the story about a story- 1  

Posted by Nitu in

As I began to write a crucial chapter of my story about a flood rising river sweeping a swath of landscape, the receding world economy shook my office. I had to call off my story writing and focus on code writing!(People let me think, you are being paid for the code, you know, for the code and hidden bugs, not for a gleaming firefly in a fable!)

The problem with IT professionals is that they don't have a definite timetable, at least not in India. It keeps on swaying in such a whimsical way I doubt even a circus master can attune himself to it. No, if you are a statistician, you still can't model this behaviour in your stochastic equation.

I dreamt of and made a resolution of a routine where my story would see a few words per day. But like so many dreams it saw the dust. I hit a doldrums.

Now that appraisal phase is over and I am nearing to the deadline of my code delivery, I am returning to my text editor( btw, text editor is far better and simpler than a code editor, only I wish it had a debug option!).

The primary objective of this chapter is to portray a flood calamity of a biblical magnitude. And I want it to be as vivid as possible, as devastating as perceivable. The chapter aims to -

1. a situation compounded by poverty and inherent human dark side.
2. rob a village of its innocent charm and simplicity
3. let the characters(including the protagonist) experience few incidents, both benign and severe which will eventually dictate and haunt their adult lives silently.

And I guess I started it well. But now that the flow was broken, I am finding hard to put myself in. Like an ex-lover returning and trying to win a second chance and confidence, it is awkward, hesitant and frustrating.
Btw, the abstinence has not been all that bad. For -
1. time again has reaffirmed it is what I love.
2. I have devised a twist in the story which will resolve a logical inconsistency present in the original story idea.
3. I have changed the name of the novel and I think, this truly reflects the story.


This entry was posted on Saturday, August 29, 2009 at Saturday, August 29, 2009 and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

1 comments

Commander Zaius  

The problem with IT professionals is that they don't have a definite timetable...

Took some IT courses in the early 2000's with the intention of working myself into the field but when the dot.com bubble popped over here the job market dried up. From watching what the IT guys over here have to go through its a tough field and its probably for the better I didn't make it.
At very best my code writing is mediocre to say the least.

But now that the flow was broken, I am finding hard to put myself in. Like an ex-lover returning and trying to win a second chance and confidence, it is awkward, hesitant and frustrating.

I have had the same issue being interrupted writing stories and weeks or months later tried to return only to find the story stale and the point or angle I was trying to make lost.
I did find a piece of advice I am trying to follow and write a one paragraph explanation of where I want the main characters to go or experience. It seems to be helping on my current stories but I still have seven or eight on my laptop that I know I still want to do something with but have yet to find that lost spark.

August 30, 2009 at 8:36 AM

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