28/06/08

On writing and other things...

I realised yesterday that there was one emotion lacking in my heroine: anger. She needs to go through stages, especially during her stint in the castle or she remains a whimp. She must first be afraid, anxious, then there has to be a moment of frustration at some point and I’m thinking about having her break a few things in her room out of anger. Then it would be back to crying. Now I think that would make her more believable. Although what I went through these past few days (with uni)  was different from her own experience the emotions were similar. I felt as though a rock had fell on my head, just as she must have felt when they dragged her in that castle. She was in a state of confusion and all...Just as I was, walking around for two days in a daze, in denial even, not knowing how I felt exactly or what had really happened.

 Then frustration and sorrow take over in turns before ending in sheer sadness again when you either decide to keep fighting or give up. I’m the kind who gives up so obviously my heroine must fight back. I can chose to put my characters through worse things than I’ve had to confront but I couldn’t make them as weak as I always turn out to be. They have to be strong. they have to succeed in the end. That reminds me of that film we watched the other day “Becoming Jane” and how the main character -Jane Austen, of course- replied to her heartbroken sister asking how her story would end. She had said that although her heroines would have to go through some difficulties they would in the end get everything they had dreamt of... 

I completely understand such a view. When nothing works in your own reality why the heck would you stab yourself in the back by giving your heros as much of a rotten life?... They do become your only way to get as close to fulfillment as you ever could in reality. They let you have several lives all rolled into your own. Happy endings are my prerogative and only the wicked shall be made to suffer when in real life they are bound to strive.

What always worries me somewhat is my tendency to idealise situations and people, not just for the best but also for the worse. In my case idealising doesn’t necessarily means turning everything into some fairytale expectation. I seem to expect far too much from the world and people in general. Because of this I often end up disappointed. That in turn makes me prone to depression. I worry that any little thing hurting my feelings, even the most trivial of coincidences, is enough to bring me down so much that I lose the will to do anything.

Idealising means, to me, that every little thing can easily be blown out of proportion, ‘dramatised’ to excess. I know I do it all the time. I waste my time trying to read between the lines and because I’ve always been a clumsy sign reader when it comes to read people of course I’m bound to get to the wrong conclusions. I’m an inner drama queen in the sense that I like nothing better than focus on one tiny detail and imagine the worst in my head. Last example in mind? Well, there’s my rant about Dave not inviting me to his birthday when really, he had. I’d imagined the worst simply because he never replied to one of my friendly posts on facebook. I had to take it personally, add two and two together and get five, of course. That kind of thinking pattern is such a natural part of my personality that it proves extremely hard to modify. At least I’m able to pin point my issues and perhaps one day I can find the keys to answers that will help me change for the better. For now all I seem to be able to do is identify what is wrong. I still have no clue as to how to make things right.

There is a sense of infinity within my mind, yet I can feel time slipping through my fingers.