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 Well, not so much fun and leisure as...get some damn writing done, you fool! |
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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. |
| 06:27 I woke up a little bit earlier today, thinking I'd get in some writing before I go off for another training day. But so far, I have done absolutely NOTHING. I'm a time waster. I came down with the intention of writing some more of the Svolteria story but that hasn't happened yet. I've only got an hour to go before I have to be ready to leave! I disappoint myself, sometimes. Tut tut. Anywho, I've decided I won't do Svolteria for NaNo because I've already got a sizeable chunk of it done...or maybe I will do it regardless. But then I wanna do another story too. Aaaah, so indecisive! Story of my life! The mermaid story, which I was planning to put up on Wattpad, is sort of disappointing me now. I think I could have done it better. LOADS better. I've sent it to an acquaintance to read and, since then, I've just been thinking about how badly she's going to think of it. But I dunno. Am I just feeling this way because I'm nervous? That is part of it, I think, but I can't help but think of all the elements of the story that could have been handled better. So, here's the outline (it's a retelling of the Little Mermaid, with several liberties taken and a bit of Beauty and the Beast mashed in there as well...don't ask): Luna is the youngest of six siblings and is often left to her own devices. On her eighteenth birthday, she is allowed to visit the surface. There she saves a young human man who fell from a ship. She watches him from afar until he wakes and then, before she leaves, she sees him talking to a strange-looking girl. Things are heating up in her father's kingdom and, as a result, she is no longer allowed to visit the surface. Her grandmother, her only friend and confidant, leaves after letting Luna hear some unpleasant truths. Luna decides she'll go to the surface anyway, disobeying her father's command. There she spots her human, on a set of stairs half-submerged in the water jutting out of a cliff. He is now ugly and deformed. Lots of angst and wallowing-in-self-pity on Leo's (the human's) part. He talks with his father about what happened while sitting on the stairs. Luna hears and embarks on a quest to see the sea witch who did this to him. She meets the sea witch. They bargain. She loses her voice for him to get his appearance back. She makes another wish. To be human. Leo and his dad find an odd girl bleeding from her eyes on the stairs and bring her in. Leo gradually begins to fall in love with her, and vice versa (well, Luna already did, kind of) Neptune, Luna's father, takes her back home where she is constantly under watch. The situation in the kingdom is deteriorating. Luna's second eldest sister in involved in a group which is fighting for change in the kingdom. Said sister comes to Luna to offer her a chance to escape to see her human, as a diversion for Mona to see the sea witch. It works. Luna gets to see Leo, but at the same moment, Neptune arrives to once again bring her back. There has been an attack on the palace. Luna's brother has been killed. Mona has done her job and got the kingdom's secrets in a bid to tell everyone the roots of the merpeople. At the cost of her memories and her life. She has three years. In those three years, Luna's mother returns, Neptune decides perhaps it is time he stepped down, Luna's eldest sister is made queen, and Luna is finally allowed to go back home. ...It's actually a pretty simple story, eh? I'm wondering if it's too simple. Because the two main characters are the same as the ones from another story I wrote, their backgrounds and personalities are already done and I'm just wondering if those back stories shouldn't feature here. I gave Luna's background an overhaul since she's a mermaid and the daughter of a king, but Leo is still the same, as is his backstory (minus a little tiny bit where his grandfather was actually a merman who became human). The setting, the little town where Leo lives, is the same. Hmm...I need to think about it some more, I guess. 06:47 |
| 07:47 My son hasn't slept much - he woke up several times during the night. As a result, we're both short of sleep, but he's nearly ready for nursery so I thought I'd jot down a few things before it's time to go. I've been cracking on with my assignments these past few days, since I finished the mermaid story, so I haven't done any writing. I had thought I'd love to put the little mermaid story up on Wattpad (have decided it will be Wattpad instead of Tapas) but I'm not so sure now. I've fallen in love with it, which is a far cry from the disinterest I had in it last year when I wrote it for NaNo, but it was a fun experience and I used two characters I absolutely adore so I don't know if I want to put it up somewhere so casually anymore. I'm thinking maybe the Svolteria story can go on there, which is already planned and everything, but I have several issues with that. And I can do it for NaNo. Killing two birds with one stone! I've only just thought of doing Svolteria so it's good to have a plan of action. I'll go over the planning again and do some backgrounding (popularly known as worldbuilding, I guess lol). I'm actually looking forward to it. I think it's important to always have a writing goal, even if you're not working towards it every single day. It keeps one motivated and keeps the craft alive so you're not putting in so much effort to reestablish writing habits when you've had sizable gaps between bouts of writerliness. Writerliness. Is there a preexisting word for that? 07:57 |
