Stepping into the water

Hello!

At this very moment, I’m typing and watching Eastenders at the same time, brimming with satisfaction. And no, it is not because I am finally going to see what crazy Lucus does next. The reason is that I have just finished chapter 11, the second one I’ve finished this week.

Unfortunately there were times this week when I felt that the chapters were becoming a bit ropey. I don’t know if it is just me, but as I was writing chapters 10 and the beginning to chapter 11, I was beginning to think that I was failing the novel with my lazy attitude and writing. I felt was running out of steam, more so than the England players last weekend. I did not have the passion I had when I wrote the first fantasy novel three years ago (yes, I did, but I scrapped it when I realised how bad it was!). But funnily enough, when I read through what I wrote, I realised it was not as bad as I thought. I think I was writing with worry and when you do, you always think you are doing badly. I really do need to pack this habit in before it does more creative damage. As my dad says, “when you worry or panic, you always make a mistake – you must learn from the animals – a buffalo stepped into the water and began to panic and that was when he was killed and eaten by the lions”. If you’re wondering, my dad is a huge David Atinbourgh fan.

On a brighter note, I did come up with some new ideas, so I’m not suffering from a complete creative drought. I added to one of my chapters, for as I was brushing my teeth one morning, I realised that I didn’t really think it through thoroughly when I wrote it. In this, the Asurs are training in a field, learning how to wield a sword. Now faced with an opposing army, who have magical powers, and some of whom can fly; I really don’t think that sword wielding alone is going to help them. If anything, it would be like sending a bunch of amateur footballers to play against Brazil. So I decided to mention catapults and other weaponries. Yes, I know catapults are a Greek and Roman invention, but how else are the Asurs going to attack flying creatures? I have also added some mysterious stuff in there…but I’m not going to give that away *tapping at side of nose ;)


I also re-drafted the Prologue, suddenly realising that I did not mention the life-span of the Devs, compared to the humans and the Asurs. And yes, age is quite important because I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve had people complain that they were not sure how old certain people were in my other writings.
I think that is one of the most difficult things about fantasy writing. There are so many things to show and tell to a clueless reader about a strange world like mine and its how to show that that is most difficult. I have always been told by my lecturer to SHOW rather than tell and you don’t want to shove all the information down the reader’s throat in one chapter. That is why I felt that I needed to sprinkle the information throughout the novel when I was writing my opening chapters for my dissertation. However, you need to explain what the races are as early as possible, because as I found out from both my lecturer and friends, it can be confusing as to what the different creatures are.

Currently, I am really pleased with my prologue and the changes I have made, especially the changes I have made to the next following chapters. Yes, I have deviated from the original plan, but I’ve found that a story usually writes itself and you MUST always go with what feels natural. If it makes more sense to do it a different way, go for it! Never shy away from evaluating and changing your baby (as much as you’ll hate it) because as I’ve learned from my Textile course at college, the best ideas are never what you come up with first.

Break time: England vs Germany

Hello again.

I have managed to write the first page of chapter 10, after mindlessly staring at my notes for a good hour. What good a bit of self-forcing can do. To be honest, starting chapters are always my problem. It's always much harder to start a chapter - I think it's always like starting a story, you always have a hard time thinking about how you are to start it. But once you get into it, the story and words roll out like toilet paper.

Unfortunely I'm in one of these moods where I can only do a little...kind of like being stuffed from a late night meal and not being able to stomach a full breakfast. I know this is a way of my body telling me to chill. I have also been told by my parents not to over-do it. It was only a few weeks ago that after forcing myself to write that day despite feeling exhausted, I ended up feeling very low, tired, fatugued and strangely, I lost interest in the one thing that always manages to lift my moods...music. It was then that my dad demanded that I take two days off a week from writing. As he says, "its easy to disturb the brain, but its difficult to get it back to normal".

