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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. |
| 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 ** |
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