Still Being Random

The holidays have officially started for me, my husband is home and I have time to do everything I've been wanting to do.

Life looks good for now.

For as long as I can remember, there is one thing I have ever wanted to do, and do well. And that is to write.

Someone simple-minded might say - "You can write." To which I will only reply - "If that is what you believe, then you have never read."

At one point in my life, I contemplated writing for a living. And I'm sure many friends in my circle of friends have thought the same at one point in their lives as well. However, my father being the practical man that he is questioned my dream then because no money would come out of it. How would I be able to maintain my life? He had a point. If I had stood my ground, I might have ended up in a job I might have begun to hate while earning pittance. That might not be so bad if I had never wanted anything in my life. But looking at my current lifestyle, I'm glad I never took up writing as a livelihood.

Having said all that, I still would like to write. I did once dream of writing a novel but my attention problem would never have let me finish the novel. I once started something in longhand (is there such a word?) but after I reached the end of the second exam pad, my attention waned and I moved on.

I've written many short stories and planned (and outlined) even more. Yet, they all remain in the library of my mind, doomed to collect dust there until such a time that I might pull them out again.

The problem I have is that, when I was a child, I read adult books. I finished the entire Hardy Boys collection (at that time) by the time I was 11. Then I jumped to books like Jane Eyre, Gone With The Wind, Wuthering Heights, anything by Edgar Allen Poe and such books. Of course, I also discovered Mills & Boons, from which I learnt many odd phrases and many weird things people do when they're in love and denying it. I also discovered Barbara Cartland and wanted to be like the ladies in her books. They were not as helpless as Nancy Drew, really.

The other part of the problem was that when I got to young adulthood, I began to read teen fiction. So I was doing things in reverse. People have wondered how I could read so fast. When you've gone from Gone With The WInd to some teen fiction, the reading gets way easier. That, and this speed reading session I took once. Also, the only thing that could hold my attention long enough was a book.

I read so much and so fast that it felt really wasteful to buy a book. Anything thin would be devoured within half a day and anything thick was completed within a few days. So, it was with great relief (on my parents' part) that I got a membership card to the British Council library. I borrowed three books each time and returned them well before the due date of two weeks.

I guess all this influenced my writing style. When I started to write short stories later, I got a lot of help from my English lecturer in college. She guided me through a lot of bumpiness. She was the first person to tell me about choppy storylines and cliche plots. She taught me to write draft after draft after draft after draft. She was also the one who told me to write a story then leave it until I'd almost forgotten then go back and read it like it was for the first time. And if I didn't understand or couldn't picture what I wrote then I had to rewrite or edit it. I once wrote a 2000-word paper for her without research and with only a few editing. The facts were already in my head and I had started writing the story in my head from the moment she gave us the assignment. It took me three days to write it. I'm not sure if it was good or bad that she never returned it to me. She gave me an A and tried to get me to go one level higher - script-writing. I did it for one term, wrote a script, took part in Drama classes and then discovered I'd rather direct and produce than act. That script was also submitted to her and never returned. That's when I also read Death of a Salesman inside and out, cover to cover. That book is a wonderful example of script writing.

But my love is still in story writing. I don't write like it's a movie or a TV show. If I wanted that, I'd write scripts. I write a little like Leslie Charteris - lots of descriptions, explanations and just some dialogue. Teen fiction and romance require lots of dialogue. Adult fiction have just enough to enhance the story. I would love to write like Leslie Charteris. His Simon Templar is so witty, charming and absolutely divine.

So I'm not saying my writing style is bad. I'm saying it's my style and influenced by what I read at an early age. Despite my love for romance books, I can't write romance. It's too tedious. I show romance by behaving it, not just writing it. It rather explains why I don't write love letters. My romance sound whiny to me. Imagine how it sounds to others.

While I can sometimes come up with the most appealing phrases, I get a little shaky at world-building. I can picture but I cannot seem to describe it. Yet, while I know I'm not the worst, I also know I have got a lot to learn. Some people get deflated when their stories require too much editing. I'm not that arrogant. However, too much editing allows my mind to wander. Before you know it, what started out as a murder mystery ends up being a fantasy with a pinch of romance and just a teeny dash of horror.

Maybe I should just stick to short stories. And I get a lot of my inspirations - amazingly - form my students. They say the oddest things which make the oddest connections in my mind. So if I get bizarre suddenly, you know why.

But I love reading Leslie Charteris books. Books by British authors surpasses those by American authors in leaps and bounds and vocabulary and wit.

I sigh and I wish and wish...