He should not worry today. The England vs Germany match is this afternoon and I cannot miss it. To make it better, my brother and sister-in-law have invited us down to their barbeccue. I've got to say, Smokey chicken and Football (and perhaps an alcho-pop, as I don't like beer) is always a brilliant combination :)

I have another busy week ahead of me. I've promised myself that I would finish chapter 10 and possibly chapter 11 AND I've got an application form to expect through the post for a hospital position, which I really want to get. So, if all goes well, I will have over half of the novel completed and the guys at Red Cross will be pleased with what Ive written :)

The story so far....

Hello there.

This is my first blog with regards to writing. I didn’t think that I would need to keep such a journal, but I’ve been told that it is beneficial to keep one. I suppose that they are right, after all its good to know how your progress is going and remind yourself of the hardships of writing when the finished product is done.

I could have done this blog on Facebook. However, I don’t really like the idea of harassing my friends with constant updates (that most won’t read, since they are either school classmates or university and clubbing acquaintances) and most importantly…I like my status updates and the funny comments my friends leave.

Anyways, I’ll fill you in on my current project, which I technically started a year ago. It was May 2009, and I had just come back from a class meeting with my lecturers regarding research for our dissertations. Of course, this kind of freaked me out and I was worrying about what I was to base my project on. And it didn’t help that my friend Brighton David was already sure of what he wanted to do (for your curiosity, it was to be on whether superheroes in novels works).

Cut a long story short, I was talking about my struggles with my brother and he suggested that I could write a fantasy novel that uses a different myth other than the ‘boring generic’ Celtic and Norse ones used previously. And that was what made me jerk. Like Father Ted to Dougal, I said, “That is an idea…that is a bloody brilliant idea!”

So I spent the entire summer researching Hindu mythology, as that was the myth that my brother initially suggested and to be fair, was the one that intrigued me the most, considering that my house has plenty of exotic paintings of Krishna, Ganesh and Shiva.
I borrowed books by Wendy O Flaherty (including her translations of ancient Sanskrit written myths) and theories regarding evil in Hindu mythology because of course, there as to be an ‘Evil Canevil’ in Fantasy otherwise it wouldn’t be fantasy.

As I read the myths and the theories, I found that status was a reoccurring theme, as the Hindu Gods were seen as the virtuous superior heroes and their demonic counterparts as the evil ‘bog-low’ villains. This made me think about a theory I was introduced to in the ‘Women’s Writing’ module at second year university, in which Helene Cixous explains that a binary opposition is “...the movement by which each opposition is set up to produce meaning is the movement by which the couple is destroyed. Each time a war breaks out. Death is always a work”. Basicly, in every war between two differing people or things, you have a winner and a loser. For example, Rich is Poor’s superior counterpart, in the same way Light is to Dark and God is to the Devil….I can go on.

Anyways, I thought the ideas of battle and death links in well with the genre of fantasy, where the battle between good and evil is a prominent theme. The problems of social inequality has been explored in the book ‘Status Anxiety’ by Alan De Botton, which I took inspiration from to weave my story, as well as to give more human depth to the ideas expressed in the evils of Hindu mythology.
Like a witch to a concoction, I managed to brew a pretty amazing story out of these theories. It centres around three races – the Devs, humans and Asurs, the latter with the lowest social standing. A lot of my friends strongly approved of this and I began to feel a glowing sense of pride in what I had come up with.

My lecturer gave the proposal the go-ahead, although she told me to focus more on the market than the theory. So I had to modify the proposal so it focused more on who would read my novel, why people would be interested in this and how to make it interesting to them. To be honest, I spent more time re-drafting the introduction and researching Joseph Campbell for my critical analysis, than actually working on the chapters. Regarding the latter, showing my drafts to my lecturer became more and more scary as she picked out bits where I have over written or used the wrong word, which kind of dulled my confidence. I was beginning to wonder if I was the great writer than my peers claimed I was.

Anyways, I took her comments on board and managed to write three pretty good opening chapters, that all of the friends I sent them to praised, although a few of them were confused as to what a Dev and an Asur was, despite how much I tried to show it in the chapters – after all, writing should show, NOT tell. But I thought that was mainly down to not being able to finish the second chapter (which explains the history of the Devs and the Asurs) because I was only allowed to write the first 2000 words.