| 13:00 Updating this blog after quite a few days now! I couldn't think of something for my reflective journal today so I thought I'd do something about writing instead. I finished proofreading my mermaid story last night. One of the reasons why I put off proofreading is because I think it will be tedious and will take forever, but I think I underestimate myself. I enjoy reading my own stories several months down the line, when they've faded out from memory a bit, but I enjoyed reading this while it was still fresh too. I thought reading over the same passages again and again - making corrections at one point and then going back to find where that detail might conflict with what was already written - would be a pain in the ass. It was, a little bit, but I didn't mind too much. So I've learnt something - I don't need to write a whole story out again to make it palatable. The first draft can be palatable, with a bit of refining. I'd always thought it was better to just redo the whole thing so I have a solid understanding of what I'm working towards and that way, the characterisation will be more consistent. As always, I'm learning new things! I've sent the story to a friend to see what they think. Even if it's just wattpad or Tapas (still can't decide which of the two I should go for), I want my story to be good if I'm going to put it out there. I told my best friend what I want to do and that I'd given the story to someone to have a read before posting it, and she said I should stop worrying about what people think and just do it. I don't know, though. I think it would be nice to have an outsider's perspective before I go ahead. It can't hurt to see what a reader thinks, right? If at any point in the story, I've said something which is not accurate and this inaccuracy has nothing to do with the magic and so on that is present in the story but rather it has to do with my own lack of research or understanding, then I want the opportunity to put it right before I get flamed for it lol. And these apps/websites that I want to submit to have comments enabled lol so...yeah...imagine..."YOU SUCK! GO BACK TO WHATEVER HOLE YOU CRAWLED OUT OF! YOUR STORY'S A WASTE OF SPACE!" O_O somehow, I want to upload it there just to see if that will happen!  13:13 |
| Second entry on the same day! I was going to do this in the previous one but my ten minutes had already been up and I felt I had written a sufficient amount so better to do this in another entry. In the counselling encounter group yesterday, I fell back and didn't say much. Plus, I was reeeaally tired and felt myself start to doze off. They're very calm, my class encounter groups - so far! - and we' scramble for something to say, which means there are many bouts of silence. People made comments about a number of things and when the discussion finally got going, I couldn't for the life of me keep my eyes open. I did say at the end that I started to drift off and the tutor was like "So what is it about this place that makes you want to sleep? Is it a safe place? What do you think? What's the reason?" And I was like O_O I'm just tired! I thought. But I guess there must be some underlying reason, otherwise I'd be falling asleep everywhere! So while we were checking out and finishing the session, I had a thought. I guess it is a kind of safe place - the people here are known to me. But more than that, the discussion had nothing to do with me - one of the ladies was talking about her experiences with one of her clients at her placement. When there is a discussion and I feel I'm not needed, I take a step back and let others do the work. I become an extra, someone who's not needed. It doesn't matter if I fade into the background. We were linking significant life events to counselling theories yesterday, so I got to thinking of my past quite a bit. I'm just wondering if this whole I'm-not-needed mentality comes from my childhood, when I was six years old and we moved to England. I didn't know anything about the place. I didn't even know the language! I feel I don't make friends very easily - possibly because of this move to surroundings that were entirely different? It happened twice - I'd become fairly settled in the new house and then we moved to the city we live in now, so...back to square one! Moving to another new place fairly soon after the last shift, I guess it might have reinforced the idea that it's better to just stay at the back and not draw attention to myself. Even now, I'm very hesitant about coming forward to offer my opinion if I think I might be wrong. I realise now that "moving" might have happened three times. I went to a girls' boarding school for about a year and a half or so when I was eleven. These are still developing years, right? The tutor said yesterday - I can't remember which theory we were talking about but she mentioned bereavement and how, if someone had lost a pet as a child but they were not allowed to grieve, then this might become the basis for the way they deal with grief, even when family members die, because they fallback on that experience to get through a similar situation in the future. So perhaps me staying at the back, not drawing attention to myself, is a fallback? Something familiar, something that's easily done. I don't like being the centre of attention for very long, what if I make a mistake? Better to not draw attention to myself. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 07:02 Actually, forget the title. I don't think it is burnout. I think it's just transitioning from not writing the same novel to now...not writing, but reading and making corrections instead. Yesterday, I felt so useless because I didn't do my thousand (or, the way it had been for several days before I finished the mermaid story, a few thousand) words a day. I think what I normally do after finishing a story is I leave it, thinking I'll come back to it with a "fresh, outsider's perspective" after a while since I'll have forgotten some of the finer details, but I'm not so sure that's the healthy way to go about it. Distance breeds laziness...for me anyway. So this time, I've resolved to slog through what I've written while it's still fresh in my mind. The other idea was to work on something else while I do the reading, so I can get my word count in while I'm still in the habit of writing every day. But I know myself very