%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |
 Well, not so much fun and leisure as...get some damn writing done, you fool! |
|
A while ago, I attended a writers' workshop and the lady who hosted it told us all to go away with this bit of advice - to write for just ten minutes a day. I was determined to go ahead with it and I did...for two days. So today I remembered that I'd resolved to do so and I whipped out my journal and wrote for fifteen minutes. I'm typing out pretty much the same thing that I wrote earlier, with some differences. I find I can go a lot more in-depth when I'm typing than when I'm writing by hand. Writing by hand is such a chore! I've struggled with loneliness a lot throughout my twenty-nine years. I struggled with it when I was the only one home with my mum when I was a teen and everybody else had other places to be. I struggled with it after marriage and when we moved into our own house for the first time. I struggled with it after my son was born and I felt torn between pursuing my writing and being a good mum, because my culture seems to indicate that a woman has absolutely no chance of living her own life - or at least, she has no chance of attaining any goals she hasn't already attained - once she has children. I feel it occasionally still, even though I get so little time to myself nowadays that any alone time is simply awesome. I've tried to come to terms with the idea that being alone isn't a bad thing - and a lot of the time, it isn't. My friends don't live nearby so I don't get to see them often, and even when I do, I feel like there isn't much depth to our conversations. I'm surrounded by people who do not think like me, who do not share any of my interests and hobbies. I feel like I've become desensitised to isolation. Loneliness is my preferred way to be. I walked into my college cafeteria at lunch today and it was the usual hubbub of activity. Youngsters walking around, chatting animatedly, shouting across the room, laughing, eating, socialising. I could recall how that clamour wouldn't have bothered me ten-twelve years ago, when I would have been one of the youngsters talking excitedly with her friends. But, as this moment, I just found an out-of-the-way little table and sat down. I watched the crowds for a while, wondering why it was only at moments like these that the sense of isolation became so strong. In the middle of a crowd, I feel most alone. |
| 09:17 I woke up at 6am today. I have no idea why, particularly since I went to sleep at like half one. That's not nearly enough sleep, and I need to catch up from yesterday's rest being cut short too. Ever since Dean's arrived, my sleeping patterns have been even more inconsistent than they were before. I had to kick him out of my room last night - he was so energetic and kept wanting to play and tried to make a swipe for my face when I was trying to sleep. The little idiot. My husband returned from work and Dean just sat bolt upright - he's still a bit wary of my husband. Dean had previously been lying on my lap, content to just chill out there while I was on the computer. He obviously became very alert and energised when he heard my husband clomping up the stairs. After that, he just would not settle. What a pain in the ass! I've found that I'm very irked by other people - or creatures - being around me constantly. I recall my first blog entry, where I wrote about isolation and loneliness. It's odd, isn't it? In a crowd, that feeling of being all alone is so prominent, but when I'm alone, I am most comfortable. I often fantasise about pulling a Henry (from The Time Traveller's Wife) and time travelling back to past or future versions of myself. I sometimes think I could be the very best friend that I could ever want but at other times, I reckon even in those situations, I'd still treat my other self as an individual separate from me. I'd still be awkward and polite and very ill at ease. It takes ages for me to make friends. I convey myself well through writing but I'm nowhere near as well-spoken IRL. I'm starting to cut myself some slack and show myself some of the basic decency that comes so naturally where other people are concerned, but it's a pretty long road and I have very short legs. 09:31 I'm getting better at not looking at the clock while I write! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 21:30 I'm feeling so lazy. I can't get my head into gear. My checklist has been neglected today too, though I've done the basic everyday tasks which I usually have on there. Well, only one of them. I've done the languages. I'm so halfhearted with learning them. I'm progressing in Japanese because I have a face-to-face tutor for it, but the others are quite challenging. Maybe "challenging" is too strong a word for Italian - the words and word order is simple enough. I guess I just need to be more consistent with it. My main goal for every day is to hit my target and make the little circle in the corner of the app go from blank grey to yellow, which isn't a very good goal if you ask me. I'm learning Korean too and I'm not doing very well with it. Because I'm lazy and can't be bothered to thoroughly read the choice for every question I'm given, I seek shortcuts like selecting the answer which has the first few letters that look familiar. I have to push myself more. But pushing myself has always been quite difficult. Nobody ever encouraged me to do the things that I want to do. I hate to sound whiny and angsty but it is true. Anything I chose to do was a waste of time to my parents, who wanted me to be someone "respectable", like a doctor or teacher or nurse. It's too bad that the more they kept at me to do my schoolwork, the more I ran away from it. Dear, dear, how did I get onto such an awful subject? I think for a long