CED 2009 - STOS # 2 Drat 1 Completed !

Did you see the small blueberry cheese cake up there? It was my celebratory cake for completion of STOS # 2 Draft 1 on last Sunday! ;)

A couple of things I had observed during the writing process.

Things got a little bit easier this round. I was less resistance to my daily writing of 200 words. Actually I could write past the self-imposed word count a lot of the time. The mind was also less jumpy while I’m working on it and the inner editor had also become a lot more patience. (I promised that she would have her say come time for revision.)

I reckon this was all related to make writing into a daily activity, like brushing your teeth or taking a shower. The activity was integrated to the daily life to minimise the natural cycle of procrastination and fear. I’m not saying that I have it all under control. Far from it!

The most exciting yet difficult part was writing the ending as it kept changing from one paragraph to another. One minute my main character was the good guy then next he was the bad guy. After 2 days into writing the ending, I had no choice but to let him do whatever he wanted. He ended up as the baddie.

Another part about working out the ending was that I had known of it for more than a week. But I refused to acknowledge it. I was constantly worrying and struggling if the end was in line with the characters’ need or my need.

My belief in storytelling is that it is never about the author. It should always be about the Story and the characters. My role is to service them. So if the Story wants a nice quiet ending instead of a dramatic finale, I have to follow it. Let’s not forget that I was only at draft stage. There is still much work to be done later.

Oh, almost forgot! The key I mentioned earlier about # 2 was crucial to the story. (But who knows! It might change again when I start revision in 4 - 6 weeks' time.)

I’m now following my original plan to take a week’s break before starting # 3. And revision of # 1 is to start on 15/05.

Creative Every Day 2009 - The Key

Something to share with fellow writers and fellow creatives …

Before I started STOS # 2, I knew that my character carried a skeleton key with him all the time.

As I was pleased with the progress I had made during the 1st week of writing STOS # 2, I decided to take a break and went into the city to visit some of my favourite shops. That included "Spellbox". It is a small shop which focused on selling materials for Wiccan practice. I love going through their book section to read about the Wiccan ritual. They are fascinating and I always got story ideas from them. Anyway, after about half an hour of browsing, I felt thirsty and was to go for a Chai Latte when I saw a basket of keys at the cashier counter. I took one out and my story character’s name flashed across my eyes. I’m sure you know what happen next.

As the story progress, the key changed hands. It turned out that my character didn’t carry the key at all. It was his dog which found the key at the beach and gave it to my character.

The story continued to develop and the key took a swan dive into the bottom of the sea when my character went for a swim.

Right now the key remains lost and I have no idea what’s going to happen to it. I think I’ll only know about the significance of the key when I finish writing the story.

So there you go - not only characters in a story have their own minds wanting to do their own things, an object in a story could hop from place to place … maybe I should draw up a map to follow an object’s journey. Now, that's a very good story idea!

Creative Every Day 2009 - STOS # 2

I joined Creative Every Day 2009 challenge over the Easter break. This challenge is to serve as an anchor to my writing project STOS* and daily free writing for the year. I’ll be sharing with both the Creative Every Day 2009 community and all fellow bloggers the progress and issues I have about STOS during the year.

I’ve started STOS # 2 last week. The starting point of this story was different to STOS # 1. For # 1 I had the ending fixed in my mind. Hence the writing of # 1 was to work out how the character got to the end point. With # 2 all I had was a scene where the main character was doing a very specific thing. I’m not sure if this scene is to be treated as the opening, middle or ending. However, since I have long decided that I’m not going to question too much of what I’m doing when I’m writing up 1st draft, I just dived in.

As soon as I sat down in front of the blank screen to write STOS # 2, my heart began to pound hard and fast. (No kidding here!) I kept thinking what if nothing came to my mind? What if I cannot pull it off this time? The anxiety was so intense that it was truly debilitating. I jumped out of the chair and walked around in circles until my heart rate came down.

I was arguing with myself if I was to start the story or waited for another couple of days. And I remembered Eric Maisel’s book "Write Mind" which I had started to re-read after I finished # 1 about two weeks ago. I flipped to the page where I had placed a lime green marker. My eyes rest on a small paragraph with the title: Right Silence. I remembered what it was and followed the instruction to quiet not only the mind but my entire being. I went back in front of my laptop and typed out the first 200 words of # 2.

This experience had taught me these:

1) No matter how many stories I’ve written, I always feel anxious to start a new one.

2) It is always a good idea to have a few good motivational books nearby in case like this. I have chosen for this project to "hire" Eric Maisel (via his books) as my creativity coach. :) And I have a feeling that he'll be a great help to me. We shall see!

* STOS - 12 stories based loosely on a common theme which I had developed over last Christmas break.