Year's Resolution In Review: 2010 Edition

Ok, so it's closing in on the end of 2010 and here I would like to reflect on how my reading and writing have gone this year. I look back at what these were in my past posts Resolution 2010 and Mid Year Resolution. Well, I reckon I've read about 30 books at least this year. I guess that's pretty alright.

And I have also written a bunch of short stories and poems. Two good things happening was having my poem Shapes being published in a Drop of Ink which is not really anything because that's a web publication and they published all submissions anyways. Also, the website now seems pretty much dead. Secondly I got my short story Peculiarity published on Receipt Stories which was encouraging.

But I wasn't able to complete the book-length story I was working on. Just thinking of this year makes me wonder where reading and writing is in my list of priorities. I should probably stop watching so much mindless television and read and write more. But it is strenuous to the brain to have to think of things to write after working, and I just feel so tired most days to muster up the energy to do it. Moreover, approaching December when I had my research conference, I absolutely did not write anything at all. It must be months since I last wrote something. I must reignite my flame for it, I feel very dead inside from not expressing anything creatively for too long. Feels like my soul is rotting.

All I can say about the new year is that I will try my best to write more stories and poetry. I will only publish flash fiction on this site from now on, and keep the short stories and longer stories for actual publication. The flash fiction and poems can act as catalyst to the longer stories. I hope next year is good, because this year I do not feel I have done sufficient at all in the upkeep of this website and in my reading and writing in general. Hope everything works out in the coming year. 2011, I shall enter it with some apprehension.

Writing Dialogue

by Tom Chiarella

This is a book on writing dialogue as the title suggests. It talks of the idea generation process of dialogue, creating distinct voices to you characters, how to infuse emotions within dialogue (tension, nonchalance, anger, joy, etc), and when to or not to use dialogue.

I read the first 2 chapters and read parts of the other chapters. I did not find this book useful. The intention is there, but I felt it is more of how the author would go about doing such things but my processes for creating dialogue ( be it good or bad) are quite difficult. And some parts of them are instances of what can be done. I guess it is very limited to the perspective of the author (of how dialogue should be structured) which are not as widely applicable than what I would have hope for.

My dialogue at the moment is not perhaps as good as it can be, but I did not see how this book helped in making it better. Even Stephen King's On Writing book was more insightful than this. Overall, I think this book would be helpful for people who would like to see another perspective on dialogue writing but this book did not appeal to my idea generation process and writing sensibility.