@the-wip-project Day 30

@the-wip-project Day 30

Did your main characters change as you wrote them? Was that the plan or did they surprise you?

Oddly enough maybe, my wip's mains have changed little from I had planned over a year ago (yes, it's been ongoing for that long and it's getting near the 200k mark slowly but surely). The plot is all about growing and changing from experiences, meetings, explorations of one's past. So change has always been on the agenda, as far as the main characters are concerned. Some are meant to change more than others.

I can't say the same thing about my secondary characters though. There are quite a few secondary characters who play a crucial role in the plot, and although they will be affected by the main characters' own evolution, writing them gradually took a turn I didn't expect.

Let's talk about the main character's sister, for instance. She was supposed to be the one responsible for her brother's downfall, and my intention was to make it cruel. But as I wrote her over the months (and year), building up a strong and determined personality for her, along with a fragile soft side and carefree dreams, I really took a liking to her. I've grown to admire her resilience, her way to put up with tough circumstances (war, refugee camp, flight on deserted roads, deprivation of food) and keep a determined front, yet still nurturing dreams that a teen her age should totally be having. She's been doing everything in her limited power to afford a life as balanced and satisfying as the situation could allow. She's such a great character!

She's still flawed, as all my characters are. And her young age and broken heart are going to crush her for a moment, an irreversible moment, after which everything will be lost. It will no longer be her direct responsibility, contrary to what I had planned; she'll just confide in the wrong person. That moment of unexpected treason will trigger a series of fateful events that will smash everything to pieces.

@vividly-creative

I read you and I feel you *hugs*

I've had similar thoughts about all the stories I've created (I'm having them right now for my 18-month old wip and the one I started... 3 days ago), a feeling that getting to the end is going to be so worthwhile because what I have in mind is so amazing, and at the same time so daunting that it actually stops me in my tracks, because what if I ruin this beautiful thing I have in my mind? What if it never reaches my expectations, and above all others'? And this is the one moment when the poisonous temptation to compare our work to others' pulls out its claws and drooling fangs.

From one thought to another, one day, I eventually considered things from a different point of view and came to a certain conclusion that I'd like to share with you. Maybe it'll ring something inside you, or maybe not.

Recently I've said in a post that I was a planner, and I am. This is the only way for me to beat this whimsical habit of mine: procrastination. I'd procrastinate for almost everything, and while I wouldn't mind postponing work-related stuff, it'd suck more to see myself postpone hobbies that are supposed to make me feel good. Writing falls into that category. Except that procrastination is not just postponing (and it certainly isn't idleness, we know that) Procrastination is also when you decide to do/create/start/continue/review another task instead of the one you "were supposed to do" (please, note the quotation marks), for reasons ranging from subjective importance to objective inclination.

It's not a flaw, it's not even a bad habit, but it certainly is exhausting in the long run.

But procrastination tells us something about us, creators.

Procrastinating is dreading the moment when the project, our project, will reach its term. When we'll have to part from it, when this project will live on with a life of its own, where it's meant to be, exposed to other people's scrutiny and comprehension. When it's no longer ours, and we have no control over it anymore. And yet, our parenthood over this piece of work is intact. We've been its source of life, its legal guardian.

We're responsible for its existence, as well towards its outcome, by making sure it's prepared for what's to come, autonomous, viable, acceptable, defendable. Perfect.

The fear of separation and the quest for perfection go hand in hand with procrastination.

Setting up a deadline, a date, a goal to finish a wip is like scheduling this separation and the grief that'll come with it, because it feels like a part of us will leave too, and there'll be nothing we can do about it. So, we hope it'll go in the best of ways, with flying colours. When the moment comes, we hope we'll be up to it, that the void that'll come after will be tolerable (but if we have other wips on the backburner, it'll hurt less, won't it?)

So, yeah, this is how I feel when I write my stories. I love to see them grow, develop, gain confidence. I'm always eager to write them down, to read the words and sentences flow and discover what I wanted to write (honestly sometimes I don't even know what I write...) And I'm so looking forward to knowing the end (LOL!!) while dreading that moment when I'll have to say goodbye.

