Up to this point in the day, I have been searching for a topic for my current article. When the feeling of being late sets in, it can sometimes be unintentionally overwhelming. Because I know that if I start writing, it will take a couple of hours and I will compromise the discipline I apply to myself.
I browse through my notes and the sites in my browser bookmarks and find my themes. Sometimes I find some topics interesting, but I don’t feel like writing about them at that moment. I know it sounds like I don’t have the luxury of limited time, but if I’m not feeling well, I’d rather not write about it. Something to write about will come up sooner or later.
Although some of my notes are from months ago, if the notes from a week or two ago arouse my curiosity more at the moment, I dive into them. I refresh my knowledge or partially eliminate my ignorance and convey as much as I understand according to the formality of the subject.
So we can see that writing is not as easy as we usually think. It may require work like studying, preparing for an exam, writing a paper. Every time I write there is the excitement and sometimes the suffocation of feeling like a student again. However, I can say that these overwhelming moments are less if we think of it as a relatively free and ambitious student period.
Getting back to the subject, I did some research. I looked up literary terms I was interested in on a site I hadn’t looked at for a while. Sometimes the words we know are more striking. After reading about the topic, I saw that there were some comments. There were some comments from 2011 and no new ones.
When I read books from fifty or a hundred years ago, I feel that there is no distance between me and the story or the author, but when I read such old comments on the internet, it feels very strange. I think it has to do with our limited perception of time, “after a certain point” it doesn’t make much difference. But the recent past, which we know and live in, has a more powerful feeling.
On the other hand, I came across another one before I could get away from this interestingness. For some reason I saw that the most recent comments were at the bottom, and it seems that some of them had just commented anonymously on the topic today, a few hours ago. I think the possibility of this is even more surprising. It seems a bit poetic to me to be in the same time zone as someone on this site, on this link, years later, analysing the same thoughts on the same day. It’s like one of the universe’s little jokes.
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
Let’s not go back to the subject this time, let’s get to the point. When I saw the comments, I quickly collected my thoughts and thought about what I wanted to write about. First of all, I should mention that this is one of the things I enjoy more about writing articles than fiction: the ability to dive into sudden and irrelevant topics at a moment’s notice.
One of the commenters mentioned whether or not one should read first in order to write. First of all, this question seems ridiculous to me. I think that is what we are supposed to do. Aren’t we? When I read the rest, I understood better what he meant. He was writing a story and he didn’t want to be influenced in any way. Even though he would like to stay away from other media, he says he can’t.
When I thought about it, I realised how sensible it was. In fact, I do it in a way that divides it into two issues. The first is time. Normally I am not a game lover, in fact I find it enough to have the knowledge to talk about them rather than to play them. But the main reason is that playing games while I have responsibilities (whatever they are) has taken on a structure that makes me feel bad. Because I felt I wasn’t making time for the things I really needed to do when I was doing them, I cut back a lot on gaming years ago. Still, I began to think that it was more acceptable to learn about them (which is usually by reading and watching). How much difference that makes is up to you.
Secondly, as the commentator mentioned, to create fiction with the clarity of thought without being influenced by other themes. It is a fact that completely original fiction is almost impossible. I have no problem with that, I have long overcome it. But I think we have a structure that inevitably remains in our subconscious, that pushes us towards these themes in our fiction for no reason. Moreover, if we sometimes like to construct alternative scenarios while consuming a work (writing fiction, I think, requires this), we carry these ideas with us. So when we return to our own fiction, we may want to push them into a corner.
Of course, as you know, this is how inspiration actually happens. It actually means “I can do this in a different way, I can take it to another dimension in accordance with my own abilities and thoughts”. Nevertheless, when I read this comment, I realised that there are others who think like me. During the time I was writing my fiction, I tried to stay as far away as possible (at least) from some certain genres and themes that would be relevant.
But there is a problem. So much so that sometimes, even if the subject is fiction, what we need to write may require the use of concrete information. If the subject is scientific, academic or requires knowledge beyond what we know, then it is obvious what we have to do. It is necessary to research and, if necessary, to read, to observe, in short, to become aware of the subject. As I said at the beginning, it is precisely at such moments that what we write is more than just “random things that come to mind”.
Writing is learning. It may even be a biased point of view, but I think it is one of the most efficient ways of learning. It also requires reading when necessary.
In the subject I am researching (prose fiction), there is a part of naming works according to their length. If it was 1000 words it was called “flash fiction”, if it was around 8000–10000 it was called “short story”, if it was around 10000–60000 it was called “novella” and if it was more than that it was called “novel”. Of course, I have read in other sources that these terms and lengths can change with different variables such as genre, academician and period, but it struck me again.
Before I started my fiction, I always called it a novella and thought it was appropriate to write in that word count range. I had organised the themes, the chapters, some basic parts of the fiction accordingly. But in time, when I got to my last story, I realised it didn’t work that way at all.
The last chapter (chapter 9) was almost as long as all the others. I never expected to write such a long article, but there was a reason for it. No, this time it is not the phenomenon of time that plays the leading role. It is the point in the title: reading.
In the last chapter I had convinced myself of the necessity and appropriateness of a philosophical point of view, which I thought would allow me to end the narrative in the right way. For this reason, I slowly entered into philosophy, which I prefer to stay away from because I think I cannot do it, even though I love it. I bought books related to this genre and to the themes I was dealing with in my fiction; as I read them, they allowed me to move on to other books. So I spent more time reading and taking notes than writing. I think I must have read 5–6 books, each of which, as far as I thought I understood it, was a great help.
When I was on my last story, I felt like I was really writing for the first time. Perhaps the fact that I went into more detail also had an effect, but whereas my other stories were “just” fiction, this one was like exactly as it should be, as if it were the main story. Yes, unfortunately I can’t finish it because I don’t feel mentally up to it (even though I know and take note of the very end). But that doesn’t mean I won’t end the book.
That is, sometimes there are some points that seem plausible at first glance, and the more we dwell on them, the more certain we become of their truth. Yes, it doesn’t always have to be a blind approach, after all my first choice may have been reasonable. But when I took the step of continuing to read while writing, I did not (at least I can say this for myself) encounter the kind of negativity I expected. On the contrary, I can say that I approached it a little more consciously and realised the necessity of it.
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