Untitled

My novel is supposed to be sent to a novella contest in August. I have about a month left to increase 3000 words to 20,000 words. The reason for this is because while I have most of the story planned out, I don’t have the ‘middle part’ of the story that is necessary for it to be whole.

The ‘middle part’ of a story is usually characterised by its series of events as well as everything that you learn from the story. I have found this in Orlando, in Middlemarch, in The Lighthouse, and several other books which I cannot remember right now. For me to write a novel, I need to have learnt a great number of life lessons already, which I honestly don’t think I have. How is it possible for things that take years to sink in to be perfectly grasped and trapped in a phrase or a sentence?

I hope that my novel will turn out well even though I have only a bit more than a decade of philosophical realisations to sustain me.

– Sarah

So basically, I am writing a novel, and I am going to submit it to a novella writing contest which has a deadline for 31st August. I don't think it really matters if I post a small part of it, so here it is:

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“Something called God,” he whispered.

“What is that?” she asked curiously, slightly scared by his mortified and secretive tone.

“A crude, dangerous creation and conception; something that could have the power to divide and disrupt civilization.”

“How could it do that?”

“Such an idea would cause people to justify wrong, subdue conscience and reason – maybe destroy it altogether – by thinking that something that had the power to control what happened to people, and was watching over them.

As a philosopher, Corrie, I would like you to conduct an experiment on the dangers of such an idea so that all thinkers around the world are cautioned against falling into the trap of such beliefs and together we all can guide civilization.”

Though from what, Corrie observed, he did not specify. Even though she was noticing the little failures and incompletions in the Superintendent’s speech as usual, she was greatly shaken. She was one of the world’s greatest contemporary philosophers, but such a task – to explore such a world as the Superintendent had described, while allowing seeds of such thought to enter her head – was an opportunity that she had never even dreamt of. But her agile and curious mind was already leaping at the possibilities of a task like this. Oh, what she could do for posterity!

And just like that the decision was made.

“I’ll do it!” she said, eyes sparkling.

“Wonderful,” said the Superintendent. “You will have access to the Humanitarian’s Library of course, and be admitted into the Scholar’s Annual Gathering at the university.”

- Sarah

I wrote this poem on the back of one of my father's cheques. It's about some weird thoughts I had one day during math class. I entered this to a writing competition too, so we'll see how that goes ://

Poem on the back of a cheque

360 degrees, 0 displacement,

ending back where you started

material success has no value,

because everyone ends up in

the same place.

-

180 degrees right.

180 degrees left.

two halves make a whole.

half moral virtue and half primitive evil still end up in

the same place.

-

the start is the end.

from the end you start again.

your halves join together at

the same place.

- Sarah

Dull afternoons

Blinding heat

Below the reluctant moon,

Smokey streets.

-

Humdrum skies,

Imitation breeze,

Weary eyes,

A dusty sneeze.

-

Orange light in closed eyes,

Cold when outside burns,

I hope the languid street,

Into cool water spurns.

- Sarah

I wrote this poem based on the experiences of me and one of my friends combined. It's a little message to parents to realise that the mental health of their kids is very important and that teenage depression is frighteningly real. I entered it to many competitions but none of them have gotten back to me yet about it, so I don't think it's likely to win. Here it is:

Who Is the Outside World

Who is the outside world to say we

Cannot walk out –

However we are,

When it is it that has caused us to be so?

-

Youth is a tender state of mind;

You who crossed the bridge of teen –

Have forgotten your tremblings of fear –

Fear of failure, loss, grief.

-

How dare you proclaim us today!

To wipe our tears for the upholding of your childish pride.

To cope with the walls closing, youth –

Seeks refuge in unjudging pleasure.

-

I believe it is you who have forgotten,

You who shy at your remembrances of youth, or –

You who disguise your former trauma in roses and lilies,

Who end up closing the walls upon the youth today.

-

The state of happiness is a candle that flickers –

At the bedroom window of your daughter, your son;

Look closely and you will see their shadow,

Traced by the disillusioning light. 

The last stanza is my favourite :) I wrote this when I was auditioning for a slam poetry competition in school and honestly this is one of the best poems that I have ever written because it was written during a moment of real inspiration. Usually my poems are cheap and meaningless and shallow.

- Sarah

Do not title your story until it is completely finished. In my experience, anyone who comes up with great, revolutionary, poetic titles of potential stories that they are going to write hardly ever gets down to writing more than that.