Nobody likes to say goodbye to something/someone we love. I said goodbye too many times, without knowing that things were actually over, without making sure that I was happy with the way things were between them and me, that this part of me could go without any reason for future concern or regret.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that your wips might go when you finish them, but you can be sure they'll meet amazing people (readers, publishers, you name it) and make them happy. Don't be afraid to finish them and let them go (at your own pace).

Your creativity will never let you down. Take care 🤗

Doubting Myself

Lately I’ve been creating a lot of stuff, back to back.

I’ve been writing a lot and bringing characters to life. I’ve been working so much on my novel, my word count is getting up, my word document is getting longer and I’ve been receiving positive feedback from my friends.

Still, I feel likeI’m barely making any progress.

I have brought so many ideas to life  and I’m proud of myself and of what I created… but  it feels like it doesn’t mean anything.

My portfolio could and should have much more work in it. It feels like I’m behind and I always will be.

No matter how much I create, I constantly feel like I could’ve made more and I need to make more.

I want to have this inhumane amount of art made within a couple of hours. 

The moment I start writing a scene I’m picturing how I want it to sound at the end and I start asking myself if I’ll be able to even finish it. The second I start a new sketch I begin ruminating how it should look and I want to skip the process to finally see the end result.

I have to keep reminding myself that a successful piece of art is the one that makes you proud and allows you to grow as an artist; but that does not mean it will always be satisfying and I get that.

I love to create.

I want to create.

I chose to create.

But it’s hard to enjoy the process sometimes, when you keep telling yourself “This is the time I will finish this novel.“

“This is the piece that I will finally send to publishers.” 

“This is the work that I will have hundreds of rejection slips and just that one approved, because it only takes one publisher to say yes.” 

“Today I’ll make the photograph that gets into a calendar.”

“This is the art project that will make people take me seriously.”

“This is the one that will make me an artist.”

It ’s exhausting.

@the-wip-project Day 15

Does your WIP have fairytales? Do your characters tell mythical stories to each other?

Yes, they do! And since my stories all take place in Asia, I've had a lot of fun digging out some interesting ones for lovely scenes. Here's an extract from one of the earlier chapters of WIP1:

“They’re well known folk-tales, which my eomeoni and halmeoni used to tell me when I was very young, back in Wonsan.” Hence why she thought about him when she found the book, Junghee believes: the idea that his mother is thinking about him fills him with some sweet nostalgia again and brings about the familiar lump that has kept him company here at the back of his throat. He’s so grateful she asked this book to be delivered to him; so grateful Jimin is the one who brought it to him.

“Let’s read some!” Jimin cheers, standing up. “Where’s that lamp you had?” Junghee hears him shuffle over the floor in the dark, blindly feeling along until he hears the scrape of metal. “Ah, here it is.” He winds it up, illuminating his face from underneath, as awake and lively as ever, before he takes his place back on the bed, by Junghee’s side this time, and directs the light towards the book. “So, pick one,” he adds. “Not too long though. And a happy one. Oh, and funny too.”

“Aish, hyung. Folk tales are not always funny. They’re meant to convey messages, lessons of tolerance, generosity, love and hope. This one, for instance, ‘The Two Brothers Who Threw Away Their Lumps of Gold.”

“You’ll have to tell me where the hope is here. The title alone is stupid. Pick another one.”

“But these two brothers love each other!”

“Doesn’t erase the fact they’re stupid…”

“Okay… so, ‘The Beggar Brothers’ —”

“No please, not poor people! I’ve had my share of poverty.”

Junghee pinches his lips to stifle a snicker, and flips more pages: “How about ‘The Net Bag for Catching a Tiger’? About how a man became rich.”

“Brilliant!”

They settle against the wall, bodies pressed close against one another across the narrow width of the bed, legs extended in front of them.

