Posted in Posted by J. M. Barrie

Tis Barrie, I have returned from the magical faraway land called... Nashville. *ooh* Well, I must tell y'all something. I have destroyed Sonata Pathetique. I over-thought it, and some sacrifices I have made to the plot to "please others" have twisted and ruined it. All the "character slips" with them being online too much have given people preconcieved ideas about what they are like. I hated my two main characters, and my favorite character was a minor one, and he died early on in the story, so that made me want to make him much more important than he was supposed to. Hawthorne was originally going to be the most likeable fellow, but turned out to be a stupid hotheaded headstrong man. I didn't leave enough "wiggle room" in the plot, so it ended up being a stiff-collared, people-pleaser sort of story. I don't want to write only for others, I want to write so I can enjoy it, too. That might seem selfish, but what am I getting out of writing if I don't like what is coming out of my pen?

I have resorted to reading and watching movies, letting new inspiring ideas drift into my head through that. And it has worked. I now have over 6 new ideas for stories, all very different from anything I've ever written before.

I used to be reading Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, I suppose some of y'all are familiar? You miss everything that happens in the story because it's lost in the detail. Sir Scott uses long words only to show off with the big words he knows. There is an entire chapter devoted to describing the Prince's clothing. If Sir Scott had known better, he would have tried to please the crowd even a little. But yet Ivanhoe is marked off as a masterpiece. If it was up to me, I'd burn it. Now do y'all see why I stopped reading it? Well, last night I picked it up again, because I knew there were some beautiful monologues in there. So, I took from about the only good element in that novel, the dialogues and monologues. So I've stashed that away in my mind.

I am in the worst of habits. Writing Sonata Pathetique and reading Bleak House has put me in the atrocious habit of writing in the present tense. It is stressful, scary, and suspenseful. It puts you under some sort of rush, so now when I am writing, the present tense creeps in there. I have to take a deep breath, go back, and erase the part in the present tense. Never try writing in the present tense, my dears, no matter how cool it may seem, it led Sonata Pathetique to ruin.

I write little doodads and don't bother about writer's block. If I can't write, I don't try. It takes a lot of stress off my shoulders. By little doodads, I mean if I see an odd-looking person, I write a description of them on a scrap of newspaper or a bulletin or program or whatever paper I have. If I hear of an incident, I write it down in my interpretation, or if I have a random thought, I can turn it into a short little scene.

I like to write nonsense sentences. It somehow helps me with writing. Here are some of them.

The consumption of opium in some diverse territory is strangely oblique, while horses of American attributes dance on the line of contrary.

Sinister beings of the world have an abstract tendency to oppressive degradation.

I write nonsense songs that are supposed to be "beautiful" but just make everyone confused, including me. It's sort of my way of mocking modern songs. So that's how I have recovered from my writing crash.

Here is a warning about what I write. Snick says I write like Tolkien. It comes like waves. I write and write, then start over, I try again, get a little further, start over, and every time it gets just a little further, and then I start over. It is just how I write, it's what works for me. Please don't get frustrated with restarts.

Just a few of my new story ideas...

1. A fairytale about a prince who goes out on dates with a bunch of different princesses and doesn't live happily ever after.

2. A murder mystery, but I can't say what it is about, it would ruin the story.

3. A group of playwrights living in 1589. They are all nobles, highly esteemed, and they are afraid that if their plays aren't considered good, it would ruin their names, so they publish them under the name William Shakespeare.

4. A satirical modern fantasy.

I don't want to go into all of them. I have told thee the tale of min sad fate and how I svrvived. I bid thee farewell.

~Barrie