Man, it’s really been a while since I’ve posted. Here’s a quick post about my newest piece, a personal essay about figuring out how to reconcile a tri-cultural identity.
Any thoughts or comments? Post below!
Source: The complicated journey towards identity as a gay Canadian man of colour
It’s a strange feeling, to want to write something as arduous as a book. Usually, the only cravings I’ll get are for chips or chocolate but somehow I found myself wondering why I shouldn’t write a novel — and this is coming from someone who doesn’t usually write fiction. I’ve always found it difficult to craft something entirely made-up; mostly I’m just not sure 1) I have enough plot to tell a story, and 2) anyone will truly believe what I’m writing. Yet I do have ideas for novels, including a YA novel that, the more I think about it, the more difficult it actually seems to write. I suppose I’m kind of going in circles here, but bear with me, this is a stream-of-consciousness thing and I’m not going to go back and edit this so too bad if it’s one big mess of ideas.
I think the problem I have with writing a novel is that it’s daunting. The word count is daunting. The amount of time people spend — years upon years of their lives — is daunting. Creating something good, telling a worthwhile story — it’s all daunting to me. I think part of the problem is that I build up this idea of how to write a novel that I don’t even begin doing it. That’s why I think National Novel Writing Month is so awesome; the idea of writing an entire novel in a month — or rather, that someone, anyone, could, over the course of 30 days, simply write a book — is amazing to me. It doesn’t have to be that hard. And I think this is what I’m slowly learning. Writing doesn’t have to be that hard (if you know the story you’re trying to tell). What it takes some writers up to a decade to write could take others — including myself — a few weeks.
I could do it, I’ve been telling myself. I could, if I truly wanted to.
I’ve been deciding whether or not to submit a few poems to a literary magazine and have been ambivalent about it. In the past, I’ve submitted my poems pretty much everywhere and only in LGBT lit mags do they ever get published, leaving me with the impression that my poems are only good enough for queer audiences. I know poetry is probably my weakest genre to write in although I personally think some of my poems are pretty darn good, even though publishers and editors don’t seem to think so. It’s been really frustrating, to say the least.
Today, I realized I don’t necessarily have to get my poetry published in lit mags to get it out there. I could publish my own chapbook! Duh. The Vancouver Public Library even has a collection of zines that people can borrow — it’d be really cool to have it there where people could borrow it if they wanted. The idea of designing my own poetry collection and leaving it up to people to read if they wanted to (or not, I fear).
Now to do some research into zines/chapbooks… 🙂
Only realized today that I could’ve submitted some of the pieces I had published last year to the National Magazine Awards (the deadline was in January). Things like awards just don’t cross my mind, especially when most awards for writers are for published books, not pieces in literary magazines. I think I probably wouldn’t feel as bad about not submitting anything if I hadn’t gotten “Underworld” published, which I think is probably the best, most literary thing I’ve written and could likely have gotten me something.
Oh well.
I’ll try to tell myself I’ll write even better things.
It feels strange to say that. I’ve written a book. I’ve written a book. I’ve written a book. Weird. But really cool.
Mind you, it’s not published yet so I’m not sure I can call it a book yet. Meh.
I’ve written a book!
First I was listening to Classical music. Then it stopped and I wanted to listen to something a little different so I randomly started listening to the Edge of Tomorrow soundtrack. But it wasn’t that great and I thought, Definitely not Hans Zimmer. Then I started listening to Interstellar (again) and it was great. Then I started getting bored so I found a Hans Zimmer collection and started listening to that. But some of it wasn’t that interesting. And then I thought, Hey, that waves scene in Interstellar was pretty cool so I watched it again. And then I thought, Hey, that docking scene was pretty cool too and I watched that too. And of course I read all the comments because you have to when you watch a video. Then I watched the Ending scene because it was in the related videos.
And now it’s time for bed. So productive!
I’ll finish my book and I will get it published. It is that simple. I can do it.
It will happen.
I watched another episode of Inside Amy Schumer and am going to bed early, in the hope that I will wake up earlier tomorrow morning and work on this godawful personal essay I wrote back in university. Wish me luck!
Of course the library gets a copy of the issue of filling Station I’ve been published in before I do. Speaking of which, um, where is mine?
I wonder if I should start keeping a journal. I’d imagine it’d be useful since I’m a creative non-fiction writer, but I feel like my everyday life is so mundane, there wouldn’t be anything to write about. Ie. I went to work. It was busy/fine/normal. I came home, had some food, played Age of Empires, watched a movie, procrastinated working on my memoir, then went to bed. Man, what an exciting life I lead.
aaron's random musings 