When I finished university, I began to write the rest of the second chapter and the others that follow. I took a week off, for my brother and dad had booked a holiday to Morocco for us several weeks ago. I spent that time walking through the souks and bazaars, stuffing myself with Tajines and couscous and watching performers during the night. All of this inspired chapters five to seven, where the characters journey through many towns and cities in this make-belief world. And yes, I am aware that India and Morocco are two different countries, but since this is a made-up world, it can afford to be a crazy mix of the two.

Unfortunately when I got to chapter six, I received feedback from my lecturer, in which the opening chapters received a C9 grade, along with three to four paragraphs of criticism. Although the theory got a B13, (amounting to a B12 overall) I was disappointed. So much so, I deleted the C9 from the document, like putting a thumb over a funny expression I accidently pulled in a photo.

That week I felt low to the point where I had to force myself to write. It didn’t help that the company I was temporarily ‘working for’ didn’t give me the two shifts I was supposed to have. So basically, I never worked for that traffic surveying company or got paid by them. Luckily I spoke to my closest friends Ashish, Chris and Brighton David; all of whom reminded me that I was a great writer and that should carry on writing. Once I was back to my fighting determined self, I decided that I was to write the first draft of every chapter, then take my lecturers comments on board when it comes to re-drafting.

I found it difficult to write this week, as I’ve been distracted by the World Cup games, yelling and cheering at the TV screen whenever England were either close to the goal or scored. But luckily I did manage to finish chapter 9 and the prologue, the latter my lecturer insisted on as the first chapter confused her.

I’ve got to say, the prologue explained the world better than the first chapter did. Plus, one of the characters (which doesn’t make an appearance in the novel for he is introduced as a murdered character) was mentioned continually – because of this, I felt it was necessary for him to make an appearance in the prologue. Now I feel that the world is better explained and it makes more certain what a Dev and an Asur is.

Currently, I think the first drafts are going OK - I am not entirely happy with them, because even though the story flows OK, I think the rythem of some of the paragraphs are a little dodgy. I think I would feel more at comfort if I wrote the rough drafts first, then stress about the quality for now :)

Hem's World

Hello there,

I guess I should start with introducing myself. My name is Hemisha. I am a Creative Writing and English Literature student...well ex-student as I finsihed university two months ago, but I graduate in September. Not sure what that makes me. A graduent? I'll let you decide.

Anyways, I am a budding writer and I will be keeping this blog as a way of talking about my progresses regarding my current project, which is a fantasy novel. I won't say much about the concept and and idea, as its more about the writing progress than giving the entire plot away. I mean, would you like it if I watched all of next weeks episodes of Eastenders and told you what happened? Probably not. By the way, I'm not an Eastenders fanatic...my dad watches it and since I'm always in the living room, I have to watch it too.

Aside from that, I will summerise my loves and interests like a Facebook page, by that I mean the old one, not the silly one with all the links (thankfully, my page hasn't recieved the new make-over yet).
My biggest passion are Vintage bands, my top bands being The Beatles, The Rolling stones, Queen and AC/DC. But before you all starting rolling your eyes, I must clarify that I am NOT a music snob, for I do like any catchy song, regardless of genre. And since we are on the topic of music, I must add that I am a GLEEK! (Fin and Rachel MUST get back together next season!)
Anyways, flake moment over, I also love comedy, not so much stand-up, but rather sitcoms and funny game shows, like Never Mind The Buzzcocks, How I Met your Mother, Friends and Mock the Week.
Urmm...I've realised that I'm turning this into an essay, so I'll just list the random things that I adore...you can make up your mind as to what sort of person I am based on that:

Morroccan Food, Retro clothes, Camden, Mozerella Cheese, Olives, Adventures (even if its around Mosely or Edgebaston!), Fantasy, Cherries, watching football and wrestling (if in the mood), Photography, Wise people, Kristen Stewart, Chris Pine, 90s cartoons, teddy bears...

Anyways, I hope that sums me up :)

Have a nice day!