Decision time

I’m committing myself to following up on one of my several ideas/snippets I’ve started.

I was thinking about the type of writing I hope to be/I feel that I am: a writer driven by character. A writer who explores what people think of themselves and what they think of each other, which ultimately is what a relationship is. You can be a different person to different people, and who is to say which is real? What does that mean for identity? Identity is something that many authors have delved into, and I think that it should be the building block of what I do.

Hobbies

A day off for the Boyfriend’s family holiday party. A wonderful time — I love his extended family, and they always treat me so well. I was called a “niece” last night.

A short note on hobbies.

Now that I have more time, not only do I want to devote more time to writing, but I also want to devote it to the hobbies that have fallen away. The uber-creative ones like painting, to more mechanical like jewelry design, and also taking up the quirky but very meaningful hobby of studying the Tarot cards, which I took up in the spring but it faded quickly when I started work. I bought myself a new, good deck, and I have been studying based on the little booklet that came with it, but I will also be looking for books and websites to supplement it. I hope that, like T.S. Eliot, whose Waste Land inspired me to take up the hobby in the first place, the cards and the history and spiritualism of the art will inspire my writing. Perhaps I’ll even return to my roots of poetry for some exercises.

Looking back

Doing what I always do when I start this again — reading old snippets of things that I’ve written and saved (and being surprised at how not-terrible they are).

I remember writing almost all of what I find — but only once I start to read it. I may not remember when it was, or where I was when I wrote it, but I remember doing it, and usually I remember why.

I came across one very quick little snippet of a thing about a moment in time that seems forever ago. The way I captured it, it seemed perfect — and I’m sure it was, and I’m sure that’s why I wanted to write it. But the problem is, I have a few things written from the beginning of that saga, and not from the end of it. Interesting, because for another saga — the long one (although the one I’m in now is certainly taking over as the Most Important, if not already has), for that one, I only wrote in the endings, of which there were many for him. Interesting how for some relationships, some moments in time, I’m inspired to capture the perfect, wonderful moments, and for others, I’m inspired to get out on paper the pain and the relief of the endings.

Separately, that one little snippet had me thinking about those brief memories with that man. Maybe it was doomed to begin with, but he is certainly the only one who I find myself asking What If? What if the timing wasn’t wrong? What would have happened if we were slightly more mature? He is wonderful, if still somewhat immature, and a very different kind of man than My Man, which isn’t a good or bad thing. I can’t say I know exactly what went wrong. I’m sure I have closure, but still. It is interesting to wonder What If.

Back again!

I will write something. I must. I’m on my own now, in an apartment in the city, with a great job… And I come home and I don’t do anything except watch back to back episodes of Mad Men on Netflix and go to bed early. And, this week, I’m off of work. I have some plans, but mostly I’m just laying around watching back to back episodes of Mad Men on Netflix.

my final college assignment

The last assignment I will ever turn in as an undergraduate is a philosophical dialogue in response to the big questions that we asked through class — What is the self? Is desire the root of suffering? Is the principle of non-contradiction true? Really big, open-ended questions. So how to focus this sort of writing assignment? How do I pick which is the most important of these important questions?

My plan is to just write and write and write, and hopefully the answer will come out naturally.

Maybe I should do that sort of thing for my novel.

I HAVE RETURNED

I swear to god I will do it this time. For real.

Ciao, keyboard. Hello, notebook!

I’m trying something new today. I’m not going to get my ass in a chair and sit at my laptop trying to write. I’m going to curl up on my couch with my new notebook (graph paper style, not lined!) and see what happens. I’m going to try to map out a plot, and at least develop the skeleton idea a little more.

I do have one problem, however. Recent events have really inspired me to write a totally different sort of book. More of a comedy, less of a “great work of literature” (or the amateur writer equivalent). So I’ve flipped the notebook and opened it from the back to form a double notebook, and I’ll try mapping things out for that, too. We’ll just have to see what comes of it.

Plotting my plot.

So I’m still in the process of background research, but I keep on adding to the research in an attempt to procrastinate actually get this party started. I’m terrified of the process of expanding my little idea kernel into an actual, fully fledged plot scaffold. I am confident enough in my writing that I’ll be able to somewhat smoothly tackle the actual writing part. I’m good at dialogue, and as long as I have some sort of inspiration I can set the scene quite well. But while I am finally pleased at the concept and basic storyline for my novel (which has taken years to decidedly come upon), I just can’t bring myself to really flesh out the plot.

So I’ve gone on a search for blog posts and web articles that may help me. Here are a few I’ve found, and please do share any that you think will help me!

• “Take Down the Scaffolding” by Claire Yezbak Fadden of The Page a Day Writers Group
• The “wisdom” of eHow.com, this and that.
• This from suite101.
• Robin did a very similar project.

To be (the narrator) or not to be?

I’m having a bit of a problem, but at least it’s a productive problem. I can’t decide whether I want to write in first person or third person omniscient. I don’t think third person limited would work for what I’m doing. There are advantages and disadvantages to each option, and as a reader, I can’t really say which I prefer. I probably lean toward third person as my narrative guide of choice when I’m reading a novel, but a first person novel that’s done really, really well can really make it. I also don’t want to do multiple perspectives, I think that’s lame. My plan is to do some reading — I’m going to pick up random novels that I find around the house (Lord knows there are enough of them), write down author, title, publication year, perspective, and a brief comment on how I think it works. Wish me luck.

Do writers even have real resumes?

Because of my role on the campus newspaper, I was contacted by a big name consulting firm for their fall on-campus recruiting/interviewing powwow. I was intrigued, and I told my headhunter mama about it. Of course she was thrilled, and encouraged me to send in my resume. Not wanting to ignore this opportunity completely, I decided to do so, just for the hell of it. I don’t have any business background other than the real-life experience of the newspaper, but I do have my good days when I pull off being a “bright young lady.” I don’t even know if I would want to go into business, but that’s another story.

The point of this post is I just spent a good amount of precious Me Time updating my resume. But you know what? I’m not filing this under “Writer’s Block.” I did a helluva job updating that damn file, and it’s pretty impressive looking now, if I do say so myself. I even changed the font.