Angel to You, Devil to Me

Well, I think we might almost come to our final session.

At some point of time, when you think that you've done a lot of sacrifices for your writing, you might start questioning yourself: Am I a good writer?

And the devil inside yourself will answer loudly: No, you're not. You're nuisance, by following something that is against common senses.

It's time to kick out that little unhealthy and destructive devil, and start making alterations to boost your self-esteem. You are a good writer, you can write a good story, and there's a publisher somewhere who'll publish your book. Trust me. All you need to is create a list so that you can alter what have gone wrong. Act as an editor for your own story, before you allow the publisher to edit it. First thing first, list what you want:

• As a writer, you want to write something
• Something worth to read
• And finally, you want your story to get published

It's easy to list things that you want, but it's even easier to list the obstacles that prevent you to achieve it. Admit it, it's when our procrastinator part speak up:

• 'You have no time' is the first and the most popular excuse
• You are lack of imagination
• Fear of failure
  
• Don't know where to start

The list might go on and on... but I'll stop it by telling you that you've an angel beside you: desire. Remember the reason why you write once again. To fulfill that burning passion on your head? Yes. To share untold experiences with readers? Yes.

So for now, leave you laptop behind, prepare a pen and a note book beside your bed, then turn off the light. Turn on that Feist album (or whoever your preference might be) and let loose. Sleep warm, sleep tight. Rest your head on the pillow. Let dream weave you a spell. And when you wake up, take your pen and note book. Then write. Write anything you want, you don't have to think about any plot or any specific character. If you ever wonder what to write, start with this sentence: 'I remember...', and let your angel guide you through. You'll be surprised with what comes to your mind, and mostly... you'll be surprised that deep within you, you have a capability and talent to actually write something.

Time After Time

I believe that writers are artist, because they — as many other artists do — dedicate their time to construct something from scratch. At first, I treat writing as a self-indulgent. I would go home as soon as possible from school, then stuck in front of my desktop until my mother called me for dinner. Now as I grow older, I find it hard to dedicate my time to write one chapter. To be honest I haven't finished writing a single book ever since I enrolled in college. I have re-written one of my novel for almost five times, but still did not manage to finish it. That's when I realize that I've to take my writing into a more serious level, and dedicate my whole time for my writing. Oh no!

Yes, yes, and yes... I'm not kidding. You need a dedicated time just to sit down in front of your Microsoft Words, without worrying about your laundry, your grocery, your housework, and another annoying stuffs that always pop up as your routine. It's either go back to your routine, or write. The choice is all yours.

Writers are rare. I often find myself isolate from the other side of the world while writing. I ignore my friends who have been nudging my MSN. I abandon my heaping projects. I am becoming very selfish when I start writing, when I feel the burning passion of writing. But the good thing is, when you start making sacrifices, you'll then grow to love your artwork. Your dedication to your writing, which departed from something that was against common senses, has become an integral part of your life. And I, for once, hope that we'll somehow arrive in that point. Someday, someday.

Writers Are Different

So you've designed your characters. So you've built your short story. But how to make the readers believe in things you write? Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said that 'a novelist can do anything he wants to so long as he makes people believe it'. As a writer, you are responsible to make something new, alive, and pure, something that will convince the readers to flip through another chapter of your story.

How do you make people believe in something that basically comes from your imagination? Something that utterly fictional. I know, I know it's difficult. I have no solution, all that I can suggest is that you must at least try to believe in what you are writing. Passionately, full-stop! Live high! Laugh and cry as your plot flow. Make readers believe as if they've been sharing some experience with your characters.

This is what makes writers different from other. They are real, but at the same time they are in charge to construct something which might not be real at all, and try to convince people with their writing. Isn't it interesting?

Tell Your Story !

Think about moods. Think about starter sentences. Why? Because now we're going to start writing your first short story. I'll give you some starter sentences, moods, and objects to trigger your imagination. Good luck! :)

Starter sentences:

1. They all reach for their mobiles
2. She wakes and finds him gone
3. It was hot, but she wore a scarf
4. His face was a study in despair
5. "You did what?"

Moods:

1. Action
2. Comedy
3. Tension
   
4. Drama
5. Nostalgia

Objects:

1. Glasses
2. Box
3. Flower
4. Books
5. Key

Point of View

I assume now you have chosen your characters. Now you need to raise the matter of the story's point of view. The point of view acts like a narrative voice of the story.

Some of you might ask: Why should we bother? We're writing for ourselves.

I myself do not believe in such statement. You write because you want somebody to read your story. If not, why bother to write it down? You can keep them floating on your mind if you want to keep them as your own pleasure.

