Hello!!! A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks: the end of summer, the beginning of university and the 3 day novel contest just to name a few things. :) All in all there have been a lot of changes.
I spent the Labor Day weekend up in my room attempting to write a novel. Let me tell you that is no easy task normally but in those 3 days I learned more about my writing than I would have thought possible during that time span. I found that I like to write comedy and strive to make the reader laugh (even if that is just me). I also learned that I can finish something when I put my mind to it.
During the summer, I cleaned my room. Now you may think What is so important about that? Is it so messy you can't move around or something? but really there is a lot more to it. I guess you could say I collect stuff, mostly stuff I don't need but hang on to anyway. It was hard to throw out all these things that took up most of the space of my room. One particular thing in abundance was stories. The unfinished kind. As a kid (well I guess I still am a kid) I would dream up these ideas for stories and novels and set out to write them. But every time I only got so far before I stopped and I came up with another idea or got distracted by life. With this contest I really forced myself to sit down and write what had been stuck in my head.
When I signed up for the contest a couple months ago I had a clear idea of what my storyline would be. Then I went on my two week road trip in August. I spent many nights thinking about that story and the characters and all that sort of thing. One night a thought hit me: I have no personal connection to this story. Without anything I could relate to, how could I write it? I needed a story that I could mold out of my own experiences and the ones I dreamed up to make myself sit there and write and make them believable. So that night I switched to an entirely different storyline. I had less time to think about it in comparison to the other one but that is the whole point of the contest. Writing under pressure to see just how much you can achieve.
Three days after that contest I started university. I am finding several recurring patterns, one of which happens on a usual basis. Adults and parents of my sister's friends come up to me and ask What are you studying? I tell them, I am majoring in Creative Writing. This odd kind of look spreads across their faces because they don't know how to process that. Had I said I wanted to be a nurse or a teacher it might be more plausible for them (well maybe not a nurse because I am extremely squeamish). I guess really the look on their faces asks me what in the world do you do with that? Honestly? I don't know yet. Isn't that the whole point of university? To figure out what you want to do?
At an info session at the university before I started, someone told the parents that 1/4 of the students know what they want to do and have a clear vision, while the rest don't. They went on to say that everybody (including half of that quarter) go on to change their minds about what they are studying. Basically only a small fraction of them end up with what they'd originally had in mind. Sometimes I am scared of changing my mind as I am usually terrified of change as well as any decisions. It seriously took me forever one time to pick what I wanted off of a menu and the waitress took pity on me. Now that I am getting older and growing up, I realize that more decisions have to come from me and that I am in control of my life. It's intimidating but at the same time I have this underlying drive to do things.
For those if you in need of a mental break from all the studying and what not I suggest you watch this
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