Hi, I'm Angela, a girl with a blog on five different psyches:
girl,
geek,
reader,
writer,
gamer
Choose your poison ♥
There is something both compelling and scary about seeing a blank page. It doesn’t matter what kind of page it is–a ruled notebook, a blank sketchpad, a blank post form in WordPress, the update page in Livejournal. It calls out to me, to be filled in words, to not be so…blank.
And I keep starting, and stopping, and hitting that Delete button.
In 2010, I set myself to start writing this story idea I had a long time ago during National Novel Writing Month. I finished–not very brilliantly, but I finished. And then, during the first week post-NaNoWriMo, I decided I wouldn’t go back to the story. Better to get out while it was early, so to speak.
Two things changed my mind:
Around the same time, I saw Amos at the office pantry and we caught up and talked about my NaNoWriMo experience. He seemed so genuinely enthused, and interested in the story, and told me stuff that I knew but needed to be reminded of, like that I just needed to have a breather and step back from the story after that mad rush. And so I told myself that I’d give myself that breather and go back to my draft.
Well, so much for that, it was December, I went back to the Philippines for a vacation, there were such a lot of things going on (including machine hiccups, like the battery bloating like a damn balloon) that I never got any writing done.
While in the Philippines though, I was browsing in Powerbooks while waiting for a couple friends when I came across this poster promoting a writer and a book: Samantha Mae Coyiuto’s Flight to the Stars and Other Stories. She was (is) 16 years old, and it was already her fourth book, having started writing since she was six.
I wasn’t very different from that girl. I started when I was seven, I also drew the illustrations for the “self-published” (read: home printer, felt paper cover = win!) short story, and I also wrote short stories. I did not have any mentors until I was well into high school, but I had the support of my family. I was happy for her at the same time that I felt a pang of regret that I let myself be sidetracked.
Because that’s what it is: I let myself be distracted by other things. Up to now, yes. It’s not anyone else’s fault but my own.
So this year, in 2011, I will pick up my NaNo novel and work with it, and get to at least a fourth draft by the end of the year. I need to stop letting distraction, and my fear of failure, to get in the way of getting this done. Is it going to be a good story? Who knows. But that’s exactly it: no one, not even me, will ever know, unless I try.
2010 has been a good year for writing–one of the best years I’ve had since high school, for sure. I don’t think I achieved a lot this year writing-wise, nor is it the best year hands down–but it is certainly a pivotal year.
In 2010, I started blogging regularly. I’m not a perfect blogger–I can miss days, lose my voice, go through weeks of absolute blogging hell–but I’ve been able to give myself a schedule and stick to that schedule for most of the time. I still struggle a lot of times, but there are just as many–more!–times where it’s been a joy to blog as I have been blogging in the last portion of the year.
In 2010, I went for NaNoWriMo. Now, I’ve done NaNoWriMo multiple times. I’ve won once, a token win, a win where I didn’t go back to the story, nor do I plan to go back to the story. This year, I decided I would write what I had always planned on writing: an alternate history, a retelling of historical legend. Did I succeed? I won, but I don’t think I succeeded, exactly. I think it has potential, but it needs to go through fire first. I finished, and did not finish; but the biggest takeaway from NaNoWriMo 2010 was the habit and the experience of trudging along to the end, my realization on how I write and what I would like to write about.
2010 was certainly a pivotal year for writing. I have always written, but I’ve never blogged seriously, nor have I been serious with my creative writing for many years past.
But I’ve come back. And I’m going to go through with it.
This week is recap week! Stay tuned for piecemeal recaps of how 2010 went for me.
This year, NaNoWriMo ended up being rather interesting for me. I’ve “won”–I reached 50,000 words, and it’s definitely a more promising story than what I had when I last won in 2007.
But will I go back to this story this December?
Nope.
But that doesn’t mean, though, that I feel I’ve “lost” again this year. In 2007, I came out of it pretty much the same as I went in, just with 50,000+ words of a story that was unfinished, with no real desire to finish it.
This year, I come out of it with only a little over 50,000 words, half likely crap, of a story–but with better writing habits and better belief in myself.
Additionally, remember when I said I didn’t have the longevity to write a novel? I think I’ve just had proof that I don’t. I was thinking about this for a while this morning, and I’ve realized that I am generally not a marathon kind of person. I’ve always competed in sprints back in school; I loved web development because there were no long compiles and the UI was just there and easily built up. I like sprinting. It’s what probably drew me to NaNoWriMo in the first place: a novel sprint. But that doesn’t always work out well, because a novel is a long and involved process.
Does that mean I’ll give up ever writing a novel? No. But not now.
NaNoWriMo week two: started out horribly, but it worked out in the end. Still have quite a bit to go!
I decided I’d post the NaNoWriMo weekly recap video up on Mondays instead of Wednesdays, because a half week from when I made the video is too long and loses its “timeliness” factor.
I originally wrote this last night, for a journal entry. But after finishing it, I decided I would post it as today’s entry, instead, under both Writer and Girl, because it is something very personal to me in addition to being about writing.
I think I just had an inkling of what a full-time writer (blogger? contributor? author?) must be like.
