matter if it came out shitty; what matters is that you got it out of your system. Wise words.
I wrote a poem today, for the first time in a month. I used to write poems like crazy, sometimes 2 a day, eventually dwindling down to one every other day. It felt good. Liberating. It feels like something that was previously clogged in my lungs has been dislodged and now I can breathe again.
I know the chances are low that Ned Vizzini himself will ever stumble upon this, but regardless, I’d like to thank him for his honesty and bravery. Most of all, I want to thank him for being a writer. God, the things I would do just to get a chance to meet him and thank him in person…
I hear Paramount bought the rights to It’s Kind of a Funny Story. FYI, Ned, I’d like to play the part of Nia. I think I’d be perfect for the role.