time, I felt bitter towards my parents whenever I started thinking about it, but ever since I began studying counselling (or maybe since I first received counselling), I've come to terms with it. I'm still a good person who can make sound judgements, at least where they concern myself. I'm not damaged to a point where I can never be a decently-functioning person who contributes to society in some small way. I can take steps to right the wrongs that I once might have seen in my past. I am my own boss - to sort myself out, I can try to do what needs to be done to straighten out my immense flaws. My parents can't take the fall for that - in their own traditional way, they tried to raise me as best they could. None of us can see the future - we can't tell how our actions will hurt or hinder another - but we can try to make something worthwhile of our present so that we have no regrets later on. 21:45 Not bad! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 23:25 I haven't been keeping to a checklist since...Monday, I think. I still try to do some stuff on there, but it feels like I'm being too sloppy with times and pushing things aside for later. In my defense, Dean's arrival has sort of thrown everything off-kilter, but I'm doing my basics - my language learning, updating my blog, and...urm...writing my story. Well, looking at my story at least. I've lost all hope that I'll get 8000 words by Friday. I'm just feeling generally lazy. Dean has gotten used to me, it seems. A bit too used to me, if you ask me. I had dinner while watching Netflix and I stayed sitting down for quite a while after I'd finished. He curled up on my lap and fell asleep. I think it'll take me a few more days yet to get into some kind of routine. I had my first day back at college after the holidays yesterday and I realised I could use this blog as a journal, since we have to keep one to help with assignments towards the end of the course. So here I go. I keep telling people - and myself - I'm getting bored of the course, but I'm not. I'm certainly getting bored of being told I need to find a placement, as if I haven't tried looking. I have given up though, so I need to get myself off my lazy behind and send out some more applications. I'm bored of assignments too, but every course requires you to show whether you've understood the subject matter so there isn't much I can do about that. I guess my main problem there is that reading books that aren't on the syllabus but recommended by the tutor is boring. I don't like reading non-fiction books. I can't focus at all. So when it comes to referencing for my assignments, I leaf through these books to look for quotes that are relevant to the questions being asked. That is what makes assignment work so mind-numbing for me. What a pain. But I chose to go back into education so I'm going to stick with it. I want to stay in education so maybe after my course is over, I can look into studying something else. I have no idea what it'll be yet though. Something science-related? I've always wanted to try my hand at being a florist. Maybe that's something to look into. But I want to do something that will make me use my brain - the place up there needs a new lease of life. It needs a clear-out and an airing out. It doesn't get used enough. Wow, nineteen minutes! I did spend a few of those playing with Dean and getting him out from behind the curtains. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 20:51 I finally got my kitten last night. Returned home past midnight because of this little fella, which is a bad idea when one has a small child who needs to go to nursery in the morning. And when one has college to attend too. As it was, both my son and I were late in attending our respective educational establishments. Well, I was late fifteen minutes. He has was late by like three hours, thanks to my husband being so laidback about the whole thing. Psh, who cares about trying to adhere to the time you're expected to be at a place? Anyway, I've not been doing much writing these past two days. I might have opened up the Word document with my Elementals short story yesterday around the time I wrote my last entry, but I didn't do much writing. I'm still not getting a clear picture of the storyline. Plus, my mentor has said he can't commit to the prompt so I've sort of lost interest too. I mean, I will try my best to continue - it seems a waste to just let this opportunity go past. I thought I had a thousand words but it's actually more like 900. I restarted writing too because I was completely stumped with the way it was going. I've tried to plan it out too but nothing comes to mind. Maybe I'm just not trying hard enough. I didn't get much sleep last night so I keep yawning. I've never had a cat before so I kept thinking Dean was going to come and claw my face off if I kept it at his level - I sleep on the floor, having been told it's good for the back. In any case, I knew my fears were quite ridiculous, but I couldn't help it, you know? Also, he was sleeping right on my duvet and I felt bad for moving around and disturbing him. It's been sixteen minutes but I've spent a fair amount of that time messing about with Dean so...:D ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 13:30 Isn't it awful when you're getting all excited for something to happen and then...when the moment comes, there's nothing? Nothing happens. You got excited for no reason. You got that weird and wonderful feeling of butterflies in the stomach for absolutely nothing. I've never owned a pet before so I guess I'm building it up in my head quite a lot that having a cat is going to be like having another child = albeit a child that is a little less reliant than a human child. I was on my way to get it, that's the problem. I got out of the