%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 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 |
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