A little update

I haven't forgotten this place, and I wanted to say that I will try to post the conclusion to the Trouble story before the month of July. At this point I think that story needs closure, and I am pretty much ready to fill in the blanks, I just need to sit down and write it.

The reason for this desire to be done with this story is two fold:

One, it's time you get to read the end, I've been hoarding it in my brain and that's just selfish.

Secondly, I have an idea for a new project, and I would like to be done with one before embarking on another main project.

Obviously, all of this is dependent to real life stuff that may make it easier or harder for me to do this, but that is how life goes really...

Forgive me readers for I have sinned.

It has been way too long since I last wrote anything here. To be honest, it feels like something broke inside me back in May. I've been in a bit of a downward spiral ever since. I was sure I had hit rock bottom back in August, but nothing is working out for me lately. I have a hard time focusing on something for more than 5 minutes, unless I can shut my brain down. It feels like my whole brain is paralyzed by writer's block. In fact, not to sound too emo-ish, but I am at a point in my life where pretty much everything I try to do is stopped by white page anxiety. Even when I logged on today, after closing the page every morning in utter disgust at my inability to write for the past 6 months, I figured I'd try to throw out some writing. I'm sure some of you still want to see what happened to that detective guy. I hate that I have this character inside of me and I can't let him out. Rest assured, this blog is not forgotten, it's just impossible for me to create right now. I'll try however to get the juices flowing simply by writing out my anguish. Maybe I'll get better at it by trying, if not well, at least my 2 or 3 readers will know I'm still sorta trying.

I’ve been thinking.

I’m pretty sure you would prefer that I had spent time writing, but this was not one of these weeks. Actually, I ran into a huge snag: I don’t feel like writing anymore. I don’t have inspiration, I don’t want to dig my brains for new plot points, all I want is turn my brain off and be a zombie for a couple of weeks.

I know why too: I can’t deal with jobs. I needed to work to pay bills, and as soon as I accepted the job, I lost my will to write, I hardly take any time to work on my school stuff, and I basically lost the drive I needed to finish what I started.

I hate feeling like this, but right now that’s where I am: I have a job I don’t want, and I no longer have the drive to do what I do want. I’m gonna have to inspect my feelings and figure a way out of this because right now it sucks.

The Split

It’s Wednesday no more. Thursday rolled in as I was experimenting with a new form of poetry. It was a waste of time really, so I decided to opt for another type of writing: the essay. More precisely, I decided to write an actual “blog post” to justify my lack of creative writing tonight. However, the real question is: can this post be seen as creative?

It’s the sort of thing you don’t really think about; I know I didn’t when I first started this blog. To what standards was I measuring my posts? I felt that I should only write creative stuff; therefore I would have to write fiction. In fact, my original goal was short stories. My goal was to make a blog where I could post every so often short fiction. To be honest, I did not think I would make it this far. In a sense, I’m a very split person. Part of me did not see this go this far because it is filled with the conviction that I am an utter failure at everything I do. For that side of myself, nothing is good enough. And tonight, writing this is almost admitting to that half that it is right, that I cannot create as much as I expected to.

The other side of that coin is the part of my that wished I would not be doing this for that long, that my writing style would draw some attention, that I would have a book deal, and I would be making money. And I think that this aspect of my personality is the most dangerous. I wish I could be somewhere in the middle. But the duality of my personality is something I have learned to accept. I can’t really say I have a split personality though, because these two sides have a unifying factor. They are more like the engines that keep me moving, one motivated by a fear of unforgiving failure, and one by dreams to fanciful to ever see happen. These two parts of me drive me in a single direction, and that movement is rather interesting.

Because of the dream of failure or the nightmare of success, I have to keep at it. I would not consider going to bed before the word count of this text reaches a minimum level. To hell with the idea that only short forms of fiction are appropriate, I have been doing a lot more than that anyway. I have to remember that this blog is not just about what I write, but also about what my writings do to me. For instance, the “Trouble” story has been forcing a new type of pacing in my work. “Lunarity” made me realise that I cannot write something I like every time. And every story has made me think about my place as a writer. But there are other forms of creative writing I am getting acquainted with. I wrote a sonnet. Not a good one but still. I also tried to write something like a play. I have much to learn about these forms. (While I don’t care about poetry, dramaturgy is about to become an important part of my academic career, so you can expect to see me experiment more with it.)

