As mentioned earlier, my Creative List for 2011:
1. Writing: Write and complete my first novel.
This “writing a novel” thing is nothing new. I am a writer, afterall, who barely wrote anything fiction of my own so far. So yeah, naturally, I do aspire to pen my own novel one day and get it published. It’s a dream of mine and also, a task that I had difficulty bringing myself to tackle all this while. Until a month or so ago, when something, a tale, became so clear to me that the urge to actually – finally – write it out is stronger than ever.
So it’s time.
The story I had in mind is an old one; dates way back to when I was a teenager. The story had evolved as I grew older – characters changed, new ones revealed, others struck off, changing the landscape of the tale. It was never written down. Ever. I attempted before but it refused to be revealed further. I may have told some bits and pieces to close friends over the years, but that was as far as it went.
The funny thing about this story is that, this core story that’s been brewing in my head for almost twenty years, is not the one I’ll be writing. It turns out, oddly enough, a sub-plot of sorts that was meant to introduce the core story. Unfortunately, the core story at this very moment is still rather vague in many points and it could not be told once other areas are clearer to me.
Anyway, back to this sub-plot: It was originally meant as a novella to introduce a little background to explain the events that will drive the core story. Strange enough, that “little” background suddenly unravelled one day, out of the blue without warning and absolutely caught me by surprise that I was actually scared of it. Yes, scared. Because what was revealed was something unexpected. I had never thought about it (though I think by coincidence, signs had been shown in front of me for several months, including my trip to Hanoi, which I didn’t realized until then). It all came to me and the story is so clear in my head that I can feel it.
I can reveal that it has blown up into a potential full-fledge novel instead of a novella. Clearly, this story wants to be a star and not play the supporting role. I can say that this story is of the “magical realism” genre – a layer of fantasy intertwine closely with what we know in reality to be true or able to relate to. Contrary to my obvious interest in vampire tales, this story is not following the current over-done trend of vampires, zombies or angels in literature. Although I cannot guarantee if these three creatures will make an appearance at some point in the story.
The subject itself is new to me actually. Research had proved to be interesting but I don’t want to get myself too caught up in all that information (been through that mistake before) for fear I may lose all that back story as told by the voice of this character. No, I’m not crazy (at least I don’t think I am crazy that way) but stories – or snippets of it – comes to me either in visual or some voice in my head. Weird, but true.
Well, two voices ‘spoke up’ about the same story. I had a tough time recently, trying to decide on which voice, which point-of-view, to follow. I have, however, finally settled on the setting of the story. It won’t be some fictional place as I had originally intended. It’s just funny that KL suddenly fits the bill. With all the things that’s happening in KL and around the world over the year or so, everything just fell in place and made sense for this piece of fiction.
I suppose I am very excited about it. I’m writing this explanation down on this post to remind myself, especially when I may lose steam midway. It’s a reminder that I think I have a good story to tell and I should finally tell it. So I have this year to write chapters and chapters of this story till it is complete. I mustn’t fall off the wagon. I have to do this. My deadline is December 1, 2011.
2. Craft: Design, produce and sell a proper handcrafted collection.
Perhaps it is crazier to burden myself with another hefty creative task when I have a novel to write. I know. But I try to be realistic with this one.
This will be a small collection. It won’t have a whole range of things as I had initially planned. I have to keep reminding myself that I am a one-woman factory who has to juggle life, day job, a novel and many commitments on top of this. I cannot stretch myself too thin for the sake of my health and sanity.
Although back in October I had mentioned something about a jewelry range thrown into the mix of small bags I want to make for the yet-to-be-titled collection. That’s too ambitious, if I do say so myself. So yeah, jewelry has been scrape off the list. I will concentrate on bags – or maybe just a bag or two (one big, one small). I will come up with a proper design, and hand sew it together. My experiments in crafting will be more focused into one product now instead of in the past, looking like a lose cannon ‘shooting’ for whatever fancies my mood.
So yeah, this year I’m training myself to be more focused and disciplined, and not to have too many ideas and doing it all at once as I did in the past. This small collection will have a theme, a name, even more well-thought out in terms of construction and design. I have a rough idea already. I just have to settle on a design and figure out the best way to execute the construction.
The product will be made with care and sewn by hand. No two bags will look exactly the same. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that people will like it.
As I will be doing this collection this year, I will not be accepting any new custom orders at this moment. You may buy the gift sets on sale at my shop now if you want anything handmade by me. Those are cute gift sets, if I do say so myself. Please support. The faster these are sold off, the faster new products will be put up on sale. Hee.
So there. My Creative List 2011. Wish me luck and guts to follow through and complete this by year end.