The so-called-point-of-view is believed to be divided into 3 main categories: first and third-person narratives.

Third person point of view:
It is a safe way to choose this point of view, because we believe that we are being told a story, and the writer is in control of the material. The writer will lead them safely until the story ends. To make this technique succeed, you need to know what you are going to write. You need to take a good care of it, to make it interesting, so that people will 'listen' to your story. Here is an example for a third person point of view:

Spencer Hastings should have been sleeping at six thirty on Monday morning. Instead, she was sitting in a therapist's blue-and-green waiting room, feeling a little like she was trapped inside an aquarium.
— Sara Shepard, Perfect

First person point of view:
I'm Rose. Rose Greta Patricia O'Neil. Rose. Not short from Rosemary, Rosa, or Rosanne. Just Rose. The name is an embarrassment. I'm not beautiful or delicate or sweet smelling. I'm not even pretty.
— Maureen McCarty, Rose By Any Other Name

There is no right or wrong when it comes to decide which point of view you'll pick. The aim is to achieve the effect you would like to achieve. Love your material first, thus it'll come alive without missing any single details.

In Their Shoes

One of the most integral part of a story is a character. Most people argue that story grows as the characters evolve, and so the other way round. There are many ways to shape characters, but there are not many ways to live them up as real as they could be. First of all, give your character a name, age, and gender.

Then, let's think about the circumstances of your characters. Who are they as human beings? Are they asking for help? Are they tempted by money, power? What are their hobbies, interests, passions, religious beliefs, sexual preferences? Don't forget to give them values and emotions, likes and dislikes, as well as their strength/weaknesses/flaws/fears. You may want to give your fictional characters qualities that you or your family possess. Remember that interesting characters are the key to tell a story on their own.

Put yourself in your characters' shoes. Care about your characters and what happens to them, even the unlikeable ones, and your readers will follow suit. To make them even more real, listen to and observe the people around you, and this will help you to create characters on the page that are as realistic as possible.

Haiku

In this post, I will try to encourage you to create stories through poem. Some of you might not like it, even I don't like it as well. There is a very limited space when dealing with poem, some people find it frustrating to build a story in such a tiny 'space'. What is poetry, anyway? What makes it so limited?

Well, here I try to describe poetry by using my own words. It can be images, moments in time, evokes mood, expression, lyrical, humor, ambiguous, verses, succinct, story, onomatopoeia, alteration or repetition of consonants, rhyme, short lines, or symbolism. There are endless type of poetry in the world, but now we will only focus on haiku, a form of Japanese poetry written in the pattern of 5,7,5 morae (partially similar to english syllables). Haiku is a modern revision by Masaoka Shiki of the much older hokku, the opening verse of haikai no renga. It contents seasonal words, describing the changes of seasons every year.

One of the most famous haiku writer is Ryunosuke Akutagawa:

Sick and feverish
Glimpse of cherry blossoms
Still shivering

Your very last resort

So, when starting your own fiction writing, you might often feel 'trapped' because you can't avoid the thought of 'I wanna be as good as Stephen King' etc, etc, etc. This kind of thought might lead you into a situation whereby you have a need to 'borrow' a plot, instead of creating your own plot. These borrowings come to us unconsciously. They sneak upon us, and if we keep on satisfying the temptation to borrow them and force them on our own writing, then our writing will suffer.

Only one source is available for the material of your writing: your own experience. Begin every plot by thinking: 'I remember'. Begin this sentence even before you put your character or plot into the paper. Use your imagination, call your early life. Then start to write based on the account of an incident from your early life.

Your stories are inside you, stop looking outside. I didn't mean to turn your fiction writings into an autobiography, though. All I am saying is that your experience has shown a pure approach, a fair beginning to a creation of a fiction by an exploration of the earlier life of the writer.

Spontaneous Prompt

Let's trigger you creativity!
Tell me what comes up to your mind when you hear these spontaneous prompts:

• Perfume
• A tower of strength
• Like mother, like daughter
• Toast of the town
• Childhood dreams
• Bearing a grudge
• Out of sight, out of mind
• Waiting at a finish line
• Tall, dark, and handsome
• All I want is a chance to...
• Wearily, he closed his eyes
• Pain
• Camaraderie

Here's what I pick: 'All I want is a chance to...', enjoy! Looking forward to see yours :)

All I want is a chance to put everything in its right place so that everybody's happy. As I turn up my iPod's volume, I stare blankly and let Maybe Tomorrow from Stereophonics make me wonder. I so want to get back on track I am willing to risk everything for it. Is that too much to ask for?
My friend says everything is everything. The more you lust after it, the less you do have control of it. But who cares when everything in me means everything and nothing at the same time? It's full inside, yet it's empty inside. I've gone through a year of failure, thus I think I am through with redemption and resilience. I don't want to, I cannot move on when everything inside me is still trying hard to fit it.
I feel like a jigsaw in the puzzle, endeavor to find its spot on a bigger picture somewhere. All I want is a chance to put everything in its right place so that I know what I am. What is that you try to say?