house with the intention of coming back with a kitten. And what a gorgeous kitten it was! It was ginger and black/brown and white and...so amazing and adorable. I will of course be getting another one. I had a fallback, although I didn't know I had a fallback until a few minutes before setting off to get the ginger kitten. My friend's aunt and her daughter were giving kittens away and they didn't want to give their only boy away but they'd changed their minds since I'd last asked. I guess things worked out. The lady selling the ginger kitty said, while I was on my way, that she was out and wouldn't be home until a time when I couldn't come. So I thought I'd get the other kitten and then let the lady know that I didn't want the ginger anymore. She called me a time waster. I don't know if I should be offended or laugh. She said she'd be home all day and then tells me when I'm coming to get it that she's not there. The hypocrisy of some people, I tell you. ...I really should stop checking messages in between writing my blog. I get distracted and then I don't know how much time I spend. Anyways, my friend said she would deliver my kitten tonight so I'm anxiously waiting for that. Five and a bit hours to go. It's not too bad, I suppose. The wait is killing me though. I've been searching for a kitten for a few months now and now that one is almost in my hands, I'm getting very impatient. Including the time I took to message, that's nineteen minutes. I suppose I did ten mins...maybe. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 14:20 I thought I was doing well with my short story but I'm not. After just over a thousand words, I'm at a bit of a standstill. So I figured maybe I'm going about this all wrong. Although I don't like to base my novels around a single clear incident in my head - or rather, I don't like to force myself to do that but I will work with such moments if I get them, of course - with a short story, it's different. There is limited space to work with so the incident has to be made clear as soon as possible. So I'm thinking, it's about an Elemental and it's the story of how she became an Elemental so what incident could motivate her predecessor to choose her as an apprentice? It has to be something that shows her capability as a leader, or at least that she is willing to put her people's lives before her own. So how does an underdeveloped teenage girl (among people who have wings, she has yet to develop hers) show her compassion? What incident could motivate her to stick her neck out for others? One of the things I thought of was that she could be someone who is very kind, who gives in charity and is basically an all-round good Samaritan. But her character as a stoic and graceful older lady with an unbending will has already taken shape in my mind and I don't want to change that. I mean, I guess she could be kind and charitable even with that aloof persona but I think she'd come off more as a pacifist if she were a good Samaritan. If she likes helping people so much, why would she ever feel the need to hurt them? And she has to be able to hurt them because she's one of the main characters in an action-fantasy story. I don't know, I guess it still bears some thinking about. Eleven minutes! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 23:14 So three quarters of an hour left before I would have missed today's ten minutes of writing! I know, I'm cutting it close. Although I was out today too, I've no excuse. I've been home for hours and I've had hours since I put the little one to bed. I've just been watching Netflix. Damned Netflix...! Last night, I did a fair bit of writing for my current short story. I'm starting to get a feel for the story now, just a little bit. I'm starting to visualise the character in my head. I know who she is and a little bit of what she's like. I can now start making a character profile for her. I've never made note of the process before so it's interesting, looking back on it. I started with a blank canvas and then made up a name for her on the spot. Despite wanting to make up meaningful names for my characters, oftentimes, I just go with whatever I'm feeling at that point. I won't leave the name blank until I can come up with something better because I need it then and there. The character needs to be called something. Sometimes the name is stupid but once it's there, it sticks. I have a lot of difficulty renaming characters. Anyways, once I have a name, I can start guessing a few other things about them and thus the character backgrounds, likes and dislikes, childhood crushes, family structures, things like that all start falling into place. Well, not magically falling into place. There's work in there, of course, but it has to feel like it's falling into place as the story goes on. A lot of the time, I think I come up with characters by going off of other characters in other works which I am a fan of. Anime guys, for example. Kyoya Hibari from Katekyo Hitman Reborn! is a prominent one. He inspired the hero of my main novel, who is dark-haired and blue-eyed and is aloof. In fact, my main novel started off as a fanfic featuring him. But I've reworked him quite a bit since then, although the initial name stayed. Names are important, right? They give first impressions. They become labels. They become identifiers. That's why it's so difficult to rename. I couldn't imagine IRL being called anything other than my name, even though I hated my name for a long time. I still do, to an extent. Well, that's my little rant on names. I don't even know how it got to that point. 23:28 Fourteen mins, yay! