Saturday, April 01, 2006

The lack of passion that R L told me about...






I was chatting with a friend from Spain, and while discussing and analyzing stuff she accidentally told me the reason behind my writer’s block

People who don't know me well and even some of my friends might wonder what block?


you see I have been in the process of writing a novel, it's my first time to attempt to write seriously and first time for me to write something longer than two pages and to commit to it for a period of more than two days (I bore easily) it was all good and I had a couple of chapters in the bag and things were going as I wanted them to, I really felt I had something good going on. (I still feel so)


Then I just dried up.


For no apparent reason I just couldn't think of anything new to write, not for lack of things to write about, I had many ideas, just couldn't get them down in writing for some reason and that reason was lost to me.


in the beginning I thought maybe I have to much to worry about at the moment as in not enough free time to get creative, and part of that is true I have very little spare time on my hands, then thought if you want to commit to this you have to schedule it, you know incorporate it in your timetable, make time for it

Well… that didn't work too, I scheduled three nights a week, just for that purpose and still I ended up during those three times a week doing nothing but commenting on blogs, I even started this blog to take my mind off the frustrations about the story.


In order to further understand the problem you must know that my story is about relationships, guys and girls in general having trouble finding what they want, and in some cases not knowing what they want. (I find the topic very interesting and at the same time I don't feel that there has been something similar to the way I address it) It has little hints of the movie closer, in the sense that it has a big emphasis on dialogue, I found that movie to be very well written, I enjoyed the dialogue very much, it's one of my all time favorites.

Now I read somewhere a well known writer say (probably Steven king in danse macabre but I can't bother to check it out) that the majority of first novels are to a very big extent autobiographical, this is what I strived not to happen in my case. I don't want to write about my personal experiences, not to publish it anyway, plus the fact remains that my experiences do not cover the entire range of things that happen in a relationship and I wanted the novel to have a little bit of the truth to “anybody” who read them ( tough challenge I know but I like it)

so moving on to the problem I was having with being blocked, and realizing that even though lack of time was a contributing factor it wasn't the main reason behind itso I thought maybe if I ignore it long enough it will go away, maybe if I just let it go the urge to write will seize me again as it did before

And as I was doing exactly so and chatting with a friend from Spain, she accidentally diagnosed my problem (she has a medical degree in some psycho-related field) and although she was commenting on Kareem in general I found that what she says is exactly the problem with my writer’s block.

She described me as a very passionate person, someone who’s passionate about everything from food passing by love and music and back to food again.

And it hit me… that I haven’t been passionate about anything for the past couple of months (how could I be???). Apparently while all the problems -specifically the ones with my friends- fueled me in the beginning to write more and in a better way they took out a lot of energy from me, and to that I don’t know what to say!!! (Although a few four lettered words come to my mind)

I need to find new people, interesting ones, to help with the feeling of betrayal that I have towards my friends, I have a whole lot of negative energy towards them due to a multitude of reasons. I need to get back in touch with my school and college friends from the past.

In the end this post doesn’t mean that I am back to writing my novel, not yet, however it does mean that hopefully I am on the way (right track) to solving it.

List of thing's to do: learn Spanish so I can get to know her better (her English is very poor)

3 comments:

Hanouma said...

look Kareem

i started to do the same when i met my husband and we were dating( he is a young writer by the way who had 3 or 4 things published). i started to write my own novel based some how on my relationships but with some imagination( i mean different details) than i had the blocking u r talkin about. i was jealous of him may be.
every one who read the first pages was amazed of the style than i couldn't continue till now ( it was 6 years ago).

now i found that coz he knows me very well and knows all my stories he will understand whom i'm talkin about.

i can help u sendin u my stories( my life was full of love stories) may be u can use them.

by the way spanish is a great language, i learnt it and i don't use but i love it, adore it.

wish u good luck

KareemFromEgypt said...

i would love it if you sent me your stories, i'd be more than honoured hanouma

my e-mail is kareemfromegypt@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

When you learn spanish you will be able to understand this (i´m sorry, Kareem, my english is very poor...):

Me ha sorprendido encontrar que me citas en tu blog, aunque no digas mi nombre, y estoy muy contenta por eso. Me alegro que aquella conversación que tuvimos por msn te sirviera para darte cuenta de algo sobre ti mismo. Pero lo que te dije fue sólo una mínima parte de lo que pienso sobre ti porque, como tú dices, mi inglés es muy pobre y cuando hablamos no puedo decirte todo lo que quiero.

Si alguna vez aprendes español, sabrás que me pareces un chaval estupendo, con un carácter arrollador, alegre y original, que contagias alegría a los que te rodean, que tienes gustos muy interesantes, que eres muy amable y tu forma de halagar es muy dulce y que me encantaría saber más inglés para poder conocerte mejor, porque estoy segura de que eres una persona con grandes sorpresas guardadas en tu interior.

In short, you have a lot of charm and i´m very pleased to have met you.

Kisses.