What I've Been Up To

Okay, I haven't blogged in a while. Couple of reasons; had to do a conference paper, colloquium presentation and other stuff too. Well, the final one is I've been sick for the past week (how can it be so long to be sick?). Anyways, I am getting better now (hopefully).

I have not read much either I must say, been dispirited somewhat. No idea why. Have not written much either, have gotten rejection from AHWA for the competition though. Well, dispiriting times. Anyways, I think I will be getting my groove back soon.

Anyways, I have been back playing the piano again. Getting reacquainted with Erik Satie's Gymnopedie No. 1 and also the Flight of the Bumblebee. Anyways that's beside the point, I will get back to reading soon. Feel I have gotten out of this rough patch rather unscathed. Ready to forge onwards soon enough. Second half of the year, let's get it done.

Thoughts on Writing Epics

It is hard for me to write sometimes, because when I have an inkling of an idea of a story I begin to quickly blow the idea out of proportion and think of such grandeur and scale that I lose all sensibility of what I was writing in the first place. Then comes the crushing realization such an epic would take years to complete, and at the end of the day it is so risky whether the story would be any good at all. So at that point I would plunge into hopelessness and despair of never doing to be a writer.

Well, I said it was hard for me to write sometimes. But this is not one of those times. I guess the line of thought I wrote in the previous paragraph is prevalent in any writer. And that sort of insecurity and hope surely makes for better stories, that constant need to improving and being better at your craft. So the thing is, should I quite trying to write an epic story? No, absolutely not. I shall write it in such a way that it can be tolerated by me, to be do-able by me. I will write in small increments of the whole series, which again, being realistic, I know WILL take years and years. But I don't really care because I know it will be worthwhile. But what do I do when that crushing uncertainty comes along and doubts myself if this work will ever be done? Well, I never said I will ONLY write the epic stories. When I write, I have so many ideas sprouting out that I will use one of the marginal ideas to write short stories to submit for publications. So that will give me a sense of continuous improvement and progress.

Another note on epic. More to myself than anything. I will want to write the whole epic story before I even consider submitting for publication. This is because I do not want to end up with something like the Harry Potter series. See, I am not saying the series is not wonderful. It is great. I absolutely love the story and all the characters in it. The storytelling is wonderful in that series. But reading through the whole series I felt a great balancing problem. One could see the first three or so books are self encapsulated within themselves but also had an overall ongoing plot going on. In the latter books, this is less so. The latter books feel they are STILL organically produced with a great sense of progression in the series that is very natural. BUT you can feel at times it is like going through the motions. One could almost tell by the length of the books, each longer than the last. The same sort of goes to Frank Herbert's Dune to a lesser extent. The first few books were wonderfully coagulated, but the rest felt like extensions of the original work. Sort of tying plotlines where they would fit.

One of the best in the epics that I have read would be of course the Lord of the Rings. It is so well balanced and paced that you feel that immense sense of scale and wonder only from a properly planned out book. Even more impressive would be the Narnia series. Seven books, seven. And each of such balanced scale, it is just wonderful. Though Narnia did not have that intertwining of plot and characters, it is however very consistent and strong in its hold on balance. I guess for Narnia, it is perhaps an easier task than LoTR though in a way, because the stories are inspired by Christian stories. So it is easier to keep that consistency of pace and story, when you have that overall outlook to look out for. What I'm saying is though, all these authors have the power of making every point of the story interesting and progressing at a good pace, while always maintaining what the big picture is. So it IS really important that I have a clear idea of what the whole story is before I submit anything at all. I, having never written a full length novel really have to finish writing a book before I have the necessary experience to plan forward. I would just be happy to be 10% of what these writers are. But one can dream, what can one do But dream, dream of the epic.

The Langoliers

by Stephen King

Just finished this a moment ago. I remember first watching a movie of this when I was little and how much I was creeped out by it. Not really pure fear, but a slow feeling of foreboding. It was really quite wonderful. And the thing is I don't think I watched the ending of that movie. So now I've picked up on reading the story (which is always better than their movie counterparts).

A complete synopsis here. The gist of the story is this. A bunch of people board a plane. 30 minuets into takeoff, almost the whole plane is empty and the remaining passengers awaken to this strange situation. They are finally able to land at Bangor Airport, Maine. When they get there, they discover it is almost exactly like the world they were in before, except that this world is utterly void of people and any living creature. And also there is the sound, the crackling sound. Sound like rice crispy popping from afar, as described by one of the passengers. This sound, it is getting closer too. The crackling rice crispies, coming closer and closer...

This is one of my favourite stories. The pacing is quite good, you never get out of breath or feel it is being dragged out too long. There are also several interesting themes and plot elements to it. The characters also, are unique and believable. Great story all in all.