Critical hit

I am overly self-critical. I get nothing done because I demand too much from myself.

I need to get over this, and just start doing things. Being too critical prevents you from moving on.

So, what do I want?

I want to write. I used to think that by the age of 25 I would have compiled a collection of short stories. Well, I do have a bunch of short stories, but they are all from different genres.

A part of me wants to be a realist, another part wants to write new weird, the third part wants to write erotica, the fourth wants to write lesbian crime novels, and the fifth would actually want to write non-fiction.

I need to decide what I really want to aim for, because my energy just isn't enough to try everything!

To conclude... Year 2010

Hi, it's been a while.

Now it's Christmas times, and I'm facing the last deadlines for this year. Yeah, on 27th December I still have shitloads of stuff to do by New Year, GO ME.

In 2010 I've read 50 books. It's more than last year or the year before that, probably more than I've ever read in one year in my life. I'm kind of happy. Especially I'm happy because those 50 books include a lot of books that have been on my to-read list for years and years.

Let's take Jane Eyre. Yep, meant to read that for ages. And I kind of liked it. Even though the translation was from 1945, and included old language that sounded weird.

And... Two novels by Hemingway. I never thought I'd like Hemingway, but I did. Good.

Joyce Carol Oates and Expensive People. Hm. Interesting. Art is arbitrary.

My favourite among the 50 must be Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf. It is an amazing book.

And I should not forget Ray Loriga's The Man Who Invented Manhattan. It's... too great to describe. This man is a divine creature.

I did read some scifi too. Pat Cadigan's Mindplayers, which I could have got signed by the author as she visited Finncon, but on the day of the signings I had left my book home...

I didn't write much, though. The creative writing courses kept me busy, but in addition to that, I've written pathetically little. Some really angsty stuff and also some scifi stuff. Or 'new weird' as the cool kids say.

I should write more.

Holidays

I created a can. It contains words. So whenever I feel like writing, I can open the can and take out a word or two. Most are nouns. Some adjectives. I think there's about 200 pieces of paper.

Too bad I haven't been on the writing mood in a while. I should get something done, but this SUMMER HOLIDAY has affected my creativity as well. Which is... sort of... blah. I'd like to write something, but instead I've been reading shitloads. I read my first ever Hemingway and after that another Hemingway, and then I read Papillon by Henri Charrière. After that I'm off to the Korean War.

I did send my texts to a short story competition last month, though~

Taking off

I just watched Choke the movie. It's been a while (at least a year) since I read the book. I had totally forgotten how random and weird worlds and characters Chuck Palahniuk creates. 

And I have to stop and think why won't I create such worlds myself. 

If I am ever going to make an impression on someone based on my writings, I won't be able to make it by writing ordinary stuff. Really. I need to create something that makes people go WTF when they're reading it. I need to create a text that takes people away into a scenery where people have weird histories, weird occupations, and weird friends. Make the unlikely seem likely. 

Why would anyone read about a normal 23-yearold cashier when I could write about a 23-yearold cashier who is actually a university lecturer who's working a shitty job to try to find a person who buys four things that total into 16.32, because such a person is the long-waited sidekick on a trip to nothern Russia, where the university lecturer-cashier has heard an abandoned nuclear test site is, and she aims to go there to find....something I'll figure out later. 

Why be normal when people get too much normal in their daily lives anyway?

I need to leave this world behind the next time I write something.

Identification

I follow Chuck Palahniuk on Facebook. Today there was a link. http://iwl.me/ Who do you write like? Basically a text analyser that analyses a piece of text, the words used in that piece or something, and tells whose style that piece resembles.

I tried it with maybe 10 pieces of text, including a couple of blog entries. According to the analyser I write like Chuck Palahniuk, Annie Rice, Dan Brown, H.P. Lovecraft, Kurt Vonnegut, Cory Doctorow (haven't read his stuff), Margaret Mitchell (!!), J.D. Salinger and Stephen King. I actually got 4 Stephen Kings based on my older texts and blog entries. Interesting.

Speculative fiction

I'm really tired now, but I need to write something.

I spent the entire weekend in a scifi/fantasy convention, and it was superb.

I need to read more scifi. I used to read it when I was a kid, but then I found fantasy, and then I found "normal" books, and lately I've been reading just randomly everything, because I want to widen the scope of genres I know. Still, this weekend at Finncon, I felt kind of out of place. Sure, it was nice being among scifi geeks again, and it was awesome, but as I was going through the book sales etc, I realised that I haven't actually read the "basic" science fiction. No Arthur C. Clarke, no Isaac Asimov...

Could be that I never really liked the space ships and technology parts in scifi. I think I prefer science fiction without the science. I want stories set in alternative universes with the focus not on the technology, but on the actual story and people.

When it comes to fantasy, I tend to like fantasy stuff that doesn't include dragons, elfs, magic swords etc. I kind of got fed up with high fantasy ever since I read Neverwhere the first time.

Ok, real fantasy, as they called it in the convention in the discussions... Set in a world similar to ours, but something's off. Just like in Neverwhere, there might be an other world we do not know unless... Fine, Neverwhere and other Neil's stuff is pretty fantastic, but I don't blame him for that.

Still, he's recognized as a fantasy author.