well - I will become distracted by the new project sooner or later. I don't like proofreading. But it's about time I got down to it. Nobody's magically going to appear by my side once I've finished a story to tell me they're here to proofread for me. Besides, I'm going to put it up on Tapas. I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I don't think I could handle putting my story out there knowing it's got even one typo! Time to get to work! 07:12 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 06:55 I finished the mermaid story! Yay! It was completed sooner than I was expecting. I hadn't realised but it's been just over a month. Not bad, considering it took me about a month to write the original and this version had a lot more thought put into it. I hate Google docs. It's final. I frickin' hate it! I went over my bedtime trying to finish the story off and Google was not helping by lagging like crazy. It takes ages for a lengthy document like a novel to load in GD, whereas you just need to take the page scroll button all the way down and hold it for a moment before it takes you down to the very last page. I tried to check word count and...I couldn't. I let it load for several minutes but the little loady circles were all I could see. I tried again now and same result! Ok, finally got it. 107 pages and 62818 words. Not bad! That's pretty much a standard novel, right? Now let me check the original. I'll probably have to wait ten years before I can see the word count on this too...Why, Google? Why? This is all stuff that's been saved previously so it's not like I'm asking you to pull it out of the ether! T_T Ah, here we go! 89 pages and 52047 words. Whoot! I feel so good about myself right now! Now to condition my stupid brain to accept the fact that reading my work and making amendments is also part of the writing process... 07:06 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 08:01 I haven't finished my assignment, which was due today. I have another due in two weeks which I haven't even made a start on. I am so close to finishing my story! I will do it all together once the story is finished, all being well. I'm nearly there - the climax has begun! I couldn't dedicate as much time as I'd have liked over the weekend, since I had training both days, otherwise I might well have been finished by now. I don't know what the next steps should be. I could just go over this draft and refine it, taking out errors but leaving the storyline as it is, or I could do as I usually do and rewrite the whole thing so it's more consistent, changing some things in the process. I want to be done with this story by the time NaNo starts so I'm thinking it would be quicker to just correct the errors and leave the storyline as it is. Plus, what usually happens when I redo the whole thing is that the characters change ever so slightly. They're more consistent but they lose some of their quirks, which is a damn shame because I pour my heart and soul into my characters and those quirks need to be in there. 08:12 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 06:56 I really am. Upon waking up in the morning, I look forward to writing. I think I'm definitely approaching the climax of the mermaid story. It's the second draft but I still feel it's a bit rough - more like a first draft. For NaNo, I can't remember what my previous plans were, but either I'll do the third draft of this story or I'll do draft number...4 for my main novel (or it might be 3.5 because I have a half novel in there somewhere). On my way home from training yesterday, I started writing a poem about my city, inspired by the feeling of relief whenever I come back from somewhere on the train and get out of the train station to see the familiar views of old Wakefield. I introduce myself as a writer and a poet nowadays. It's a good feeling! And with that, I'm going to cut my ten minutes short so I can get back to writing! :D 07:02 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 18:42 I forgot to update in the morning today. That was how much I was looking forward to getting my laptop on and writing! I love the feeling, but it sort of takes over everything. I had counselling training today. I was thinking about my story. Whenever I try to read anything, I'd rather write my own story. When watching Netflix as a bit of down time, I'd rather write. I have an assignment deadline on Monday but I'd rather write. I'm sitting here at my mum's, laptop-less, and it's killing me! I want to write!  In other news, I have to keep a reflective journal for my bereavement counselling training. Like yeah, it's not bad enough that I have to do one for my counselling course. Sheesh. So many reflections! I won't do it here though. I'm going now. I'm on my phone so typing is a chore! I'm going home now anyway. Finally, I can write! 18:49 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 06:12 It's pretty awesome when you're in the flow of doing something, right? The past two/three days, I've been writing the mermaid story like crazy. At the last word count yesterday before I shut down the laptop, I had 9800 odd words. The same document was open for either two or three days - I forget. If it was two days, that is so darn awesome! Google docs is a bit weird - it always opens up to that page when I turn my Chromebook on, so I just start writing. One of the reasons why I'm writing so well, I'm sure, is because I'm putting off my assignments again. But then again, writing is writing, whatever reason there is behind it. I'm thinking of putting this story up on Tapas when I'm done, since it is a romance and those are the types of stories that seem to thrive the most on there. Bit of reflecting now. Ugh, I'm coming to hate these segments. I should think about them before I sit down to write, rather than pulling an issue to talk about out of the ether. Hmm... Nope. I'll give it a miss for today. Out of time. :D 06:24 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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