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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. |
| 16:10 If I could improve anything about my writing, what would it be and how will I motivate myself to bring about these changes? ...And I already had a ten minute break so I could answer my mum's call! And I'd only just managed to sit down and get on with this! My brother has said he's coming so the kids can see Dean in action - they've met my kitten before, but he was all cooped up in his carrier then, since I was going to take him to the vet. In all honesty, I'm worried for Dean! I'm not sure when they're coming - I've been putting off turning the computer on since he told me two hours ago. He said he'd be here in an hour. Asians, I tell you!  Now I'm worried he's going to come while I'm writing this and I'll end up having to stop in the middle and then resume like two-three hours later. If there's a huge discrepancy between the time noted above and the time that shows up once my blog has been updated, you'll know why! I don't like stopping tasks that are on my checklist in the middle. It means I can't tick them off! Anywho, onto the challenge. Since October, I've not been back to my Rift-Touched novel. There are a number of reasons. One, I thought I'd give the story some time to leak out of my head so that I could read it later with a fresh perspective. Two, I'm lazy and can't get my act together. Three, I don't quite know which direction to go in for the second draft. I have started it - there are a few pages done, but it's just a rewrite with some of the inconsistencies and other things I didn't like from the first draft taken out, and that wasn't all I wanted for it. I wanted to wait because I want some of the handful of people to whom I emailed the novel to get back to me about their thoughts on it. No one has. It's been more than six months. There are a number of areas where I thought I fell short and I wanted an outsider's opinion. But I've learnt that time and again, no one wants to know. I feel annoyed with myself for even asking, as if being brushed off again and again is an invitation to keep doing it and continue being ignored. I get that reading and reviewing a whole novel is a big ask, but why offer if that's the case and you can't commit? Kudos to those people who did say "I'd love to but I just can't spare the time. Sorry". It's really not that difficult. As you might have guessed, it's a pretty sore topic  Onto the actual topic and let's hope I don't get distracted again! I feel like my story is too linear, if that's even the right word. When I looked over the first draft to take out the unresolved side stories, I ended up getting rid of all of them. There is some romance in there but it's about the main two characters. I wanted to explore the backgrounds of some of the other characters, and explore the setting a bit, but I ended up scrapping their storylines because I couldn't figure out how to tie their subplots into the main narrative. Brandon Sanderson, I salute you! Like I mentioned in my last (?) entry, I wrote fanfiction for a long time, to the detriment of my original works, and my fanfiction was just...everywhere. There was no plot, no descriptions, no central themes, just...a mess. The idea of writing with a proper novel structure was daunting then and it's daunting now, only now I know I can't leave it off and write a whole bunch of plotless drivel instead. In response to the second part of the challenge, I don't know. I guess I'll just have to experiment! Sounds fun! :D End time is 16:49. If only I could actually sit here and write for forty minutes!  ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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