“Once upon a time, there was a poor young bachelor. [why are they always poor?] Because he was really poor, he went to the mountains to find something to eat, [sounds familiar…] but then it became nighttime. He found a house while wandering around and asked the old man who was the owner of the house, if he could sleep there for one night. The old man told the bachelor to come in. The old man was making a net bag with straw. The bachelor asked, ‘why are you making a net bag?’ The old man answered, ‘if a poor person goes into the net, that person will get a lot of money.’ [sounds fishy already] The bachelor was very interested, and asked, ‘May I get into the bag?’[what?] The old man answered, ‘Of course’. He got into the bag, which had been finished. Then the old man suddenly tied up the mouth of the net bag [I honestly saw that coming] tightly and hung it on a big branch in the mountain. The man screamed because he was scared. [Gosh, is he gonna lure the tiger with that poor bugger?]”

Junghee stops his reading, thinking, then yawns loudly.

“So? What happens next? Where's the tiger?”

“Hyung, aren’t you tired? I’m exhausted,” he whines, standing up to get to the bed where the blankets are. He climbs onto it and spreads the two blankets over him.

“Sun Junghee! What happens next? How does it end?” Jimin threatens, hurrying to his side with the lamp and poking him in the ribs.

In a Muffled Hong Kong, Bookstores Offer Freedom of Thought

Some independent shops flout the new limits on free expression. Others try to come to terms with them. For readers, they offer a sense of connection in a changed city.

By Tiffany May

HONG KONG — When Hong Kong public libraries pulled books about dissent from circulation last month, Pong Yat Ming made an offer to his customers: They could read some of the same books, free, at his store.

Mr. Pong, 47, founded the shop, Book Punch, in 2020, after Beijing imposed a national security law in response to the antigovernment protests that rocked Hong Kong in 2019. The law broadly defined acts of subversion and secession against China, making much political speech potentially illegal, and it threatened severe punishment, including life imprisonment, for offenders.

Mr. Pong said he had opened Book Punch precisely because he did not want the city to fall silent under the pressure, and because he felt it was important to build a more empathetic, tightknit community as the law cast its shadow over Hong Kong.

“The social movement has changed the way people read and the value they place on books,” he said. “I want to bring out that kind of energy, that desire for change through reading.” He added, “Books are powerful, like forceful punches responding to the social environment.”

The venture is a potential minefield.

READ MORE

Check out my new wip

@the-wip-project Day 10 (I'm back! I got lost, sorry)

Tell us about ideas you have floating around. Worldbuilding snippets, or ideas for new stories. Just a few bullet points.

I tell you what dear @the-wip-project, this challenge is really working wonders! Not only has it helped me approach my wip with a fresher stance and reconnect with its original soul, but it's also rebooted my creativity, which had been slumbering under the covers of the past year's strain.

In other words, another wip is born 👶 🎉! Just today, it just uttered its first 1k words.

I've come to realise that, as the first wip is gradually reaching its climax, the emotional charge coming with it is getting really heavy and tends to smother me at times. I didn't know I needed a breather until I started my hand at this A/B/O fanfic (my first). I still have to deal with the guilt of sharing my attention between the two but that's a question for later 😅

It's meant to be lighter, despite the serious subthemes of reproductive technology, of parenthood and its challenges, of social changes vs tradition (I did say it's supposed to be lighter, right? Because it really is)

The fun part, for now, is getting to pick the characters' scents. The challenge is not to forget to add these scents as subtexts to a situation, a dialogue, or an emotion.

So yeah, one new adventure 😊

@the-wip-project Day 28

Do you have an expression that you probably use too much in your writing?

I sometimes feel like my whole writing is nothing but an endless stream of the same expressions, the same syntax and the same words. Generally, this is the moment when my ever-so-caring self preserving reflex tells me that I need to read other works and other worlds to learn new sentences, new structures, new expressions. There was a time when I'd even note them down on a notebook (I should totally get back to that, come to think of it).

That reflex is actually more traitorous than I think (even after a couple of years - I'll never learn, right) because reading other works unfailingly stirs me to the edge of that self-deprecation chasm, where I stand for some time wondering if I should write at all. Come on, there are some many GOOD works out there (understand: far better)

I know this is a common feeling that many writers go through. Any tips? I'm really curious about how others deal with that?