A column about nothing

Inspiration is hard to come by. Actually, it isn’t, but proper inspiration is quite scarce. Writing is an escape for me. Writing is what I do to get rid of those annoying emotions that make me want to take up smoking.

Now what the f*** do I write about? Life is only as mundane as you make it, so even someone like me can convince themself that they’re some sort of trend-setting superstar, but damn it, my life has been grey lately. I could write a blog post about how I believe my Camy Club-Star gives me good luck when writing exams… If I hadn’t done that already. I could write about Newton’s laws and some calculus, but that’s not really going to appeal to the target audience here. You people want to hear about balance staffs and lug-to-lug dimensions.

So I’ll write about writing.

Sherwin’s first post really resonated with me. I too find joy in the mundane and I fit the definition of “struggling writer” very well. I started off writing science fiction. I love science and I serially ask myself “what if?” A lot of times, stupid questions get asked. In fact, I got so deep into one of my questions that I accidentally invented the bumper automatic movement the other day. Just wait until I find out about rotors…

Science fiction stopped working for me rather abruptly. I am obsessive when it comes to accuracy, so I found myself getting increasingly frustrated by not understanding the deepest annals of science that would govern massive spaceships and superluminal travel. That’s mostly because such a science is pure hypothetical until someone decides to build a big spaceship and figures out how to travel faster than light. What I enjoyed most was my characters. I can write a character; I love it more than any other part of writing. The characters of my first attempt at a book were flushed out and well-rounded. I enjoyed working with them, the people with their own flaws, loves and enmities, more than I did the spacecrafts and robots.

The next logical step was to look myself in the eye and accept my fate as a writer: romance. It was the biggest pile of dirt on my name, even though I make a point of keeping my narrative writing very secret. Nobody knew that my writing went from decently well thought out science fiction to really well thought out romance and young adult fiction. Nothing has been published yet. Maybe nothing will ever be published. In my mind, I had an idea that writers of such books were looked down upon. Their work is less scientific and requires less thought than hardcore science fiction, so it only made sense to me that they would be seen as second class citizens of the authorial word.

I have come to terms with my niche as a writer: people. I don’t have to make a story romantic, but I often do, because is love (and its complement lust) not the most cardinal of instincts we possess? I have been feeling the itch to start some new writing projects, which is never a good thing, because any more than one or two means that they all get neglected and become slightly conflated.

I feel the urge to write fiction about watches. That’ll likely come after I round out the two projects I’m working on. A watch can tell a story. I have told the story of all of mine so far. Can you see why I feel the need write fiction about watches? Watches only get their stories through people.

I think I just need to get out there and make more stories with my watches. I think we should all do that.

A little note: I might bring back (hopefully to Kaysia’s delight) my “a watch enthusiast tries to write romance series” just for the laughs. These pieces, while fun, can be a little tricky for me, as they either end up with strong connections to watches and little romance or vice versa. For the sake of my writing’s popularity, we need more teenage girls reading TER. My next few posts will be about the jewellery side of Cartier and the best perfumes to attract a werewolf. It’s a necessary evil, I’m afraid.