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The rambles, rants and raves of a writing newbie. |
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Here you'll find rants, rambles, raves and infinite digressions. Entries can jump from topic to topic without apparent order, maybe enclosing sudden insights - maybe not. You've been warned. |
| I haven't got time right now. I'm in my finals at college and can't stop to log in here. However, since my upgrade's running out, I thought I might as well update this blog for the last time. See ye all next year! |
| See, I'm updating my blog. After 3 reminders, I thought I might as well do it. The problem is, I'm not in the mood to write these days since I'm hanging by a thread in college. Like a tiny spider's web that anyone can snap. So I'll see you later. |
| After ripping several pages last Sunday, it seems I've reached an agreement with myself. At least, I answered one of the dares. I twisted the theme a bit, as usual. Yes, it lacks editing. I think I can reduce it by half. Maybe I could stretch it and get into details, but I'd probably stray even further from the subject. I need more caffeine. They say it is good for keeping your mind on track. I doubt that. Maybe tea's more efficent than coffee. Then again, they say that cocaine's got the same effect. Too bad it's expensive. Not to mention it's illegal. Besides, it's supposed to be bad for your health. Well, so is caffeine. I think that's overrated, though. Coffee is approved by the FDA. Besides, I like coffee. So much for ranting today, I've got to go right now and create a park out of a wasteland. *Feels powerful* |
| I was kidding in the last post, but somehow it got serious. I've started gambling. Oh no, not bad gambling, the kind of gambling in which you lose your house, your dignity, your life. I meant good gambling: buying a lottery ticket. It was hell to buy it, since I hadn't got any money with me but for a few cents. I couldn't pay for my first bet, so the selling lady had to erase it from the database while I fetched money for a lower bet. How very humiliating. Oh yes, update reminders. I've tweaked my account preferences so WDC won't ask me to update my blog. It was getting annoying. Damn annoying. I felt as if it was a compulsory thing to do, update my blog. So writing in it didn't appeal to me anymore. I've got to treat everything I like at a "hobby level", otherwise my interest for it vanishes. Maybe I should make my chosen career a hobby as well, so I can actually enjoy it. Hell. |
| I can't help but feeling that my stories worsen with each passing day. Then again, I'm not in the mood to write these days, so this could explain the poor quality of my stories. What unleashes the "writing mood" in a person? A dare, but that alone is not enough. Aye, I think I need to start jogging. That should do it. Then again, I hate jogging in a confined space. Maybe I should start gambling. |
| Aha! I've beaten WDC! I'm updating my blog and they haven't even reminded me to do it yet! Ah, the joy we get from such minor things... Anyway, I wrote another short story. Now, I've got only fasting, prayer and self-mutilation ahead of me. I mean, I've got to edit it. Besides, I'm writing yet two more. As usual, in answer to dares I received. The problem is that I've got to finish writing them, then edit them and translate them to English. I could write direclty in English, but then I'd lose the other language's perspective. Besides, Portuguese is close to my heart, while English turns on the analytical process. Let's not get started about the other languages, since I don't master them and so they're just used as once-in-a-while assets. I've realised I like ambiguous endings and vanishing characters. Yea, vanishing. They simply do not matter to the story, which could very well do without them. How very odd. It seems my negative criticism on my writing was right after all. |
| It's interesting how I cannot bring myself to write a story, but still can rant away in a blog. Talking about ourselves never seems to tire us. In fact, I could talk about myself for hours, for days, for my entire life. All the same, I can't bear it when people rant about themselves and not about me. Particularly because I know that people who talk endlessly about themselves usually do it out of self-promotion or self-abuse, making up lie after lie. Not that I'm untruthful. I'm talking about other people, remember? Besides, I've read somewhere - I never remember my sources - that about half of what people say is a lie. And in order to lie to others, first we have got to lie to ourselves. Amazingly, we do believe in our lies. It also said that depressed people can assess situations with more accuracy than people who are in good terms with life. Now that's depressing. I mean, we'll never see life how it really is until we get depressed. In a way, it's better. Or there wouldn't be books nor people buying them. After all, they're but a bunch of lies wrapped up in a fantastical world. I hope I'll never "get real"! |