All of these writings however are just a part of my fractured self. I am a lot more than my creative writings. And whenever we do an essay or presentation on a specific author, we have to keep the author in consideration. The same sentence can be written by two authors at the exact same time, and have two very different meanings.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I am going to try to turn this blog in a better direction. I will force myself in the “two post minimum” schedule a bit more. I will, however, give myself a lot more liberty and I will try to write about who the words you read belong to. Not that it really matters, because my reader base is usually pretty close to me. Here’s the new deal I propose: the two post minimum rule will adjust in my mind to tolerate the inclusion of “essay-like” posts such as this one, as long as they focus on the act of writing. I believe there is more to being a writer than simply an end product, and the uncertainties of the writer are part of what should comprise my “journal.” Post of a “diary” nature will start popping up if an event happened in that day that warrants such a post. I will also try to introduce a book review feature. I read a lot, I think my readers might be interested in what I read and how I feel about said books. Over the next few months, you might even see essays about my field of study pop up. These are also part of my “career” as a writer. Not everything I create is fiction, but it is still my writing. However, due to a form of either academic shyness or simply intellectual property ideas, I will keep my actual thesis, term papers and various writings done specifically to earn an M.A. under lock and key.

So, what to expect from this blog from now on: More information about my life, more information about my academic career, and more information about my views on the writing process. This will not affect the production of “Trouble” since I like it a lot. With the exception of personal life interference, it will be on my Saturday line-up until it is done. As for Wednesday posts, well, I might include nonfiction centered on writing. In between all of this, I may post opinions of parts of life I feel like commenting on. Not everything has to be fiction.

This is the part where I reveal a twist ending where I actually am writing on the unholy typewriter of the thirteenth layer of hell. Also, the guy’s dad was a chick or something.

There... this should fill the requirements of my readers who favour fiction over anything else.

About Lunarity

I hate it, I can't stand it, I want to remove it. I don't know why though, I just want to remove it because it annoys me. I should have expected this, that I would write a story that I just can't stand anymore. And I'm kinda wondering if it won't be the beginning of a slump. I might have a good story written by Saturday, but I realize now that it has been harder to come up with stories lately. Saturday will also be the end of the first month of the 2 story a week format. The scope of the project is finally clear to me and I almost regret my ambition.

On the other hand, if I went the easy route and posted stories when I felt like it, there would be 2 or 3 stories posted.

In short: I apologize if the quality is uneven. Don't worry, I see it as well. It probably bugs me even more than it bugs you.

Poll Results

The people have spoken. That does not mean I'll do exactly what they said...

I will try to post 2 stories a week. This means that I will post one story between Sunday and Wednesday, and Thursday and Saturday. I will also try to adjust my schedule with my class schedule, and so it may change again. I may take a bit of a headstart on writing if I feel inspired, but then again, 2 stories a week might be a lot to maintain, since it would mean over 100 stories in the coming year. If I make it that far, I'll be proud of myself. I also have not yet considered the idea of rewrites, but I think I will work something out in due time, since I don't want to get back to a story already posted until much later. In addition, there should be a story up tonight as I will try to ease into my schedule.

On writing

So I was wondering what was my purpose in writing this blog. Obviously I want to share stories and have a venue in which I can publish stories to get feedback. But there is something more. I somewhat wish I could do this for a living, you know, write stories. It seems like something I could enjoy doing. But I was thinking about it and some things don't quite seem right to me. It may sound odd, but I was thinking about Harry Potter, or more precisely J.K. Rowling. We all know the legend about how she was nearly out of money when she penned Harry Potter. Most of us also know the reality wasn't quite like that. However, even as her book was bought she was told to keep her day job. History took a different path, and now I feel the literary market is more open.

I have a confession to make: I have not read Harry Potter, nor do I have real plans to read the series. I am, however, fascinated by the writer. And also the writing process. How do you create such a success? Do you simply write about something you want to talk about, or is there a more commercial approach to the book series? Was Harry Potter the product created to be placed in books, or was the character created and eventually became marketable? One of the effects of the Harry Potter "miracle" is the apparition of multiple books somewhat attempting to follow the same formula, and the chances taken by editors in finding the newest Harry Potter. If you look at recent years, there have been new intellectual properties popping up left and right, and one has to wonder if all the dragons, vampires, and other mystical beings being marketed are only there because someone had success with a wizard.

