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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. |
| 17:15 I'm getting tired of this "song". It just isn't something I'd write about so the topic I've chosen is a bit daft. But I'll try to see it through, although I don't know how much I can improve without another's guidance or feedback. Old draft: Is love really blind? Is it supposed to hurt in this way? I was a simple soul and didn't mind I was at peace, even if I wasn't always sound. When I met you, everything was a mess. You waited for me and you made a fuss Over me, which was something new. In my gloom, you were like a shining beacon. I strove to be better, to be worthy of you. It seems I wasn't worthy enough. You left, taking all your stuff. You disappeared, without a word, without a trace. All I have to go on is the memory of your face. It hit me like a knife through the heart, That the one I trusted most wanted to be apart. I became worse than the simple fool I'd been before, I craved something which I could not afford. Even though you broke me, I still needed you. Our brief time was a distant dream, bittersweet and untrue. Yeah, I can't be bothered anymore. I don't know how else to improve it. My heart isn't in it. Tomorrow, perhaps I can write something more in line with the things I like. Maybe I can finally start reworking the Rift-Touched character song I've revamped so many times. 17:25 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 16:18 Old draft: Is it true when they say love is blind? Do they also say it hurts in so many ways? Before you, I was a simple soul and didn't mind That I was mostly at peace, even if it wasn't the case always. Then I met you and everything became a mess. You made me feel as if I meant something to someone. My life wasn't just repayment for some failed college test. In that gloom, you were like a shining beacon. I strove to be better, to be worthy of you. In the end, I guess I wasn't worthy enough. You left, taking with you all your stuff. Without a word, without a trace, you disappeared And all I had to go on was the memory of your face. Like the result of a knife through the heart, Everything started to fail. I became worse than the failure I'd been before, I craved something which I could not afford. Even though you broke me, you turned me into an addict, You weren't around but all I wanted was my next fix. New draft: Is love really blind? Is it supposed to hurt in this way? I was a simple soul and didn't mind I was at peace, even if I wasn't always sound. I met you and everything was a mess. You would wait for me and made a fuss Over the details of my day, which was something new. In my gloom, you were like a shining beacon. I strove to be better, to be worthy of you. But I wasn't worthy enough. You left, taking all your stuff. You disappeared, without a word, without a trace. All I have to go on is the memory of your face. It hit me like a knife through the heart, That the one I trusted most wanted to be apart. I became worse than the simple fool I'd been before, I craved something which I could not afford. Even though you broke me, I still needed you. Our brief time was a distant dream, bittersweet and untrue. I'd better stop there. I take ages with these things. I didn't help that I fell asleep halfway through! I'm getting old! 16:52 Edit: Doesn't have anything to do with an epiphany - I was checking through my entries if all the letters of the alphabet had been covered XD ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 12:53 After a good night's sleep, my first attempt at writing a new song looks even worse than it did when I wrote it! It must be true what they say, That love is blind And it hurts in every way. I was a simple soul before you came along Then you turned my world upside-down Being with you was the best thing that ever happened to me A lifetime of repression and anxiety set free But then you went away You went away and left me alone. You plunged a knife through the heart And everything started to fail. The idiot I was before came back Only it was worse 'cause I knew I was better than that But the mess you left behind didn't want to be undone.  Let's see what can be done with this disaster: Is it true when they say love is blind? Do they also say it hurts in so many ways? Before you, I was a simple soul and didn't mind That I was mostly at peace, even if it wasn't the case always. Then I met you and everything became a mess. You made me feel as if I meant something to someone. My life wasn't just repayment for some failed college test. In that gloom, you were like a shining beacon. I strove to be better, to be worthy of you. In the end, I guess I wasn't worthy enough. You left, taking with you all your stuff. Without a word, without a trace, you disappeared And all I had to go on was the memory of your face. Like the result of a knife through the heart, Everything started to fail. I became worse than the failure I'd been before, I craved something which I could not afford. Even though you broke me, you turned me into an addict, You weren't around but all I wanted was my next fix. Yes, darker! I like darker! :D And I'm way over ten minutes! It's been half an hour!  13:25 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 23:38 Yes, the title is...a tad dramatic. I was typing each letter of the alphabet in the title bar to see if I had an entry title beginning with each one but I ran out at K...although, thinking back, I don't think there were any under D either. Another time perhaps. In any case, while thinking of K subjects, this phrase came to mind so I thought, with my entry yesterday about trying to be a little more focused about my blog and trying to force inspiration for my songs, I thought I could do something with it. So I'll spend ten minutes writing random lines. And then tomorrow, trying to fine tune it a little more, and then a little more the following day so that, and so on until sometime in the not-too-distant future, I have a decent song. Not sure what I'll accomplish today, since most of my ten minutes are already up! But here goes: It must be true what they say, That love is blind And it hurts in every way. I was a simple soul before you came along Then you turned my world upside-down Being with you was the best thing that ever happened to me A lifetime of repression and anxiety set free But then you went away You