My other favourite author, who writes weird dystopian stories about odd stuff, but which does not include magic or other really fantastic elements... Chuck Palahniuk. Where would I put Survivor? Or even better, Rant? Both texts are twisted in some way, but they are not fantasy. They are real, but still they are not. Are they real fantasy or is Neil Gaiman with his mixed mythologies real fantasy? Where would Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 go? Scifi, dystopian, real fantasy? Ray Loriga's Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore? Classified as scifi (occasionally), but other stuff by Loriga isn't scifi, it's just weird. What is weird? What is fantasy?

Why do we need to define what we read?

Some people say they never read scifi. Some people say they read only scifi.

As a future author, I would not mind being called a scifi author. I would not mind being called a fantasy author. But I would love being called an author. Just an author. Being an author means you write stuff. You make stuff up. You make stories come into life. Some stories are science fiction, some are fantasy, some are realism, some are romance. All of these are stories that are equally fictional. If it wasn't fiction, it'd be non-fiction, which means it'd be on the other side of the library. Why do we need to define what kind of a fiction it is? Why is an author strongly labeled for just one genre?

To escape from fantasy and scifi, new genres, new cages come up. New weird, real fantasy, paranormal romance.

Ok, I'm a writer, I write stuff. Different stuff. Romance, erotica, scifi, "normal prose", satire, fantasy, new weird, real fantasy, STUFF. It's all fictional, and if a label scares you away, it's your loss.

ALSO, regarding my previous post about being a short story person... I was listening to Pat Cadigan and Ellen Kushner on Friday, and both agreed that there were two kinds of writers: writers with short-story brain, and writers with novel brain. I think I have short-story brain. I'm happy to be diagnosed :3

An entry with a boring title

I tread here every now and then, and I have a lot to say, but when I get this tiny screen in front of me it is all gone like it was never there. It's like when you stand up from your chair and walk to the kitchen, and when your hand touches the handle, you forget what you were looking for. Was it a cup? A specific old dish you wanted to examine? Was it food? Tea? Cookies? Some can you suddenly remembered, and wanted to read the label for some weird reason that emerged in your subconscious?

Now I do remember. At least one thing.

About length of stories. It seems that when I get an idea, I instantly know whether it is an idea for a short story, a poem, a drabble, or a full-length novel. Most ideas are shorts stories, and they are easy to handle. I would like to start working on a novel again. It's just the genres of writing that disagree with me. I can write short stories of things that are close to me, because I know I don't have to explain too much. Therefore most of my personal angst goes to short stories. Longer stories are a different case. It is good to have one's imagination run wild, yes sir I can boogie, and getting started is easy. Creating new worlds, new characters, difficult relationships between characters... I love all that. The question is: Why don't I do it all the time? Why am I not working on a story? There is an idea of interlocking stories that would melt into one eventually. It's been written on the pages of my notebook for months. For more than 4 months. It's still only 6 handwritten pages in bad handwriting. It's kind of science fiction-ish mix of different stuff. I can't write too ordinary stories. I mean, short stories can be about going to buy milk and finding the love of your life, but long ones need a better story.

Truth is, I've been thinking that I'm after all a short story person. Still I would like to give a go, write a full novel. Why am I not writing it now?

I am a lazy person. I get nothing done and still I am worried that I get nothing done. I should just get something done. A part of me feels that I am not ready yet. The puzzle isn't complete. I am not complete as a writer. I am not complete as an experiencer. I need to wait because...something is coming. I don't know what it is, but it is coming. Maybe. I think. It could be. If it isn't, I've waited in vain.

How can I make a difference as a writer?

It starts with doors

There's thousands of ideas going through my head, but I don't write anything. The only writing I've been doing has been blogging, blogging, and some more blogging. And in addition to that, some old-fashioned diary writing.

I started my creative writing essay course. I read this book, which was really good. Oh oh, I want to learn to write really good essays. I might even like it more than fiction. Just being as talented as E.V., the author of the book, would be... awesome.

The thing is, I don't know if I have anything to say. I mean, does anyone give a shit about what I want to say?

Anyway, I should start working on a study journal for the course. And I should read these other books to get something to say about it, and and and ok let's get to work.

Getting to work

I haven't really been writing lately. 

I realise this as I've been watching a series in which one of the main characters is an aspriring writer. She writes all the time, it appears as if her imagination ran as wild as a deer in the Northern plains, and my deer is stuck in the mud.

I don't write much these days. There's just too much to do. And maybe it's because I use the computer for other stuff than writing too. In the old days it was different when I had the typewriter. I just couldn't be distracted by instant messaging on a typewriter. 

I want a typewriter. I'm really inspired to write a lot of stuff, but I just don't get anything done. There's just nothing pushing me towards writing. That will change soon, however. I will start a creative writing course tomorrow, hopefully. The first task is to write an essay. I've already decided my topic, but I need to do the background reading and analysis of that before I get to start the actual work.

I need to get something done. If I don't, I'll go crazy. 

For real.

Cream soda

As previously mentioned, I am a nonnative English speaker. Despite my relatively proficient English skills, my lack of cultural knowledge etc makes it impossible for me to actually publish anything in English without hiring a translator or consulting someone who could put my words into better words.

In my home country I could not live just by writing. The market just isn't that big. Of course I am not writing because I want to get rich, no, but I'd like to be able to focus on writing and not working another job at the same time.

Also, despite my English being imperfect, I've used English as my tool of self-expression since 2005, and every time I start writing, the language I create the story in is English. I've been trying to go towards my native language, but my brain appears to be tuned on a different frequency.

Anyway, there was also another thing I wanted to write about... Indeed, what to write about? I know I want to write, but I should learn how to write about something. I should have something to say.