Speak to My Finger

I took a creative writing crash workshop because I could not learn it on my own. I just don't have the discipline drive to push myself. I have this tendency of slacking at the beginning of my commitment when I notice some improvement. This is pretty obvious in my exercise regime. So that's why I prefer to enroll in courses so I won't slack especially I have to submit assignment.

But my greatest enemy is not the discipline but my writing speed. I have problems in distilling my thoughts into words and the coherence of sentences. People flew 1000 words in an hour. I could just type 100 words in the same timing. Gosh. A hamster could cycle way faster than me. I kinda hate myself for this. I can try free writing but still I overthink!

So even though I have learnt the skills to write short stories and novels, I still struggle in writing faster. Perhaps, I should really have a writing buddy to push me writing everyday. My instructor is a time terrorist. She would set 15 minutes for us to write 400 words for every exercise she had during class. Of course I completed; don't need to ask a 'kiasu' person like myself. But the quality is doubtful.

So now I have graduated, I thought of resting on my laurels, but one of my coursemates emphasised that I have to keep writing to prevent the knowledge from leaving me. I played her words in my head while walking around my home area for 15 minutes, and ... she really made sense. The reason I took up the course because I wanted to produce something, be it scriptwriting or novel, but something creative using words. And I even considered of having creative writing skills to earn extra money. So if I don't sharpen my skills now, then when? I need to be prepared so if there is such creative writing opportunity arise, I would be ready to undertake, isn't it?

So the past 3 days I wrote my second short story. It took a lot of push to write it, because I am a damn perfectionist (FYI: I have discounted it by 40%), and what I write have to be perfect in one stroke, but there is no such perfection! If there is, all editors would be dead by now! Like some authors said before: We can't edit a blank page. So I need to at least unload some thing. So I did. I have written 1700 words and it's just a draft. A lot of blandness in the pages and I am gonna let them simmer for sometime before I edit since the draft is not even completely dressed.

OMG. This brought back nightmare of my first short story ass for my workshop. I actually don't know why the instructor actually made us write 5k assignment. It's actually extremely horrifying for a first-timer to vomit that much of words. Writing 1k words for story is a struggle to me, let alone 5k. So I spent 1 week to finish a story. And then edited 7 times. And then coursemates and instructors said it still need editing! Kya~~~

The 5k ass had to incorporate all the lessons I learnt. Luckily there's a cheat sheet in planning the story so I have a backbone. Despite that, the backbone changed as I was transferring the story from my head to Google doc. Like now la, while writing my second story, the gut is telling me to write in the second character's POV. OMG. I am lazy la. Can we skip that? If I am ambitious, I will combine 2 POVs in the story. The heck. That would be another 5k story.

If I could be a 5k word machine, it's good because I can be a novel marathon runner, except it's not good if I want to publish it. Many short story publications have word limit of like 2k? Why want to spend extra energy to write 5 k when I have to chop 3k? There's also wisdom in my instructor's words that I need to get the story off my brain. Otherwise, I would be irritated like an unsatisfying customer for not getting what she wants.

So my second short story is still short of emotions stuff, and a lot of literary devices. Ok. My head now hurts of thinking of the techniques in weaving the literary devices in order to push the story. So maybe I need to revise the story goal to be short and sweet.

I think I am just a long-winded hag in short. HAHA.

I really admire all those writers out there whom I have read their short stories especially those award winning. Where do those ideas come from? I read an editor's foreword that if the writer can write good it means she/he understands why he/she writes. Err... then why do I write?

I have read so many ingenuous short stories that I feel like typing out their stories so there is a transference of creative writing skills. Wishbones won't be able to grant this in this lifetime la I guess.

Well, Rome is not built in a day so is my skills. My life experience is already a wealth of story inspiration. I just need to be patient in developing the voice to transfer my ideas into words.

ganbatte ne!