And you have to wonder what J.K. Rowling was thinking when she wrote that story, before all this pottermania. The more I look into it, the more I see it wasn't about the product but about the character. All of this intrigues me. I think by now I cannot deny that I am trying to become a writer. And sometimes, as a literature student, I have to wonder what I should try to be. These questions are odd to me. I read books as part of my main occupation nowadays. I have to, and quite frankly I enjoy it. But literature is funny. What I read is literature with a capital L, some books even sound like they would need a bunch of other randomly assigned capital letters. We can, and sometimes do, spend a long time discussing what could be seen as the most innocnt part of a book. And the books we read really seem to enjoy throwing these double, triple, quadruple, and even endless levels of meaning. And I admire that. Face value is somewhat boring when you study literature. And no amount of bullshitting would make it possible to write a thesis on "A is Apple, B is Book" type of literature. Every semester, every week, I discover a new author, a new book, and something that could be seen as a new masterpiece. Why is it that even if I read all these books, that even if I am surrounded by all these great authors of Litterature, that I am presented novels that go beyond words being put on paper, all I can think of when I want to be a writer is a book series I haven't read and an author that won't be in any syllabus?

Obviously, I don't want to starve, and I seem to have a contemporary author that sets a bar for literary success. But can I write something like that? And years from now, will Harry Potter books be concidered Literature with the random capitals? Will future student find new levels of meaning in Rowling's work? And these layers of meaning, were they placed in these books by the author? I want to write books that might be seen in my field, but I want to write books that will also be widely received. But is that my mistake, should I just want to write stories? It's not about success, it's about sharing stories. In a sense I understand that, and yet if I am to make a living out of writing, I need to also present a marketable product...

I am surrounded in academia by names such as Urquhart, Van Herk, Cohen, Aquin, Fenario... All these names, all these authors in which we try to find greater meaning that what is on paper. Isn't that what I should aspire to? To write books that are part of Literature? But there is also this nagging feeling, the aspiration to be part of popular culture. Are these feelings conflicting? Can I reconcile them?

I would also need to write longer stories. As you can see by now, I mostly focus on short stories, extremely short, and to the point. This is all fine for this blog, but I have a confession to make: I cannot write longer stories. I always get trapped in between my desire for marketability and my desire for being an Author of Literature. And so I have introductions, I know endings, and yet... And yet I am left wondering if I will ever write something longer.

But I will keep writing, because it's a way for me to practice, it's a way for me to expand my repertoire, and it's a way for me to see how people receive my writing. Maybe one day I will write a novel, maybe one day I will be published, and maybe one day I will be a successful author, or a successful writer... And maybe I should just stop worrying about all this, and sit down with the Harry Potter series and read it. Because I think I need to realise that there are stories to be told, stories to be heard, and that writing is about sharing these stories... So, since I have this wonderful venue, I think I will try to share stories, and that I will try to push myself into changing my writing, because I know I won't write the great stories I wish I could before I can master writing the stories I can write.

I will end on a more managerial note:

The three labels you see under this post are gonna be exlusively reserved for posts about the real me. It will indicate that what you read is not fiction, but me talking to you. Everything else you can assume is fiction, or at the very least creative writing.

Also, I beg of you, please comment on my writing. Anything... Point out what you liked, what you hated, point out anything. I can enjoy flattery, and I can also learn from what you dislike. My future stories will only be better with your comments. Plus, if I get a comment once in a while, it'll motivate me to write more.

Finally, share this blog with all your friends, I really don't know how to promote myself beyond talking about this with people I know.

Thank you for reading.

Setting up shop

Well, I am still not sure how often I will post here. My original idea was one story a week, but I figured it might not be enough. I was thinking of doing a strict updating schedule, but inspiration does not quite work that way. But then again, I could have a pool of stories written, and released on a schedule. That seemed like the most logical option. However, the other issue I've had is with starting this blog... I think I will post another 2 stories, to give my readers a better idea of what I can do, and after that I will settle in a schedule built around the survey.