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There's this saying that goes; "Paint what you see and write what you know".
Which discouraged me a little at first when I appraoched yesterday with a blank new document on MS Word. I had this long thought out story of werewolves and vampires, and maybe a pyscic telemarkerteer thrown into the swirling metropolitan New York life. It had a good plot, I had figured the names for the character already, and was all set and ready to type out this fantastic story in my head.
It struck me after writing 2 lines that I couldn't go on with writing that story. For the simple reason that I've never been to New York. Well, other than what I've watched on TV, anyway (namely CSI:NY and Without a Trace) and most of the NY I know basically involves psycho killers, missing people and a pile of rubble of what was formerly the WTC. I don't know about the lifestyle there, their geography, the way people on the street talk, just about noting that would make my story seem convincing.
Hopeless, I tell you!
How could I write a minutely detailed story about characters living in a setting that I had hardly a clue about. So poof! went that story about werewolves, vampires, and a psycic telemarketeer called Cassandra Cypress. Even if I were to go on with that story, and replace NY with KL, I doubt that would really work, as although I'm wildly imaginative, the mental image of a female werewolf, aged 21 walking down Petaling Street, haggling with the vendors for a fake Louis Vuitton bag is just beyond me.
So that idea was scrapped. Wham bang! Mel hits a writer's block, which happened even before the story was written.
But then, slowly, my mind began to gravitate slowly towards the "paint what you see and write what you know" idea. The most logical thing was to write down what I knew. So what can I say that I really, really know, inside out and can tell anyone about?
The only thing my mind could come up with was student life. What was it like to be a student, and to wake up late for classes, and not do homework. How horrible it is to get to school on a cramped public bus and meet all kinds of weirdos on it. About friends, and the fights that we get into and the good times we have. About scouters camps and how difficult it is to take a bath in the school bathroom at 6.30 am. About disgusting cafeteria food, and how my bag always ends up getting inevitably lost in the library's Locker Lane.
Paint what I see and write what I know.
I can say for sureity that one thing that I truly know is how to be a student. And that's what I intend to write about.
And the hard bit is where what do other people think of this idea? Would you be interested in reading a story about a normal, everyday, nothing special student. (I mean, I could think that the idea was fab, but most readers would find it boring) Thats when you come in. Would that be a good idea? Lousy one? Interesing? Mediocre?
Since this is supposed to be my writing journal, I'd love to hear what you guys think. Should I or shouldn't I?
In the immortal words of Schmacbeth; "Tw write, or not to write. That is the question."