In You, You Trust

Do you keep the list you made? The one where you have tried to recognize the variety voice within your inner-self? Yes, that one. Keep it close, keep it tight, because it will become handy from now onwards.

The reason why I emphasize heavily on that list is because I believe that techniques of writing can be taught, but talent is another thing. Talent cannot be taught, yet it can be discovered, nurtured, and developed. Writing a fiction involves more than the master of technique. Unlike using several Adobe products, there are a lot more than just technique here. A writer needs to know how to read, and how to think about reading and writing. At the end, it will help in making readers believe in things that you write.

Invest in your time, your emotions, your heart, and not to forget: your soul. Festivals, events, books, magazines, films... true, they can be a source of inspiration too. Albeit if much of the content of the fiction is borrowed from this source, without passing through the medium of the writer's heart and imagination, the fiction might fail to engage the reader and even might look unconvincing.

Find out who you are and what you know, and then more or less forget it. Fly with your imagination. The more you write, the more you explore, the more you will surprise yourself with who you are and what you can think. Come what may, and if imagination comes, rejoices. And keep writing.

"Remember, it is necessary for those creative minds living through the experience to revisit and re-examine the modes of expression and communication" (Theall 2005).

What Does It Mean to Mean?

Every designed and every made things was used to define a story. Definitions are there as an expression, to form patterns of communication. In a real way, it facilitates people the way to understand each other.

I chose What Does It Mean to Mean? as a title because I was trying to trigger your sense of feeling. Previously, I've talked about how to deal with creativity, and now I am trying to assess your creative side by trying to describe about feelings. Why? Because, before you start thinking or working on characters and storyline, you need to know what kind of atmosphere that will move your story emotionally. You need to make it alive so that people can sense it while reading it.

All of us contain multiple inner voices. All of us need a safe place to admit that we are angry, disappointed, ecstatic, and the list goes on and on. Use it as fuel for action, feel it when your emotions and perceptions battle and play out. Engage your feelings, view it with greater detachment, learn to observe.

Now, take a piece of paper and write them down. List your fear, your anger, the jetsam of your relationship, whatever. You can even list your hopes regarding the creative work you are about to do. Be free, be cruel, be silly, be self-centered, be exactly as you are in the moment. Do not stop to analyze it. Just write it fast, do not try too hard, and move one.

Why I encourage you to list those feelings? Because it is so familiar to you. By recognizing the variety voices within your inner self, you will discover many positive aspects that might have become silenced over the year. We know more but we do less.

This exercise, I hope, will help you to observe the feelings before putting them into words. To express feelings through definition, not to define feelings through definitions. And the most important thing is, to make you begin to feel again.

See It As Potential

It has been said that to learn about writing is through writing. Sounds simple, eh? But when you sit down in front of your laptop, starring at the screen while trying to figure out a starting line to trigger your story, that’s when you realize that writing is not as simple as it looks like. Writing this diminutive, fastidious arrangement of words unquestionably does make you think: I should’ve realized the limit of my talent a lot sooner.

Now, now, release those back pain that you get from starring blanky at your Microsoft Office for hours and relax. There is an opportunity inherent in every failure, a chance to turn negative experiences into positive lesson — to learn. Yes, you heard it from me. Writing is something that can be taught. There might not be a magic way to achieve instant fulfillment in writing, but surely there is a path to it.

Firstly, what we need to do is to not be intimidated by the fact that you are going to work with the-so-called creativity. I personally think that some people are afraid — yet curious as well — to deal with creativity because it is related with ‘incredibly amazing artists’ who write without flaws or intermission. This false perception leads to a notion that creativity is something vulnerable, a gift for certain people only.

The truth is, creativity is user-friendly and can be generated over time. It is something like energy, it can be generated and cannot be destroyed. What you need to do is try to recognize it, traces it down, and tries to safely grounded it. Bare in mind: we are all creative in our own way.

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.” — Hellen Keller

All of us can be more creative than we already are. That’s the message that I’m trying to send from every entry that I’ll be making. To be a positive catalyst for yourself. You are the author of your own story. At last, trust me, the vibe of your story will make you happier, more productive, and of course more creative!