| Yes, WDC sent me multiple reminders: "update your blog! update your blog!" All for nothing. I solemnly ignored them. As someone already said - all sayings become apocryphal in my hands, since I can't remember their authors' names - "I write by fits. There're times I do nothing at all, and times I scribble all day and read all night." Or something to that effect. I also can't remember how the sayings go. Anyway, I don't feel like writing these days. Ja, I know it's spring already and I should be pretty high by now, but this dreary weather reminds me of winter. Weather's getting weirder with the passage of time. Then again, my city's weather was always weird. We never leave our homes without an umbrella and a coat, no matter if there's a scorching sun outside. Tropical countries and their quirks. And then my city and its quirks. But I was talking about writing. No, indeed I wanted to talk about something else: a contest I entered at the end of last month. I was very despondent about the story I sent to the contest. I was getting the most contrastant reviews about it. Some said it was brilliant, others that it was crap. I sent it just because I had got nothing to lose besides my non-existent reputation here in WDC. So I sent it, hoping at least to get more reviews on it and figure out what to make of it. I thought it was good, but apparently people didn't share my opinion. Okay, so I knew it wasn't that good compared to my favourite authors. And I didn't expect much out of the contest. Yesterday I decided not to connect to the net, seeing that I was spending too much time here. Besides, I had to watch Discovery Channel's docummentary on Katrina, but that's besides the point. So today I came to WDC and found out I had got tons on newsletters in my email. However, there were about four entries that weren't newsletters: some reviews, a notice about the winner of a contest and... it seemed someone had given me a merit badge. I decided to check my email, oldest first. And when I finally came to the winner notice, I found out I was chosen the overall winner of the contest! I was sceptical, then flabbergasted, thrilled, and utterly happy. So that merit badge was related to the contest! I won a "job well done" merit badge. My first, and hopefully not my last. See, my anonymous benefactor, you who gave me this upgraded membership, your investment wasn't fruitless. Now, if only I could bring myself to write again... |
| I've come to the conclusion that Virginia Woolf's style is an acquired taste. At first, I hated it. It is more digressive than Bellow - I like Bellow's style - and terribly vague: full of incomplete sentences, half-voiced thoughts, strange connections that lead to nowhere. It looks like the automatic writing of the modern. And I loathed its vagueness. But then, I gave up trying to follow Woolf's line of thought and began to infuse my own, completing her reasoning myself, as if I was her. And then I started to enjoy it. Maybe that was her intention - to involve the reader, to make him or her the author. So now I love her to bits. I wished I could buy another of her books, but I cannot. At least, until November. I'm penniless. Les Contes de la Bécasse doesn't surpass Boule de Suif et Autres Récits de Guerre, even though it belongs to Maupassant's prime period. Still, it does have that sense of uneasiness so characteristic of his works. Even Notre Coeur had got swing and wit - this considering Maupassant was already mad and dying. Hell, writers should live more - or at least write frenetically - so I would have an endless supply of books. Nah, I would run out of money. I already did, so many times... Svevo's Zeno's Conscience is remarkably simple - in plot - but wonderfully written. It makes me laugh. And wonder about life. It's a man telling us about his life in a very ironic way. You cannot help but relate to him. He's flawed, and he knows it, and laughs at himself, sometimes bordering on self-pity, sometimes on cruelty. It's the common man exposed inside out. I gotta buy another book by him as well. I stopped reading Swift just before reaching Laputa, so I won't talk about his book now. Indeed, I should be fast asleep by now. Or reading. Or writing. Wait, I'm writing, in a way. I write more in my blogs than in my stories. It's so easy to talk about ourselves and to bitch about life than to take our time to invent new worlds and build characters. I don't know how our parents do it. |
| How very interesting! WDC reminds you to write in your blog! Wow, I've never seen anything like that. Indeed, it's been... what, 1 Day 9 Hours 51 Minutes since I last wrote in here. But if you consider that I spent most of the day out yesterday, listening to a very heated - and exhausting - debate, then you'll understand me. To make matters worse, I forgot to close the curtains when i went to sleep, so today I woke up earlier than I needed to because of the sunlight on my face. Spring seems to arrive at last. I like spring and autumn, very mild seasons. Winter's just so cold I'd gladly sleep through it. It's a terrible season, you feel despondent and weary all the time, and you can hardly read - or write - anything. It's much like a curse. The good thing about winter is wearing lots of warm clothes and curling in front of the TV with a hot cocoa mug. As to summer, I dislike it as well. In fact, my dislike of it borders on aversion. It's way too hot - I live in a tropical country - and you can't sleep, you can't remain still. You've got to write, to read, to rant, to go out and try to convince your friends to go out with you. And then you suddenly come to yourself and slow down, almost stopping altogether. But then you get high again, how could you not? It's summer, after all, season of the ups and downs, of lightning tempests, of torrential rain followed by unbearable heat. Ooh, the lightning tempests of summer are amazing! I love to sit by the window and count every strike, marvelling at their different colours, trying to guess where the other'll strike next. I wonder whether people who are struck down by lightning aren't forever changed. It's like dying and coming back to life. Then again, you can do it by choking on bread. Ah, yes, winter. I love the cold, but I just hate winter. That's why I like autumn. Autumn here hasn't got yellow and red leaves, or bare trees. Autumn is the season of green. Bright green, yellow flowers and an incredibly blue sky. Lovely indeed. And spring is... well, spring. Flowers all around, warm weather, etc. Look at the time! I gotta go. Spring is also the test season at college. |
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