Make sure your title is so intimidating that your story looks like it has been written by a genius.

Here are some templates that you can use:

Character's Adjective Object (e.g. Michael's Ludicrous Cat)

The Object In the Place (e.g. The Love in Her Eyes)

Past Tense of Any Verb (e.g. Adored)

The Number of Characters (e.g. The Three Sisters)

Adjective Natural Phenomenon (e.g. Lusty Storms)

- Sarah

Far away in a distant land,

Where end the glistening rivers blue;

Shores enriched with silver sand,

Where grow a lillies few.

-

Up on its hills and waving plains,

Dance the first singing streams,

Low at the port and receiving mains,

Come the gusty, tired steams.

-

There leap the wildest fires free,

That singe the mighty trees old,

There falls the delicious summer rain,

Which the soft air does hold.

-

There spring the wild, dashing folk,

Bold with “spirit, fire and dew”,

Who spin the breezes with their lore,

Thick with lushness and springtimes new.

It's so bad; it makes no sense :( I don't even want to finish it, it's really bad and meaningless. Like Cassandra Mortmain says: 'the words are as cheap as a sentimental song'

- Sarah

I have been doing a course these days where I'm learning about playwrighting. The course is so beautifully presented and done and I'm honestly learning a lot from it. It's called 'Finding Your Voice As A Playwright' and it's by Cambridge University (it's available on EdX). I was watching one of their lectures the other day about how Shakespeare's use of the word 'and' is so innovative that it basically created a new language from which he was able to connect the two different types of audiences that came to watch his plays - the noblemen and the commoners. When Shakespeare placed two adjectives on either side of the 'and', he created two viewpoints which communicated between the poor and the rich. The 'and' is the electrified space between.

How are young writers supposed to have a chance when the way that Shakespeare uses the word 'and' is so revolutionary? I always think that a phrase is a moment that writers have grabbed from the air and imprisoned onto paper. But behind one phrase is pages and pages of analysis that is explaining aspects of it that may not even have been intentionally put there as a writer. The standard of great writers is so high that my own insecurity increases and I feel really doubtful as to whether I can write something that can even be remotely considered good.

- Sarah

Whenever I go somewhere and I see something that sparks my curiosity – I think oh! I can write a story out of this! At least this is what I used to think, before I realised that there are many steps to go from witnessing an incident to actually being inspired. I am not a writer like Roald Dahl who can just see a peach and think ‘oh, what if someone were to live inside a peach…’ and just go ahead and write a whole book about it. I am also not one of those writers who has lived their entire life, and one day when they maybe see an emotionally provoking incident on the street, they sit down in front of a desk and regurgitate all their life’s learnings down onto paper – not in the form of a manifesto, no, but a novel that from then on is conveniently considered a ‘classic’.

I am also not one of those people who go around being quiet geniuses and observe the world through their lens of silent superiority; all the while churning out classics under a pseudonym. Oh, and those writers who always win first prize in the short story or poetry writing competition where when I read their winning story, it just has a mix of modern settings and a hazy perspective and just a general feeling of being drunk. I am always abashed and look at my inky papers in shame, because I immediately feel like a successful modern writer has to go around being drunk very often in order to capture modernity into their stories. It’s pretty fair to say that I will never be one of those writers either.

And then there is the problem of the names of the characters and the setting of the story. I have an inexplicable contempt for writers who write in English and don’t base their characters in England or America. This probably stems from some deep-rooted racism that I have against writers from my own country, because I similarly hate reading about characters who are bestowed with an Indian name. I don’t know why, but I simply cannot stand reading a book where a character says something in their native language and then its translation is also like written next to it. It just freaks me out. This is the reason why all my characters are based in an unnamed city, with strange, cobbled-together names, and most importantly, do not show any signs of owning any electronic devices because that is just the height of vulgarity.

This is probably because I grew up reading Enid Blyton and gradually moved onto historical fiction for children – namely Jaqueline Wilson. I read Terry Pratchett and L.M. Montgomery. Then I eased myself into Charles Dickens, George Eliot, the Brontës, and so on. Never in my life did I read books where people texted each other.

If I had been born during the Victorian times, or some beautiful romantic period like the Renaissance, I would have enjoyed being a writer to no end. So in conclusion, my literary dilemmas are still unsolved, but at least I have managed to conclude that I have been born several centuries too late!

- Sarah