I have just come up for air from nonstop writing. Okay, that’s not technically true, because I’m still writing. That sounds kind of fail, but well, here I am writing in my journal. I wrote the whole day yesterday: broken by two meals, and intermittently to dump clothes in the washing machine and hang them up to dry. I wrote ’til 1AM, after which I (foolishly) played Final Fantasy I (it is on the iPhone omg!) until around 3AM (I had to stop because my iPhone power ran out). Today, I stayed in and wrote again, broken by Mass, one meal (I have yet to eat dinner!), and a thorough scrubbing of the bathroom. In a bit, I will make dinner, turn on the TV and iron my clothes. Ah, the calls of domestic life.
I’ve been writing almost nonstop. Some online researching, as well. The result of all of this is, I have blog entries scheduled and ready to go for the whole coming week, and the next two Fridays. That is almost crazy. I have around five more drafts that need working on, in various degrees, but very doable drafts.
I was talking to my friend Jaydee for a bit today, when I went on WoW to do some screen capping for some of these articles. I told him I was just capping for blog entries, and that I was back to blogging again, and that what I meant for just one entry has ended up to be three entries in one series. He said (translated), “that’s because you like writing, so you write a lot.”
And you know what…he’s right. He’s absolutely right.
I don’t know if this feeling of an epiphany is a phase or not–but it’s a good feeling. It’s a good feeling to be writing again, dealing with words again. Words have never been alien from my life–I’ve always journaled–but writing for public consumption is a different feeling, whether it’s creative or otherwise. I haven’t felt this in a while (the last time was high school, in fact). I’m not saying I’m a good writer: I’m still finding (re-finding?) my voice. I’m certain my blog posts are all over the place in terms of writing tone and style and voice. With my mercuriality, I may never have just one voice, and I may never be able to correctly harness and organize these multiple voices. I don’t know. But it’s wonderful to just write, anyway. It’s wonderful to see the number of visitors rise ever so slowly over the weeks. It is a small, cozy number, but I’m happy just the same–maybe even inordinately happy.
Creative writing might be a different story. I haven’t gotten back to creative writing yet, although I’m gearing up for it by signing up for NaNoWriMo this year. But I’m willing to give it a shot, again. If a month’s daily blogging placed me where I am now, another month of daily blogging should help me with NaNoWriMo, fail plot and all.
A whole weekend of writing. Sitting here looking back at it (with a growling tummy, I might add–I should go have dinner soon, but soon soon soon when I’m done with this entry) I am amazed, abashed, and so very grateful. A month ago, this would never have been possible. But I’m here now, and I can almost see the progress I’m making right before my eyes. Quantity is a poor indicator, but quantity is better than nothing.
Suddenly, it feels like my dreams of writing for a living–and enjoying it, in the same way I’ve enjoyed making websites for a living, that is to say, it has its highs and lows but I enjoy it all the same–is not so impossible after all. The possibility is faint, and fragile, and I may yet bungle things up…but it’s not some unattainable dream that I have lost somewhere along the way, now.
It’s there, so faint, so far away. But it’s actually there.
It’s been a while since I’ve written about my literary writing pursuits, and the sad fact is that there’s nothing really to write about. November is coming ’round the bend, as is NaNoWriMo, and I’ll admit to a little envy at those who are participating this year. I’m not; I’m not ready, and I have a couple of things on my plate that would make writing 1,700 words a day difficult, when those words need to be in some form of coherence and cohesion for a novel.
But the fact is, I’ve been keeping an eye on my “natural” writing habits, and reflecting on and off on patterns that I’m seeing. A lot of this is connected to some of the “revelations” (if you will) from my 5:30 AM exercise (which I wasn’t able to do for very long, but long enough). To quote the exercise again (emphasis mine):
So if you are to have the full benefit of the richness of the unconscious you must learn to write easily and smoothly when the unconscious is in the ascendant.
The best way to do this is to rise half an hour, or a full hour, earlier than you customarily rise. Just as soon as you can–and without talking, without reading the morning’s paper, without picking up the book you laid aside the night before–begin to write. Write anything that comes into your head: last night’s dream, if you are able to remember it; the activities of the day before; a conversation, real or imaginary; an examination of conscience. Write any sort of morning reverie, rapidly and uncritically.
I’ve gone through my morning writing, and my “unconscious” writing could probably be categorized into three groups:
Actually going through them was a bit of a revelation in itself; I’d expected the general numbers, but didn’t really expect essay-style writing to be almost up on par with journal writing. I only had a smallish number to work on, but the results actually mirror some of the “impulse” writing I’ve done (for example, for One Word, for One Sentence) in the past, and continues up to now.
From these, I have both an affirmation, and a somewhat disheartening revelation.
I’ve always known that my writing and literary interests tend toward the fantastical, the lyrical, the heights of emotions. Most of my snippet writing revolves around the latter: joy, love, passion, hurt, anger, despondence. More than half of my writing have a fantasy element to them: if not outright fantasy, then hints of it. So from what I’ve seen, this is really the area that I should be working with when I write stories, because it is here where my subconscious gravitates to when freewriting.