went away and left me alone. You plunged a knife through the heart And everything started to fail. The idiot I was before came back Only it was worse 'cause I knew I was better than that But the mess you left behind didn't want to be undone. It's okay if you feel like heaving up your lunch. I'm very sorry if this isn't your type of thing but...it seems I write romance when I can't find the inspiration for my more serious stuff. It looks more like a poem at the moment. Let's see how it goes after a few days of improvements...or attempted improvements, at any rate. 23:56 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 10:22 Today's entry is about trying to find some focus or direction for my blog. An idea just popped into my head since I've been singing the character song I wrote for the main protagonist of my novel for a while this morning. Writing prose is my main thing - I will do that, one way or another. I don't really need anyone or anything to egg me on for it (well...it would be nice but...meh). As for poetry, something comes along every now and then which makes me want to bust out some of my rudimentary and cobwebby skills with rhythm and rhyme. I do my best poetry when I'm passionate about something and this usually has to be inspired by something. I could try to just write stuff off the top of my head but it flows a lot better when the muse is there. But songs...songs are interesting. They come along infrequently and, like poetry, have to be inspired by something. Not situations or in moments where the desire to write something is strong, but...I don't really know. It's weird. Both times when I've written half-decent songs (in my own opinion, of course, so maybe they aren't all that great), they just struck me. Like maybe a line that I found immediately appealing. I can't remember how I started with the Doctor Who song but it was quite sudden. I was on my way to my grandmother's funeral and. sitting in the car staring somewhat uncertainly out the window at the landscapes rolling past, I just had this sudden desire to write about the Doctor. So I did. It wasn't supposed to be a song at first - I thought it was a poem. But it had a beat to it. I loved the little chorus. So I made it a song. I don't actually write music so I always feel like a bit of an imposter saying that I write songs. After I've written one, I sing it until I find a good tune and then...fine-tune it. Kind of. The character song that I wrote for my main novel is supposed to be complete but it just doesn't seem very...good. I kept tampering with it and then the story changed too so I felt I had to correct it but then I just sort of drifted away from it. So I was thinking maybe I could use the blogspace (is that a word?) to finish it. And when I've done with that one, maybe I could start another for either another character from the same story or the Elementals. Maybe if the first draft of the novel I'm doing right now actually comes out good at all, I could write a song for one of those characters. I'm going to force it! I'm going to yank the muse out from whatever gloomy depths it dwells in and have it help me tap into my potential. 10:39 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 23:33 I started writing a blog easily enough - doing so every day it helps me get my absolute minimum of daily ten minutes of writing, regardless of the quality of that writing or the word count. But for what purpose do blogs really exist? Is it entertainment? Not sure how I do with that! Is it providing strangers a glimpse into one's life? Meh. Maybe they're just for random stuff because...why not? I figured I could read back over the entries I've written but the idea doesn't appeal to me very much - so apologies if I start blathering on about things I've written about before. I've tried to make use of this space more practically before, with mixed results. I've tried to write an entry from the POV of one of my characters (which wasn't very good). I've tried to plan a novel on here. I've explored a bit of my past, although that was largely due to a task I was told to do for college. Maybe if I was more involved on WDC, I'd have more to talk about. But these days, I am being especially lazy. Maybe it's the (intermittently) warm weather. Maybe it's the fact that my husband has gone to Pakistan for several weeks. Maybe it's the mountain-load of college work I have to finish before mid-September which I am finding too daunting to even begin. Maybe it's the impending deadline for the novel I started on here, which is to be finished by the 8th. I don't know! I'd like to do prompts for my entries again, but like everything else in my life at the moment, I can't be bothered. It's far too much work to click on the link at the side of the page and scroll down to see what the daily prompt is. Don't even get me started on uploading my entry! It requires astronomical amounts of willpower to link my work to a forum post. It's too much. You might as well ask me to run a marathon. Ok, starting to fall asleep at the computer. That means I'd best go to sleep. It's so easy to decide I better get to bed when I've promised myself I'll do some writing! When I feel I have to stay up to read manga or watch a movie, I'm absolutely fine! 23:51 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 22:53 I've done stupid things in my time - who hasn't? But you would think that I would think twice before pulling an all-nighter to read some dumb-ass manga when I'm already suffering from lack of sleep, have a back problem that makes sitting on a stiff chair for hours on end a very bad idea, and have a small child who will not let me have a lie in come morning. Oh, and of course, while I was reading this manga, I was supposed to have been writing. And then, through most of today, I finished reading this crappy manga...and then decided to watch a movie on Netflix! I can practically feel my vision getting worse from all the screen-staring I've done. So much for laser eye surgery! What really makes me so annoyed with myself though is that the story is sort of starting to hit its stride and I went and ignored it in favour of some entertainment which should have been transient but because I have no self-restraint when it comes to things like this, it lasted way too long. If I'd spent an all-nighter working on my story - and actually sat to work on it rather than fallen asleep in the chair - I would have had a large chunk of it done by now. All-nighters for writing only happen when the inspiration has hit hard. Anyways, took a bit of a break. Not even a break - I think my mind wandered for a bit and I started watching YouTube videos of Keanu Reeves, just to see what his take was on his performance in Always be My Maybe, which was the movie I watched earlier. His scenes were hilarious! And I should go before I find something else that grabs my attention, ending with me leaving my blog entry hanging until four in the morning or something. 