JoanB

I  invite you to read the short diary of my daily struggle as a writer. No clear update but I will try to write every day. Don't expect very long chapters.

Started as an entry for fun and submitted for writing prompt #63: One chapter post but still ongoing.

 Please add tags: #diary #drama #comedy #author #writing

Please read my ongoing story:
The Sorceress' Heir: Blossoming Youth and Power

Daily Struggle of an Author

"I make things up and write them down." - Neil Gaiman 🥇


I've been reading some of the books in Kindle yesterday and came across Neil Gaiman's book. 


Neil Gaiman is one of the authors of the #1 bestselling book for Greco-Roman Myth and Legend Fantasy Ebooks and Humorous Fantasy on Amazon, Good Omens. 


Once you open his profile, the one I quoted above is the first sentence you read. This struck me deep.


After reading it, I told myself I should be doing this way as well. That is story-telling. Not reality. A totally made-up world, a made-up life of characters, made-up dialogues which normal humans wouldn't dare to say.


I don't know for others but for me, this is more inspiring as a story-teller. 


Some blogs say that dialogues should be the same as the real people speak, so they advise I need to listen to people's conversations to make the dialogues realistic. I'm not against it, but I ask myself, how can it be a fiction story if it's that way? So, a fantasy world is okay but not the fantastical nuances in dialogues?


I agree to disagree. Of course, not applicable to all dialogues, but at least to a few. Perhaps, I'll write wisdom-like phrases or metaphors out of place. You can read some of it in my book, The Recipe of Love.


What makes a story entertaining and attractive are those tangents.


Places like the unrealistic wonderland of Alice, Oz, Narnia, Star Trek, an island in the core of the earth, and another world inside a column under the bridge. 


The strange turning of events where a ship floated on top of your roof and a girl being sucked in a hole then fell in a different world with people holding their heads on their hands, everyone would jump and not walk, frogs flies, birds and butterflies swim underwater, fish walks and talks like a human, mother hen and goose cooking beef meat, and etc, etc.


Like in Chinese novels were the fighters flew on top of roofs and others. Webnovel have a lot of this.


So, I have this notion inside my head and encourage to add these fanciful lands and events for my story. 


Well, if I'm writing realistic fiction stories, I'll use the nuances in dialogues and unusual life of people in weird places. 


Anyway, I'll go back to my writing and put these fancy ideas in my story.


"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." ― Sylvia Plath


"The first draft is just you telling yourself the story." ― Terry Pratchett


"You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page." - Jodi Picoult


"Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river." - Lisa See


"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one." – George R.R. Martin


"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." – Ray Bradbury


Verse for the day: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." 2 Corinthians 13:14


Writing Everything He Likes