As for the disheartening revelation: I (currently) don’t have the longevity to write a novel.
I’ve realized this (from the aforementioned exercises) quite a while ago. But I’ve honestly tried to ignore it, because I want to write a novel. Trying to come to terms with the revelation that I don’t have the capacity to write a novel was difficult to stomach. Goodness knows how many times I’ve joined NaNoWriMo, both “officially” and “in secret”. I still have files upon files of half-baked “novels”, all abandoned in the middle (or, more precisely, all over the place–I’ve never written “in order”).
The longevity can be worked on, certainly. But it isn’t something that will come easily, not anymore after I’ve neglected it since college. I don’t think it’s truly lost; but it’s buried too deep for me to dredge out in, say, a month of frenzied writing, or continuous false starts on writing a novel.
So instead I will go back to my “roots”, ease up on the pressure, and do what my habits seem to point me towards: short story writing. Certainly not as glamorous as a novel (“hey, I’m writing a novel”) but, baby steps! And I do enjoy the quick sketches that I do. Graduating from short shorts to a short story looks to be quite sound, eh?
I know, I know. I haven’t posted here in goodness knows how long, and that’s a shame–all on my end, of course. I haven’t blogged, and I haven’t written much over the latter part of the year, and that includes journal entries.
I hardly know what to write about anymore, although there’s still that urge within me to write. I suppose I will be writing forever, after a fashion. Sometimes, I think, parts of me are all terribly out of sync. At some point, I am courageous, and bold, and I will write without being afraid of my subjects, my prose, or my inner critic…but then those are the times that I don’t have anything to write about. And so I write about mundane things.
And then other times, it’s the other way around. Scratch that–it’s that way most of the time.
Sometimes I wonder, if people need a tragedy in their lives, in order to write. A good many writers have either gone through tragedy, or suffer depression, etc, before they started writing, or during the period of their writing career. Is that some sort of prerequisite? What is it that goads people to write? Is the tragedy in their lives the catalyst?
Why am I even asking–of course tragedy can be a catalyst. I’ve written copiously when I’m depressed, out of a need to relieve myself and let all that pent-up emotion out before I explode.
Does that mean that, right now, as I’m writing this “comeback” blog post, I’m depressed?
I’ve started a new habit: I wake up at 5:30 AM to write.
The alarm goes off at 5:25 AM, and then I drag myself out of the bed to fire up my computer, open StoryMill, hit Command-Shift-F for full-screen, and start typing away. I haven’t gone through the ones I’ve written yet, but they’re usually just a couple of paragraphs each, with typos all over the place (I hear Typinator going off about once every other minute, correcting my typos). That’s what happens when I type with sluggish hands and with my eyes closed.
Why am I doing this? Basically for two things:
I got this activity from Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. I seem to remember talking about this a long while ago, but as I can’t find that entry, I must be dreaming (I swear I’m fully awake now though). In chapter 5 of the book, she tells us that we “must teach the unconscious to flow into the channel of writing”.
So if you are to have the full benefit of the richness of the unconscious you must learn to write easily and smoothly when the unconscious is in the ascendant.
The best way to do this is to rise half an hour, or a full hour, earlier than you customarily rise. Just as soon as you can–and without talking, without reading the morning’s paper, without picking up the book you laid aside the night before–begin to write. Write anything that comes into your head: last night’s dream, if you are able to remember it; the activities of the day before; a conversation, real or imaginary; an examination of conscience. Write any sort of morning reverie, rapidly and uncritically. The excellence or ultimate worth of what you write is of no importance yet…your primary purpose now is not to bring forth deathless words, but to write any words at all which are not pure nonsense.
And so I write. I’ve actually “cheated”, and I think I know the answer to #2 (what writing type I fall back on) but we’ll see how this goes. In any case, I don’t see any pattern yet in my morning writing; it should come out in a month or so, I’m gauging.
The good thing? As early as now, I feel like I’m finding what my writing voice is. I already know, in a way, but I’ve written in the same “voice” at least thrice already (and I only started this week). Writing while my brain’s still muddled with sleep has its rewards, for all it’s difficult to get words in order sometimes. :D
My blogging here is rather sporadic, something which I’m quite sad about. One reason for that is probably that I’ve grown disenchanted (again) with my layout, for all that I loved it when it was new. I’m still trying to come up with a new layout, but it isn’t easy.
I’m trying to get more into blogging, though, and I’m sure as soon as I actually decide on a new, better, more readable layout for Seasonal Plume I’ll be back in the game. (I’m actually thinking of going so far as just downloading a theme and using it… I’m trying to resist, though.) However, I do have two new “blog projects”.
The first is Frontend Friday, over at my tech blog, where I talk about various things related to frontend stuff: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other frontend issues. I’m still trying to feel around as to what topics are interesting, so feel free to suggest.
The second is I’ve just accepted an invite from Tech Blog Philippines to be a contributor, and in time you should see a couple of posts from me on there, probably revolving mostly on things I find interesting but wouldn’t exactly fall in the realm of what’s “bloggable” in Indiscripts–I’m sure there will be some overlap, but not by much.
As for creative writing…I’ve fallen into a funk again. Sigh.
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