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 21:59 I've been putting off writing my blog today, because I've been out and I didn't want to use my phone to update it. I did a whole load of backstorying for my Elementals story last night so that was a good, productive day. I want to start writing the story but I don't yet have the backstories for the other two Elementals in place and I'm very much caught up in the idea of short stories helping me to familiarise myself with my characters. Speaking of short stories, I now have another prompt to write. 8000 words! I'm confident I can do it but it's a lot of words! I'm on the Air Elemental right now, but she's completely uninteresting at the moment so I'm thinking I'll move on to Earth, who is the main character of the novel. But I'm in two minds about her too, since I'll have the entirety of the novel to learn about her and Fire's characters and rework them as I see fit so I don't want to be constrained by something I've already written for them. I guess I'll just have to grit my teeth and get on with Air's story. What I discovered about the Elementals' world while I was writing the "history" of the planet was that the Elementals have shaped the planet into what it is today so the individual Provinces for the Elements should be countries instead. So maybe Fire's people live near the centre of the planet, where it's hottest. Water is all around. Air is above everything. Earth is self-explanatory. Well, they all are, to a degree. ...Whoops, I received a message. I don't know how long I spent on the message. And now it's 22:15! So...mission accomplished? ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 12:31 I feel like I don't utilise my blog as much as I should. I don't really enjoy it. I keep coming back to it because it's on my checklist and I want a minimum of ten minutes of writing every day. But I keep looking at the time when I'm writing, to check whether it's been ten minutes. If I had a good topic to write about, I wouldn't even notice the time. I liked the idea of writing my blog from the POV of my characters but the one time I tried it, it felt weird. I mean, I suppose it has potential to make me more aware of my characters' inner workings, but I just wasn't feeling it so I haven't tried it again. I am a writer and I'm writing a blog for the sake of writing but can I write about writing? What do I write about? Maybe I should write a bunch of writing-related suggestions on small pieces of paper and then fold them up and put them in a hat so I can choose a different one every day? But I'm wasting time just doing this ten minute thing every day, because I know I'm capable of so much more. All right, since I've been meaning to get some background information on my Elementals series, maybe I can try mapping it out here. So, the Elementals, who are the rulers of their respective "Provinces": Keeper of the Fire Spirit of the Earth Child of the Water Princess of the Air I have no idea what the world is called. I have no idea if these Provinces are actual countries or if they're four parts of the same land. Province would suggest different parts of the same country, right? I made this up years ago so I can't quite remember what the idea was since I didn't write down any background info about the land/world. After writing the first proper draft for Rift-touched, I'm a bit obsessed with mapping out the small details, like I'm going to fail miserably if I don't. Anyways, so these four Provinces were, once upon a time, living in...harmony. Kind of. Air presided over two, being a key component to make fire burn and to allow for the formation of water. It owes its allegiance to Earth, whose plants gave it birth. Fire is selfish, not aiding any of the others, and owing fealty but unwilling to give it to Earth, whose trees are its fuel. Water nourishes Earth and smothers Fire. Fire is the troublemaker, who could not stand being of the Earth. It wanted independence so it broke away from Earth and Air's rule. It was regarded as the lesser element so it wanted to show its strength. Delving deep beneath the Earth's boundaries, amid stone, it was a weakling and rested to allow itself to grow. Feeding on the stone, reaching higher temperatures and higher levels of destruction. ...I started watching YouTube in the middle of this. I don't know why (O)_(O) But hey, sixteen minutes! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 14:36 In contrast to yesterday, I'm not doing so good today. Not too bad, either, but I've definitely been better. My son is down for a nap so I thought I'd take the opportunity to get some stuff done. Three and a half items crossed off my list. I'm getting aggravated right now because my husband is on the phone a few paces away. He has such a LOUD voice. I want to throw my shoe at him because I'm worried the little one will wake up. His voice goes louder when he's on the phone, as if he needs it to! What am I supposed to write about when all I can hear is his LOUD voice? It's like a blockade in the way of my thoughts! ...And the little one is awake! ARGH! I could beat this guy up! There goes my opportunity to get some writing done! Argh, I'm so mad! I'm so tired. I don't get enough sleep most days. If it's not the little one keeping me up, it's the big one with the LOUD voice! I have been trying to get to sleep earlier nowadays, but it doesn't work. Evening is the only time I get some freedom to do what I want, since naps are becoming less of a daily thing. I've been trying to work on the Elementals back stories, but I haven't really gotten anywhere. I enjoyed the previous prompt, as I knew I had to get it finished for a particular time. This other backstory is not working so well. I have so little interest in it. I think I'll try writing out the story. Maybe discovering the character in the main story will encourage me to delve into her past. Something's got to give. Ten minutes! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
)
