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 :)