Treasure Trove

Recently I've been reading this. It's the blog owner's life story, or something along those lines. I've been reading blogs for quite some time, every day ploughing through more than a hundred blogs just checking if there're any updates. I don't subscribe to any feeds since I don't understand how they work, so this is the only thing I can do.

I have a list of blogs in my favourites folder, and every day I click on them and check each and every blog. When my computer crashed the other time, lots of blog addies disappeared, okay, all of them disappeared, but I could only get back a the more popular ones, some of them disappeared in the black hole of the internet never for me to see again.

Why do I read so many blogs? It's not that I'm really interested in other people's life, okay, maybe I am interested in other people's life, but it's because I think that there can be things to learn from the lives of others. It's not always that there are gems out to be collected in blogs, but really once in a while (perhaps a very long while) there can be gems. I've been collecting gems and adding them to my own personal treasure trove, and blogs are a good source of gems.

What kind of gems did I mean? Stories of people.

Among friends, I know many of them like to consult me when they are having problems because I'm a pretty good listener. Not only am I a good listener, in terms of relationship problems, I'm sort of a very good aunt agony because of this collection of stories I have in me. By listening to them and serving as their aunt agony, I also collect little bits of gems adding to my trove, making me therefore a better listener and aunt agony to the next person that comes to me, sort of like a cycle.

Why do I have so many stories?

It started out with a collection of my own stories. Although I can say I've a pretty plain sailing life, I've never had problems with the basic necessities, nor have I problems with school, or anything most normal people face, I have been through a lot in terms of relationships. Not that I've had fifty boyfriends or anything like that, but I've face almost every relationship problem anyone could have face. Almost, I guess. Weighing my experiences, I have a sizable trove already, then as I get to meet people, talk to them, and tell them stories, I get their stories in return. Bit by bit, I prise more gems from them, and built up this collection I have.

Then I started reading blogs. Now and then, I get to see more experiences and different opinions and different mindsets and viewpoints. I broadened my thoughts, and now I can say I'm turning oblivious to my own problems, because I've seen worse, and whatever's happening to me I know is not the worst, so I take things easy. And I can also safely tell the friends who turn to me with their problems that what they are facing is not as bad as what others are facing. And I can support my argument with real life examples.

Of course, the whole crux of people trusting me with their problems is also that I not betray their trust. When I tell of people's stories, I make them sound like a story, sometimes I hade bits of details, sometimes I emphasise on a certain bit of relevant detail, but I NEVER name names, nor give out intimate details. If people trust me with their stories, I WILL respect that trust and NEVER betray them.

I digress again. I really need to stop digressing, if not I can never complete what I want to say. yea... I wanted to say that after reading the stories that this guy wrote, I'm inspired to finally start on my full length novel.

Previously I was working on my collection of short stories, the Parallelogram series, and the damnit... I forgot the name of that series. omfg... My check my archives later for the name of that series. yea... I was working on the two series. I remember!!! It's the "Prozac Nation" series. Okay, I was working on the two series until I got out of my depression and had a sort of bottleneck and inspiration drought. I was wanting to only start working on my full length novel after I completed with my two short stories collection.

But now, after sorting out the materials I have for my full length novel, and decided that since I'm no longer depressed and can't write my short stories, and am inspired by the writing of others, I shall start work on my full length novel. The title is Scarlet Flight. I have the plot plotted out and even preparations and plots for it's sequel out, but it's really not easy putting images in my head into words on paper. In fact, actually I do have words written out. This novel was first written as a screenplay, and I got up to a quarter into the story when I stalled.

I thought of Scarlet Flight the moment I read the above mentioned blog story because of the theme of teenage sex and pregnancy in the former.

Over the time, I've collected enough stories to give me a decent enough account of how I want to portray my characters and them dealing with the issue. Although in my novel I might be too utopian, but I sincerely hope that and with the glimmers of hope that shone through my trove, life is indeed filled with hope.

I realised I've changed a lot over with time and each passing event. Last time, I'd say it's impossible to 守得云开见月明, but after some time, I'm starting to doubt myself. I don't know how is it that these change in thoughts might affect my writings, maybe not for Scarlet Flight, but for its sequel, I've been changing my mind over and over again how I want my ending to be.

bah~ I think I'll go and watch more anime on youtube then decide how relationships to be. yea... Anime is a good treasure trove to examine relationships because of the subtleness of some actions and the room for imagination and the dimensions of the characters. Another place to look for gems are the cantopop MTVs of the 90s, very storylike and much like a minimovie. But too bad, I don't think any of them deals with teenage pregnancy.

I went to check my first plots of Scarlet Flight to check when was it that I conceived the idea of Scarlet Flight, it was in September 2001... wow... 5 years. I guess a lot of things have indeed changed. The sequel was plotted along with it. Or maybe I should just write them as a single book, but separating them as two "acts" or something.

I really should quit procrastinating. If not someone else might just go about writing something similar and that will be the end of my career even before it started.