%%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. |
| 07:16 A couple years ago, I came across an app called Tapas which hosted written stories and comics. Anyone can upload stuff and to read the stuff, you get several chapters free to see if you like it or not. After that, you have to pay "coins" to see the content. You get coins by watching ads or even buying them with real money - like a lot of game apps today, right? Anyway, you get coins and some of the profit from them goes to you - or was that the ads you could include on your work? Can't remember. It's not a huge amount - in fact, it probably doesn't even amount to decent pocket change. But get enough readers and over time, who knows? There are a large number of readers on there - can't quite recall the number, but I know it said something like there were over 30, 000 creators and the reader base is more. So I wanted to try it out. I won't upload my favourite stories - I'm too scared of putting those out there without someone looking over them and taking out errors and making corrections because I've put my heart and soul into those ones and want them to be as perfect as I can make them. So I recalled this story I'd wanted to write some years back, which I never got around to finishing. That story is a bit more expendable than the stories that currently fly around inside my head. I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but at least I'll be putting myself out there. And I can actually say, for the first time, that "I'm an author" when people ask me what I do! That's really important to me  07:28 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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