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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. |
| 08:01 I haven't finished my assignment, which was due today. I have another due in two weeks which I haven't even made a start on. I am so close to finishing my story! I will do it all together once the story is finished, all being well. I'm nearly there - the climax has begun! I couldn't dedicate as much time as I'd have liked over the weekend, since I had training both days, otherwise I might well have been finished by now. I don't know what the next steps should be. I could just go over this draft and refine it, taking out errors but leaving the storyline as it is, or I could do as I usually do and rewrite the whole thing so it's more consistent, changing some things in the process. I want to be done with this story by the time NaNo starts so I'm thinking it would be quicker to just correct the errors and leave the storyline as it is. Plus, what usually happens when I redo the whole thing is that the characters change ever so slightly. They're more consistent but they lose some of their quirks, which is a damn shame because I pour my heart and soul into my characters and those quirks need to be in there. 08:12 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |