Monday, October 27, 2003
Monsters
I ordered a very cheap laptop off e-bay. It may turn out to be a disaster because the laptop may not work or may not be usable or may not have all the necessary parts. I'm quite afraid. But, if it works, I will be very happy because I will be able to take part in the National Novel Writers' Month (nanowrimo.org), which I heard about while reading about somebody else's writer's block on the Internet.
I've already started to think about themes & characters for the novel, but I probably shoudl not mention any specifics here since the mentioning may interfere with my writing. I will say, though, that I'm very excited about this project.
The idea of the project is to get as much writing down as is humanly possible in a very short time so that the writers have a rough draft finished by the end of the month. It may turn out to be completely incoherent, and I may have to spend 5 years revising it (or I may want to throw the whole thing away at the end), but that is sort of part of the beauty of the thing.
Right now, I know my main character will be a male & that the story will somehow deal with obsession. I'm thinking that he may be obsessed with a stranger or someone he knows but doesn't know well. So, as I ride the subway or talk to people, I take notes. I try to notice things. I listen to conversations. It will be fun to write a "male."
On a different note, I feel very odd and depressed lately. I've noticed that I'm having a hard time getting along with people or even wanting to be around people, especially when people are so happy. I remember when this first happened, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to come stay with her in North Carolina to get away from it all for awhile. I didn't think I'd want to do such a thing, but now I understand. It would be nice to just get to rest for, like, a month or two. I'd like to not have to be around people (especially people who seem to have forgotten that my brother died almost a year ago -- something that makes me very angry!) & try to act "normal" with the holidays coming up & everything. I'd like to be able to take long, quiet walks & breathe. I'd like to be free from stress & pressure, even knowing that stress can be good for moving life along.
I'm afraid that I've aged a lot in this past year. I wonder if that's true, if the toll this has taken is physical. The thing is, it's difficult to write about it. It's slow. Maybe I'll write my "novel" about it (although I'd sort of hoped to avoid that, it may be all that's there to write about).
For the one year memorial, we're going to have an open house at my father's house. My brother's friends will be there. My sister is flying down. We'll just have people over & try to be as comforted as we can be just by being together. Right now, though, it's getting tougher all the time. Hopefully, focusing on writing will help.
--m
|
I ordered a very cheap laptop off e-bay. It may turn out to be a disaster because the laptop may not work or may not be usable or may not have all the necessary parts. I'm quite afraid. But, if it works, I will be very happy because I will be able to take part in the National Novel Writers' Month (nanowrimo.org), which I heard about while reading about somebody else's writer's block on the Internet.
I've already started to think about themes & characters for the novel, but I probably shoudl not mention any specifics here since the mentioning may interfere with my writing. I will say, though, that I'm very excited about this project.
The idea of the project is to get as much writing down as is humanly possible in a very short time so that the writers have a rough draft finished by the end of the month. It may turn out to be completely incoherent, and I may have to spend 5 years revising it (or I may want to throw the whole thing away at the end), but that is sort of part of the beauty of the thing.
Right now, I know my main character will be a male & that the story will somehow deal with obsession. I'm thinking that he may be obsessed with a stranger or someone he knows but doesn't know well. So, as I ride the subway or talk to people, I take notes. I try to notice things. I listen to conversations. It will be fun to write a "male."
On a different note, I feel very odd and depressed lately. I've noticed that I'm having a hard time getting along with people or even wanting to be around people, especially when people are so happy. I remember when this first happened, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to come stay with her in North Carolina to get away from it all for awhile. I didn't think I'd want to do such a thing, but now I understand. It would be nice to just get to rest for, like, a month or two. I'd like to not have to be around people (especially people who seem to have forgotten that my brother died almost a year ago -- something that makes me very angry!) & try to act "normal" with the holidays coming up & everything. I'd like to be able to take long, quiet walks & breathe. I'd like to be free from stress & pressure, even knowing that stress can be good for moving life along.
I'm afraid that I've aged a lot in this past year. I wonder if that's true, if the toll this has taken is physical. The thing is, it's difficult to write about it. It's slow. Maybe I'll write my "novel" about it (although I'd sort of hoped to avoid that, it may be all that's there to write about).
For the one year memorial, we're going to have an open house at my father's house. My brother's friends will be there. My sister is flying down. We'll just have people over & try to be as comforted as we can be just by being together. Right now, though, it's getting tougher all the time. Hopefully, focusing on writing will help.
--m
