Writing is really hard work. I am learning this at an exponential rate, especially now that I am halfway through a 24-chapter, 384 page story and drowning in names and places and whatever-colour-Luc's-eyes-are-at-the-moment. Who did what? Why can't I put him in this event? Oh wait, he died six chapters ago. My bad.
When I used to sit in class and have to write a narrative in one and a half hours, I loved it. I think it was my favourite part of studying, writing english compositions. And I did think at the time, this is fantastic, I wish this could be my job. And now it is my job (kind of), and I love it, but it is so hard that sometimes I feel like I need to be physically restrained to stop me from tearing my eyes out and rewriting all the work I've done up to this point.
I have actually punched myself in the face on the bus, thinking about how awful everything I've written is. I have wondered if I would end up hating Damir and Kione like Doyle hated Sherlock Holmes. I have gone momentarily blind after writing for six hours at a time. I have shouted at my computer to shut up.
But I am starting to really like Luc, the stowaway who doesn't really know what he is doing, is excited about life and also terrified of it, doesn't want to participate but doesn't want to be left out. Unlike the other characters, who seem to have drastic mood swings depending on how I'm feeling when I write, Luc Harman has somehow survived as himself.
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
21 July 2010
01 June 2010
Especially vulnerable around movies about animals.
I cry really easily. I remember when I was six or seven I used to love watching the movie Homeward Bound about two dogs and a cat whose family leaves them in the care of a relative who owns a ranch while they go on holiday. The animals think they've been abandoned and run away from the ranch and try to find their way home through the wilderness. What happens in the end? Hint: it's got the word "Home" in the title.
There is one part of this movie where something happens and the cat falls over a waterfall. Every time I watched this movie, I cried so hard at this part that my mum threatened to take the thing away from me. But the cat! Went over the waterfall! How could you not be sad??? But in my mum's world, you're only allowed to cry the first time, when you don't know the ending yet.
But it's not just movies, which I seem to have become a bit more immune to in recent years. It's any kind of emotional conversation about anything, and it makes it difficult for me to talk about things I really care about without looking like a case of female hysteria from the 1800s. I HATE IT.
I went to look on the internet forums to see if anyone had found a solution to this problem. (I love the internet so much. I was watching Sleepless in Seattle the other day with Les and suddenly I realised, wait, the people in this movie DID NOT HAVE INTERNET. How did they live? How did they find out stuff? I love finding out stuff, but I really don't think I would have bothered going to the library every time I needed to know something. Internet-connected world, we no longer have an excuse to be stupid.) And of course there were loads of other people online who claimed to suffer the same thing I did, as there are for virtually any condition, imagined or real, on the internet. Hooray!
Admittedly, some of their cases were a bit more serious than mine. One confessed to crying whenever he turned the radio on. Naturally, no one in the pages of comments that followed suggested that he just don't turn the radio on. Huh. There was also a forum that simply asked: "Do you cry really easily?" to which people replied: "Yes, I do."
Thanks guys, super helpful!
But I did find my solution. Someone posted that it is impossible to cry if you tickle the roof of your mouth with your tongue, and it actually works. Anyway, I managed to talk to my father about getting married without dissolving, so hooray for me.
There is one part of this movie where something happens and the cat falls over a waterfall. Every time I watched this movie, I cried so hard at this part that my mum threatened to take the thing away from me. But the cat! Went over the waterfall! How could you not be sad??? But in my mum's world, you're only allowed to cry the first time, when you don't know the ending yet.
But it's not just movies, which I seem to have become a bit more immune to in recent years. It's any kind of emotional conversation about anything, and it makes it difficult for me to talk about things I really care about without looking like a case of female hysteria from the 1800s. I HATE IT.
I went to look on the internet forums to see if anyone had found a solution to this problem. (I love the internet so much. I was watching Sleepless in Seattle the other day with Les and suddenly I realised, wait, the people in this movie DID NOT HAVE INTERNET. How did they live? How did they find out stuff? I love finding out stuff, but I really don't think I would have bothered going to the library every time I needed to know something. Internet-connected world, we no longer have an excuse to be stupid.) And of course there were loads of other people online who claimed to suffer the same thing I did, as there are for virtually any condition, imagined or real, on the internet. Hooray!
Admittedly, some of their cases were a bit more serious than mine. One confessed to crying whenever he turned the radio on. Naturally, no one in the pages of comments that followed suggested that he just don't turn the radio on. Huh. There was also a forum that simply asked: "Do you cry really easily?" to which people replied: "Yes, I do."
Thanks guys, super helpful!
But I did find my solution. Someone posted that it is impossible to cry if you tickle the roof of your mouth with your tongue, and it actually works. Anyway, I managed to talk to my father about getting married without dissolving, so hooray for me.