I had a concrete idea for something Drake would say. There’s no doubt that the novels of Anne McCaffrey were important to him. I wrote a piece and had Chat-GPT rewrite it a few times. None of it worked out with Drake’s voice, but reposting the rewrites is a way to eliminate the fuzziness around it. I found out something about myself and what I want by doing this, and by posting it am pushing it away from myself, looking for something more.

Original:

I write because of Anne McCaffrey. My father was a polluted, psychotic creep, Vietnam Veteran.  And somewhere under all the war medals and government titles, he was a hypocrite.  He wanted to destroy my mind so that I would give him the kind of attention he wanted.  When I was at Ravenswood Academy, my guidance counselor realized that my father was programming me, trying to destroy me, and she gave me novels by Anne McCaffrey to read.  They helped me develop the sense of individuality he was trying to destroy in me.  I write to find out exactly where, to find the pressure point within the pack of lies he gave me so I can kill his memory forever.  At the core of his soul, there was a demon and even though thankfully he’s dead now I still want to kill it.

This is Drake Marshall: rewrite it.

I write because of Anne McCaffrey. My father, a decorated Vietnam veteran, was a polluted, psychotic creep. Beneath the war medals and government titles, he was a hypocrite—dripping with righteousness while poisoning everything he touched. He wanted to obliterate my mind, mold me into an extension of his own sick need for control.

At Ravenswood Academy, a guidance counselor saw what he was doing. She handed me Anne McCaffrey’s books, a quiet act of rebellion, an offering of escape. In those pages, I found something he couldn’t reach—my own sense of self, untethered from his demands.

I write to carve out the truth from the wreckage of his lies, to locate the precise fault line where his manipulation fractured me. I write to kill his memory, to sever the last thread of him that still lingers in the corners of my mind. Because at the core of him, there was something rotten, something monstrous. And though he’s long dead, I still want to kill it.

Rewrite and make it more violent

I write because of Anne McCaffrey. My father was a venomous, psychotic bastard—Vietnam fucked him up, or maybe he was always that way. He wrapped himself in war medals and government titles like armor, but underneath, he was a coward, a liar, a parasite. He wanted to break me, hollow me out, make me his puppet. He fed me poison, word by word, until I was choking on it.

At Ravenswood Academy, a guidance counselor saw what he was doing. She threw me a lifeline—Anne McCaffrey’s books. In them, I found something untouchable, something he couldn’t crush. Those stories cracked his programming, showed me that I belonged to no one, least of all him.

I write to rip open the infection he left inside me, to dig out every festering lie he shoved down my throat. I write to carve his memory into pieces, to burn it, to salt the fucking earth where it stood. Because at the core of his soul, there was a demon, and even in death, it still lingers. I want to kill it again and again and again, until nothing of him remains.

Rewrite it as Drake trying to recapture the enthusiasm he had for literature in the 1980s, when he was a fan of Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer, and he wanted to recapture the spirit of 1960s rock stars like Jim Morrison and John Lennon.

I write because I need to remember why I ever cared about writing in the first place. Back in the ’80s, when I was a kid with a head full of Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, and rock & roll mythology, I thought literature was dangerous. It was rebellion, sex, a way to crack open the world and let something raw and electric spill out. I wanted to be Jim Morrison with a typewriter, John Lennon with a manifesto, someone who could bend reality with words and make people feel something sharp and alive.

Somewhere along the way, I lost it. Maybe it was my father, his war-stained mind trying to program me into something small, something obedient. Maybe it was the ’90s, the way everything started to feel plastic and prepackaged, stripped of its fire. The world was moving faster, but it wasn’t going anywhere.

But I still remember being seventeen, sneaking cigarettes behind Ravenswood Academy, high on the sound of The Doors in my Walkman, convinced that words could shatter the world. I want that back. I want to write like I’m setting something on fire. I want to crack open the past and shake it until the good parts spill out. Maybe it’s too late. Maybe the dream got drowned in cynicism, in disappointment, in the slow decay of idealism.

Or maybe I just have to fight harder to get it back.

Recombine this with the fact that it was Anne McCaffrey and his guidance counselor that saved him from his father.

I write because I need to remember why I ever cared about writing in the first place. Back in the ’80s, when I was a kid with a head full of Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, and rock & roll mythology, I thought literature was dangerous. It was rebellion, sex, a way to crack open the world and let something raw and electric spill out. I wanted to be Jim Morrison with a typewriter, John Lennon with a manifesto, someone who could bend reality with words and make people feel something sharp and alive.

But my father wanted to gut that out of me. He was a war-damaged control freak who saw my mind as something to be conquered, programmed, molded in his image. He wanted obedience, not individuality. He wrapped himself in war medals and government titles, but underneath it all, he was just another hypocrite trying to grind the world into submission—starting with his own son.

At Ravenswood Academy, a guidance counselor saw what was happening. She handed me Anne McCaffrey’s books, and suddenly, I had a way out. In those pages, I found defiance, a voice that wasn’t his, a world where freedom meant something. It cracked his hold on me. It showed me I could belong to myself.

Somewhere along the way, I lost that feeling. Maybe it was the ’90s, the way everything turned plastic and prepackaged, stripped of its fire. Maybe it was time, cynicism, the slow decay of idealism. But I still remember being seventeen, sneaking cigarettes behind Ravenswood, high on the sound of The Doors in my Walkman, convinced that words could shatter the world. I want that back. I want to write like I’m setting something on fire.

Maybe it’s too late. Or maybe I just have to fight harder to get it back.

This isn’t the voice of Drake Marshall, but writing this critique I am finding the tone I want to have.