My story planning is coming along nicely. I have a good grasp on the theme, plot, setting, and characters. I even have a title, but that will not be revealed until the story is finished in case a superior title comes to me during the writing. Now to begin the first draft!
Today was my dad’s fiftieth birthday. The day turned out to be remarkably busy, so I will only mention my favourite moment: present opening.
For as long as I can remember, Dad has told me stories. Often they were stories of his own past or stories of someone he knows. However, the stories he told the most were those he had read or made up himself. My favourite one to hear was that of Bilbo Baggins and his adventures with the dwarves and the wizard, Gandalf; this was Dad’s re-telling of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (and sometimes The Lord of the Rings). From the time I was two and a half years old until the ago of ten, Dad and I used to take walks around our mountain to a place we named The Valley of the Rabbits because the adorable little creatures were everywhere we looked. I was so enamoured by the stories of Middle-Earth that I named a large rabbit ‘Bilbo Baggins’ on one of our first walks, and I still can visit his hole until this day; though I have obviously not seen him in a very long time. When I knew that Dad’s fiftieth birthday was approaching, I tried to think of something that would mean a lot to him. I already own The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings so there would be no point in buying him those, yet I remembered that decades ago he read Tolkien’s collection of tales that further the mythology of Middle-Earth, The Silmarillion. So, I spent a while hunting the book down and found a beautiful hardcover edition with even more content than the original book and fifty (I found the number fitting) glorious illustrations. He was very touched when he opened the wrapping and saw the book. Then his emotion turned to excitement to read it. I love my dad.
I love creative fits. My mind works in tides of creativity and emotion — a topic which might make an interesting entry of its own — and for the past few weeks it has been in low tide. Times like these see me create relatively nothing and that is why I have decided to improve my discipline; I believe practising discipline will lessen the affect of writer’s block. Anyway, it seems to be working. I am setting aside times when I force myself to do nothing but write or think of what to write. Only ideas for my short story have come to me so far, but that is much more than normal during such artistic droughts. In fact, I think that this new way of thinking is propelling me toward the high tide of creative bliss!
More soon.
It is my intention to become a brilliant writer and, with this early New Year’s resolution, I am certain that I will soon be on my way to accomplishing that goal:
I, Chad Zahara, hereby promise to cease my indulgent and undisciplined ways in order to become the next F. Scott Fitzgerald (in a literary sense, anyway; I am not one for alcohol).
Further, I promise to complete a short story by this Christmas (December 25 2009) and to begin work on my first novel.
Now it is written for all to see and all to hold me accountable.
