Rambling

1. Blog

I haven’t written in a long time because I don’t really have much to say. It’s a bit strange, because I’m the kind of person who really enjoys snooping around in other people’s personal blogs and reading about their everyday thoughts. But for me, I don’t have much to offer at all.

I can’t even write deep and meaningful stuff, because I’m neither deep nor meaningful. I don’t know how to voice out my thoughts into neat and poetic lines, like others seem to do so well. And I’m not going to write obscure personal pieces that are meant for someone or about someone in particular, because let’s face it, it’s kind of trashy (and there is no someone).

So this is going to be a new kind of compromise. Here are some things about me lately.  

2. (lack of) Work

I think I set a record for the incredible lack of work I managed to do (not do) during the second half of this year. I don’t think I’ve ever had my motivation and discipline run so low. I’ve cut major assignments so close, I’ve put things off with full knowledge that I’ll come to regret it, I’ve looked at empty documents and chosen to close the windows. And although I continued to scold and berate myself every day, over and over, I’d look at my school work and all I would think was: This is not what I want to do.

And this is not where I want to be.

3. Manga

I’ve been reading a lot of manga recently (see no. 2). And it just makes me think that more and more, I really want to draw manga.

There is something about the quiet, introspective stories I really like. There’s something amazing in lone figures standing in detailed sceneries, conversations captured in speech bubbles, words on their own in a panel, emotions conveyed in a character’s static pose. There’s something really beautiful about the way Haruka Kawachi tells a story, the incredible depth and psychology of the characters Ai Yazawa creates.

Over and over, I keep thinking: I want to draw manga. But I’m not at a level where I am capable of creating what I want, where I can possibly portray the stories I want to tell, and that is a terrible realisation.

Even so, I want to draw manga.

4. Inio Asano

I am really into Inio Asano at the moment (see no. 3). (S)he’s become my favourite manga artist. All of his work is just so terrifying, grotesquely extreme to the point of psychopathic- yet so, so real. Not just the level of his artwork- his suitably twisted semi-realistic character designs, amazing sceneries, incredible composition, storyboarding and panelling- but how he unfolds the stories, every single inherently flawed character and their different overlapping paths and every devastating action they make. The disturbing but incredible themes and questions that leap out at you and bowl you over like a punch to the stomach.  

Reading Inio Asano’s work physically hurts me.  

That’s the kind of storyteller I want to be.

5. Writing

Recently someone told me that when they looked my name up online, the first thing that came up on google was “fanfiction”. I was a bit embarrassed.

This is the first year since 2010 that I’m not participating in nanowrimo. It’s an odd, kind of sad feeling. To be honest, I am not sure how I feel about writing at the moment. I have always wanted to be a writer, I have always wanted to share my stories with other people, I’ve always hoped to make people think for a bit, just a bit, about the things I want to say. But with every rewrite of every novel and every story, year after year, I realise again that I am still a long way away.

When I was young and naïve, I used to dream of writing a series, of writing many books, of people knowing and following my characters. Now, I feel like I only want one novel- like I only need one novel and then this ache in my chest will finally go away. Suddenly, I understand the beauty of a one-hit-wonder, of a cult novel whose writer is nowhere to be found. Suddenly, I want to put everything I have, everything I am, into just one story. I want to package everything up and say: This is it. This is everything I’ve got, and I have nothing left.

One day, I want to be able to say that.