Tag: 2013

There’s so much I don’t know

Tina 2 Comments

July. Why does this month make me feel a little panicky? Is it because we’re at the second half of the year? Is it because I am caught between the scared thoughts like Do I still have time to do the things I said I’d do this year and Where is my life heading and is it even going somewhere, with hundreds of tiny thoughts in between? Is it because I’m expecting something this month, something big to happen?

Maybe. But frankly, I just don’t know.

Deep breaths. Calm down. Relax.

Last weekend, I was with some friends and during a discussion in the car on the way home, my friend told me, “Calm down.” I wasn’t exactly un-calm then, but I guess I was talking a little too excitedly, and when I am excited, I talk even more so than usual. Louder than usual. Faster than usual.

Then I remembered this line I read from a blog post written by a favorite blogger describing another one of my favorite bloggers: She takes my breath away, and when she speaks my heart slows down. It’s true, because I look forward to reading her posts, and her words slow me down, too. I can almost imagine what her voice must sound like in person: a soft, gentle voice, much like the older sisters in my church community whose wisdom and patience and words also slow me down.

I wonder if something similar to this will be ever used to describe…well, me.

I’m not exactly demure (believe me, I tried). I am pretty loud when I’m with people, sometimes I feel like I can never be that calming voice, the one that slows people down, because I feel like I’m too loud. Too talkative. Too fast.

Then I wonder if this entire thing reflects how I treat things. Does this mean that in the other aspects in my life, I’m also too loud and I go too fast, too?

If I am to be more specific (and honest): will I ever be that person to someone, the one who takes his breath away, and the one who slows his heart down, too?

That would be nice.

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There’s a silence inside my head

Tina Leave a comment
Image from we heart it
Image from we heart it

You have to remember that
not all silences are scary.

That they don’t always mean the end
of a story,
of a show,
of a conversation.

Sometimes, they’re just a pause.
An intermission.
A time for you to gather your wits, your strength,
to get your heart ready for the next part.

Maybe sometimes they mean more than a little pause.
Maybe it’s a time to get your heart and mind focused again.
Or maybe it’s just a time to sit still.

You need to stop being afraid of these silences.

You need to realize
how some of the best things can come out of these silences.

That this silence can be beautiful,
if you let it.

You need to fight
against these voices in your head
that urge you to make noise.

Sit and revel in this silence.
And believe that this is good.

You have to remember that
not all silences are scary.

Happy Middles

Tina 9 Comments

I joined this romance novel(la) writing class at the start of the year. I didn’t want to, because I’ve always been insecure about my writing and joining an actual class scares me, but I joined anyway because:

  1. The class was free
  2. It is the year of the brave
  3. The class was free is facilitated by one of my favorite local authors.

So I figured: If not now, when?

Fast forward to a couple of months later, I am in the middle of my writing my novel, rushing to meet the class deadline and I realized two things:

  1. The novel is a mess
  2. I don’t like middles

It’s understandable that my novel is a mess right now because it’s a rough draft, and all my novels that went through this phase is such a spectacular mess that most of them get buried underneath all my files in my hard drive. But one thing I realized as I worked on my outline and wrote the story is that writing the middle is always the hardest part.

.

“But the middle is how you get to the end!” A writer friend told me when I lamented on this fact over Twitter. I know. Don’t get me wrong — I love reading very good middles, but it can get a bit frustrating when I’m the one writing it. It’s easy to start, and I always know how I want my story to end. I can see those two parts clearly. I know some bits of the middle, of course, but I realized that the ones I have now aren’t really enough to get me to the end. Or, they’re just vague ideas of what I want to happen, but they’re not always connected. They’re little scenes that I know would bring them to that end, but they don’t necessarily form a smooth transition from one part to another, making the readers see how these characters get from Point A to Point Z (or their fictional happily ever after). They’re awkward at best, which isn’t really a problem because I can always refine it. But they’re so hard to write sometimes because it’s not as exciting as that ending I have in my head.

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