T.J. [Tony] Marino: The life - The mind - & what's on the inside

I would like to start this off and introduce myself by sharing a few of my favorite quotes about writers. I myself being a writer - I am fascinated, influenced, and inspired by many other writers out there and that's all it takes for me to start off my day... inspiration... I sit back with my cup of hot black coffee and read something that inspires me, makes me feel a certain way - which helps me long to become inspired - I crave it and I have admiration for other writers and their self-expression.

 


 

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say."  - Anais Nin

    
"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." - Sylvia Plath 


 

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."  - William Wordsworth





  
"Easy reading is damn hard writing."  - Nathaniel Hawthorne





"To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music the words make."  - Truman Capote





     
A writer and nothing else:  a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right.  - John K. Hutchen






To partake in expressing what it is or what if feels like and means to be a true writer, I myself will share my own personal quote with you on what writing is/means to me:





" Writing to me is more than just words on paper. Writing is a PLACE, a 'Zone', that I fall into that sucks the life out of me and when I come back out... the pieces of my soul are written right there in front of me." - [Myself] T.J./Tony Marino 




One of my favorite quotes, actually they are lyrics to a song by Bobby Brown, which was also covered by Britney Spears. The song is called: 'My Prerogative'. I'm not sure if this exact lyric/line was actually in the original Bobby Brown version, but it is in the updated/covered Britney Spears version and the line/lyric is:  "People can take everything away from you but,  they can never take away your truth. But the question is... Can you handle mine?" 


 

And that's what my blogs will be about... THE TRUTH - MY TRUTH. I want people to see the real me, the real T.J./Tony Marino and to see who I really am as a person. I want people to take- in a part of me and my life - my soul when they read what I write. I want people to get into my mind and get inside of me and get to know what I am all about as a person. 


   My blogs will not be all about myself, in the sense that all I will to be talking about is myself and that isn't the case. I will write about things such as: lyrics, short-stories, dreams, feelings, opinions, movies and books and people who have inspired me, and writers and just things that I see and hear, such as: the ocean or a great song that has inspired me or has had an impact on me and my life. That's what I want to do here. And to inspire someone myself along the way?...  that would make this journey even more worth it. 


  To say a few things about myself - I'm a 25 yr. old college student with a full-time job as a writer. I have not graduated yet due to the amount of money that I owe on college-loans from the last college that I went to. In the long-run I plan on going back to Salem State University and graduating with a Bachelors Degree with English as my Major and Creative Writing as my Minor and then hopefully get some of my work published down the road and make it big ["making it big" isn't what I'm after. Getting my work noticed and respected and making an impact with my voice is what matters to me.]

     
     I would like to write for television and movies one day. Write scripts and screenplays and then eventually become a well-respected author and get the novels/short-stories that I've been working on noticed and published one day. I have been working on a novel/script called: 'North Shore' for about 4 years now and I will tell you more about it some other time in a blog on here. I have 2 other novels that I have been working on as well, but they aren't as far along as 'North Shore' is. I also write lyrics and create albums and  I would love for one day to have a music-artist/ singer notice my work, as well as, sing my lyrics and hopefully even hear that song that I wrote for him/her on the radio. But yeah, my biggest dream is to write a great script for a big director or to be part of a team of writers for a television series or have one of my books published. And I will make that happen - That's just who I am. I'm a driven person who strives and is fueled by ambition. I want something that badly - I will make it happen and I will get it. 


  The biggest hold-back in my life... is people. I have let some bad people into my life who bring me down and they are hard to walk away from because in reality some of these people are my friends and my family - some are even strangers. This time around though, even though I am still struggling with their negativity - I try everyday not to let anyone stop me from doing what I want to do or stop me from  who I want to be. It's an everyday battle that I fight - but I will conquer that fight soon enough. I blame myself for that because I am a huge people-pleaser, I like for people to like me and I don't like to let anyone down, and I feel like everyone is watching me all the time and if I make one wrong move?... my whole world will fall apart. But again - I will win that battle. 


  This is probably one of my favorite quotes from any movie and it's also one of my favorite movies of all time. The movie is called: 'Abandon',  starring Katie Holmes. The movie is about this down-to-earth, girl-next-door, college-student who is smart and bright, has high sex-appeal, and has the constant need to please everyone around her til the point that it drives her literally insane. Well,another reason in the movie that she goes insane is because everyone in her life fucks her over and abandons her even though they love her. She attracts everyone to her "like bugs to a bug-lamp"  which is another line from the movie. That's what she does, she draws people into her life because she is easy to approach and to get along with [while at the same time she is vulnerable and naive] and they end up falling in-love with her. But these people that she attracts leave her because, in reality she is too good for them, too smart, too determined, too driven, and attractive/etc. ...  or SHE leaves them before they can leave her - Thus the movie being called 'Abandon'. And here's the quote that really gets to me and really hits close to home because what this character is going through in this movie and what she is saying about herself is how I feel a lot of the time. It's sad, but at the same time it makes me stronger and more driven to walk away from the bad/ negative people in my life and this makes me realize that the only person that I really need is... myself. 





