Mistakes

I hate it when I re-read my post and discover mistakes ......

Here come the Screamer:

"See what happened! You can't even master basic English grammar. Get out of here! Close your blog!"

Writing Sessions - Warm Up

The writing over the long weekend wasn't that good. Here is what happened: 1st Writing Session – 25/01 (Sun) PM As usual I started off doing a 10 mins free writing, which is basically about writing down whatever comes to the mind. Then I read through the story ideas list, which included plot sketches and / or character sketches, from last 4-weeks to see which one grabbed my imagination. And you know what? Halfway through, I dozed off! 2nd Writing Session – 26/01 (Mon) PM This time I changed tactics. Instead of doing the 10 mins free writing, I walked in circles and zigzags at the backyard and contemplated on the (above mentioned) story ideas list to see what came to mind. The result was overwhelming! They all screamed for my attention. I began to write a few words for one and jot down notes for another. By the end of the session (about 3 hours), all I had was scribbles which pulled the stories in various directions. 3rd Writing Session – 27/01 (Tue) PM The bitter taste of the last two sessions were so threatening that I refused to be near my laptop. I stared at it from afar. I thought of it when I was walking the dog. I cursed it with my mouth full of noodles. But then when the time came, I sat down in front of it and went for one of the story ideas. Voila! I stayed with it for 2 hours and generated a workable plot. Now that I'm writing this entry, I realise what happened was the first two sessions actually served as warm up after I was away from writing for a week. The crucial matter is for me to find out what are my best warm-up activities. I need to pay attention to that crack, which exist between full-on-worry to sit-down-writing. That crack where I become less self-conscious and able to engage with the writing confidence. Does this make sense?

My Fundamentals

These are my fundamentals. (Not the 2 crystal wands and the several feathers in the foreground. They just happened to be there.) In case you can't read it, here it is:

- There is nothing that cannot happen today. (Mark Twain)

- Do what you can where you are with what you have (Theodore Roosevelt)

- Never never never give up (Winston Churchill)

I try to use them in all situation but as a Hybrid, things tend to go to a certain direction .....

- There is nothing that cannot happen today (except to write a publishable story).

- Do what you can (channel surfing) where you are (space station?) with what you have (a fork??)

- Never never give up (chicken and sashimi!)

Creative Momentum

I've been quite upset about my writing lately. Quality and quantity are the usual suspects, hence I'm not going to talk about them yet. (But don't worry, they are on my To Write About List.) I'm talking about My Archenemy – Creative Momentum. Creative momentum is about when a writer who is totally submerged in the creative process and whatever he/she does becomes the source of the story. During my 4-weeks annual leave from Christmas period to last Sunday, I managed to sit down almost everyday to sketch story ideas. I was on a roll and it felt fantastic! But then when I got back to work – Bang! Everything stopped! I've had this problem since I began my writing venture. This is driving me nuts and no wonder I keep seeing all these little creatures streaming in and out of my room. (Or am I hallucinating?) To maintain the momentum is extremely important to me. Not only it is going to help developing stories, underneath it is about being able to write daily (or at least on a regular basis). As a writer-in-practice, I'm still learning and developing my writing skills. Without writing on a regular basis, how am I going to finish a piece of writing and proceed to get published? But then in order to write regularly, I need to maintain the creative momentum of the story that I'm working on. I'm hoping that with the coming long weekend (26/01 is Australia Day - public holiday), I'll be able to take a dip in the creative pool. Now let me see - where the hell is the bloody pool?

Screamer

Little Sucker didn't come back. But I got another visitor two nights ago. "Die, Die, Die, Heeeyaaaaa!" "What?" I looked around the room. "You die!" "What?" I looked around the room again. "Is that you Little Sucker? "No Sucker. Me Screamer!" "O.K." I reached for the teapot next to my laptop, "and you want me dead?" "Heeeyaaaaa!" "I took that as a yes but why?" Teapot in hand all ready to swing. "You no write blog sai9hoi." "Hang on! Don't you see that I'm about to write another post and don't think I don't know what sai9hoi mean." Silence "Hey, you there?" Silence Seemed like Screamer had left the room. But I've been hanging onto my teapot since then… Note: sai9hoi – move away and drop dead (Ancient language from the Screamer Land)

Little Sucker

Walking around the block for 4 days (metaphorically speaking of course), and still I haven't got a clue what I was going to write about. And then I realized this: I was having a blogger's block!

So I told myself no matter what, I had to do it tonight.

After surfing the TV channels for the sixty millionth times, I forced myself to sit down in front of the laptop to begin. I wrote the first sentence. (Hmmmm, not bad.) But on second thought, I decided to delete it. (This was too difficult! Where the hell was the Kettle chips?) And then I undid the deletion and re-read the first line. (Alright, I can live with it but had to remove that double exclamation marks. It was too redundant!!)

And then the little creature came again. It always came when the ball started rolling. I had no idea what this one looked like except that it had big sharp teeth. How did I know? Because I could feel it biting, no, latching on my brain. And how did I manage to write this passage with the little bugger chewing my brain as if it was ricotta cheese? I got a hammer and banged my head a couple of time. It let go. But I had a feeling that it was still somewhere here in this room.

(Come out, come out, wherever you are .....)

First Post

First post, first blog .....

Exciting? Definitely, but then a bit lost.

What should I write about?

Let's walk around the block and see what comes to mind.

Back in 5 mins or maybe longer ..........