23:23 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 10:54 I've always felt a bit curious about how characters interact off the page. Do conversations ever peter out with friends, family, and life-partners? This has been a bit of...a concern, I guess. Not just as a writer, but a reader too. Particularly if one of the characters is portrayed as a bit standoffish or arrogant. I guess family and friends aren't that big of a deal - if the character has friends, then they know what he/she is like and have chosen to accept them as they are. Family is family - there will always be complications, right? But what about the person they see every single day? Sometimes for the entirety of those days? Then is the relationship that is presented between these two people believable? Or does all the important stuff in their relationship happen on-page, leaving it to the reader's imagination to figure out how the rest of it goes? If characters only ever talk about what is currently happening in the story, then what do they discuss in mundane situations? Do they just stay quiet? I know I'm mincing over details here. But it's always been a bit of a concern of mine that, even in real life, at some point or another, there will be no more topics of conversation and everyone will just stay silent. But this is from a long time ago, when my world was still idealistic and I trusted people. I know now that conversations will never stop because if you run out of good things to say, or at least things that concern only you, you could always turn to gossip or all the crap that's happening in the world. The topics are endless. There's some new drama happening somewhere in the world. Or maybe next-door. This was what I came to when thinking of what I should write about. I hope it's been a good read. I guess I could have done better. I'm trying not to start my entries with "I'm so tired" or "I'm feeling so lazy". Because that's just...yeah... 11:06 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 23:22 Today has been exhausting. I woke up at half six and was disoriented for a while, thinking why I'm up that early when my son hasn't yet woken. Then I remembered that I had to get ready for the trip and make sure the kids were ready. I fell asleep on the coach (on the way, my three-year-old told me to go to sleep - as if that all I'm good for!) He was grouchy for pretty much the entire day. I left him in my friend's care while I went to use the bathroom but he came up after me to be all clingy. I went on one ride without him, and he was pretty upset about that. He did cheer up when it was just the two of us for a short while, although the grouchiness came back when our travel companions returned. On the coach coming back, he had a little rest so when we got home, for an hour or so before I put him to bed, he was so upbeat. Maybe it's just the age? He likes being around people, but it takes a while for the excitement to sink in. By that time, we have to return home lol. I watched a couple episodes of Umbrella Academy with my cousin, who had previously heard of it but not seen it yet. Then I thought I'd better get some writing done, although I'm yawning every two seconds so I don't know how good of a job I'll do. It's not going well. I don't think I'll be able to finish by 8th August. I'm being super lazy and the story isn't really that appealing to me anyway. It's not my usual way of working. I feel confined because I have a good idea of what's supposed to happen, but writing out all the parts in-between the major plot points is a real pain in the backside. My college assignments are weighing me down too. I've made a few minor additions to the one that just needs some corrections but not really progressed much. The two other...Ugh, I can't even think about them right now. And I haven't been looking into placements. Bad Shiki! Bad! How does one get rid of laziness? Anyone got any helpful tips? 23:34 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| 23:27 It's been quite an eventful day. I took my young cousin to meet my family and things were good, until a certain member of the family had to ruin it all for me. I take criticisms very badly, whether they're directed at me or my loved ones and even from one loved one to another. I guess by now I should just learn to tune it out but this person has always made me feel small so I'm hyper aware of the things they do and say. But recently, instead of looking at this person from the perspective of a feared and respected adult, I see them as someone who is stubborn and almost childish in the way they deal with conflict and betrayal. But that doesn't change the fact that I am far too reserved to come out and say what I think. My niece and nephew came over to mine earlier this evening so my cousin had a good time catching up with them. Three rowdy kids in the house - even after my little one, the youngest and rowdiest of them all, had gone to bed! But they're not little so I didn't really have to "look after" them, even though that was what my sister usually sends her kids here for. They did their own thing - talked about anime (I'm a good role model for the younger generation XD), played video games, and made a batch of cookies and then pretty much ate all of them alone, with one to spare for my sister when she came to collect her two. We're off to Blackpool Pleasure Beach tomorrow. The weather is going to be horrendous, by the looks of it, but what to do? I've already paid for the coach seats and everything! We'll just have to stick it out. Besides, a day out is a day to somewhere that is different from the same old view my kid sees every day. I'm going to attempt some writing and then get to bed. Just thinking about bed makes me yawn. 23:42 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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