%%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. |
| 05:59 I have decided that I will continue with my plotless drivel of a novel until I've reached the end of NaNo. Last year was better than this, when I basically pulled two fairytales out of a hat and tried to redo them with my own characters - the result was not good. But still better than what I have now. At least there was a plot! T_T The main character is getting on my nerves and I'm finding it very difficult to figure out what the love interest sees in her...I've butchered her character too much. But maybe I'll just go with her backstory being the focus of the story. At this point, I don't have anything else. She is shy to a fault and this shyness - and her fear - is rooted in her family's treatment of her all her life. But I have no idea what the end result will be yet. Oh well. I'll just continue writing. I could not, for the life of me, map this story out. Even before NaNo, my attempts fell flat. I think there's a mental block. The story of these two characters - although I'd planned to write it again through various stages of fantasy - is one that I know well from the first writing. However, since then, the characters have evolved. I suppose that's unavoidable. As I grow older, my perceptions change, and this affects the characters I make up. So I don't know how feasible it is to continue writing the same - well, fundamentally the same - story again and again. This has been an interesting exercise, looking at my ideas in this way. It definitely gives me some food for thought. Like, how do I now proceed with the idea of retelling the love story of these two characters? If they change with me, will they still be the same characters? Can I make them stay the same? Do I want them to stay the same? Hmm... 06:10 |
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