 

Here's the quote, [it's actually an entire scene/dialog from the movie, but I will highlight the parts that I feel I relate to the most]:

Guy 1: Who are you? Where do you come from?  

Katie Burke [the main character of the movie played by Katie Holmes]: I grew up in the middle of no where, the home of Windell Wikie is 20 miles away and that's about it. My mom works in a bottling plant selling nutra-life products. My dad left when i was little, I never really knew him. 

Guy 2: Tell us about a problem you've encountered...

Katie: My guidance counselor tried to keep me from applying to good schools. I thought she was my friend. She said she understood me and that I would be happier staying close to home, Junior College or Secretarial School. She hated me...

Guy 2: And what action did you take? 

Katie: I invited a senator who attended here to speak at our school. 

Guy 2: And what was the result? 

Katie: I got a strong letter of recommendation from a U.S. senator, was accepted early decision and they gave me lots of financial aid.

Guy 2:  And what did you learn from this? 

Katie: Truthfully? 

Guy 1: of course...

Katie: Mrs.Castleman was a sneaky bitch. It was the first time I was betrayed by someone I trusted, I looked up to her. I didn't come close to understanding the depth to which she resented me. I learned that people who help me, who invest in me become my partners and that my success is their success, relationships are symbiotic. I learned responsibility based on others faith in me. I hope to be able to pay some dividends to those investors. 

 


TRAILER FOR THE MOVIE: ABANDON - Starring - Katie Holmes ->

 




This is an awesome/great movie and that scene is a really great scene - you have to watch the movie to really understand this scene and see what the character has been through and is going through. Basically she got fucked-over by the person that she trusted the most and she over-came that battle and became a successful college graduate and a successful business-woman by the end of the movie. Even though her character turns out to be a crazy lunatic at the end of the film - she is still a strong person who went through a lot in her life [such as coming from a broken-home and being fucked-over and abandoned by the people that she loved and trusted the most over and over again.]  but she  fought her way through it to become the successful person that she became.  

 [I will try to find the scene from the movie or even post a link for the entire movie on here for you soon]

  So basically that is my goal for this year and for the rest of my life - is to not let what negative people do or say to me have a negative affect on me and not to let people fuck me over and abandon me like the character was in the movie. I just need to  take care of myself and surround myself with good people because there are good people out there and I do have some good people in my life, I do, and they know who they are. So, the point of me connecting this movie and that quote/scene to what I'm trying to say is that - nothing will get in the way of my dreams/life and in the way of who I am and who I want to be.




This is my first blog on this site and I hope you understand me as a person so far and where I am coming from. I'm just a normal dude with a little something more to him that you wouldn't necessarily guess by my appearance I guess [?] Because most people just see me as a pretty- boy or a meathead/ tool or whatever-else that they call me/say about me -  And they do it because they're scared. Scared because they come to find out how real I really am and how honest I can be, so the negative people in my life put me down to make themselves feel better about themselves because of their own insecurities. But I'm drawing the line for that issue here - right now. That part of my life ends right now and it's time for me to man-up and stand-up for myself because nothing in this life is shy of my reach and no one will get in the way of that. 



Thanks for taking the time to read my first blog on this site. And I hope you stay with me for the rest of the journey to come
- T.J./Tony

   "And now that the scared little boy inside of me no longer follows me wherever I go, I miss him. I do. Because there are things that I wanna tell him... to relax, to lighten up, that it is all going to be ok. I want him to know that meeting people who like you, who understand you, who actually accept you for who you are, will become an increasingly rare occurrence. These people who contributed to who I am, they are with me wherever I go, and as history gets rewritten in small ways with each passing day, my love for them only grows. Because the truth is... it was the best of times. Mistakes were made, hearts were broken, harsh lessons learned, but all of that has receded into fond memory now. How does it happen? Why are we so quick to forget the bad and romanticize the good? Maybe it's because we need to believe that the time we spent together actually meant something, that we were there for each other in a time in our lives that defined us all, a time in our lives that we will never forget. I can't swear this is exactly how it happens. But this is how It feels"




Who can you trust?