Pointers

A few of the things I learnt in the month of June:

1) When you're totally relaxed, rested, happy, healthy, and without a deadline, you can make the shiniest things.

2) Even if the deadline is bearing down on you, you still have to be able to ignore it, lie on your bed, and drift aimlessly. Chilling is the hardest, yet most essential thing to writing at times like these.

3) Going off-tangent with an alternative story can be really useful in the end, even if the alternative route bombs completely.

4) Never try to fake a realist social commentary of your country if you don't have one in mind.

5) When you're obsessed with winning, the fear of losing can eat you alive. Also, remember to take your meals at regular intervals. Stress kills.

6) Your proofreader is your best friend.

7) When you're completely unsure about which direction to take your story in, that's the time to really go back to what you know for certain, and what you believe can realistically be done. You have to hold to what you're sure of and not let yourself get swayed by too many 'what-ifs'.

8) God provides.

So at the end of the day, I sent in a 3rd person plot-based modernist fantasy story to a competition which, by all appearances, seems to favor 1st person plotless postmodernist realist nationalistic narratives. Wonder how that will turn out. In any case, there's still 2 years from now and I have 1 year left to muck around. Hahah.

Now that the story is finished I seem to have a limitless amount of free time. The FYP is a little more on track than before. I just need... interviewees. 1 down, 13 more to go.

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Post-note

9) When there is no faith in the future there is no power in the present..... Hope is the feeling that what you're feeling now is temporary.

10) Don't work in a spirit of fear... Don't run when you write... Trust God and don't overwork yourself to the point of death simply because you're afraid of losing.

11) Writing shouldn't be excruciatingly painful. Don't overdo it.

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Note to self (for legs):

1) Stretch daily.

2) Massage thigh and calf muscle. Calf muscle tends to get tight easily which leads to imbalance -> knee pain

3) Don't walk distances that are too long.

4) Heel tends to get tight; make sure your heel is bending properly when you walk

5) Ice.