The story "Homecoming" had been in the writing for several months now, which included a long hiatus from writing between May and October. It started with a photo in a December 2010 issue of the New York Times, which showed a military officer sitting with his wife, and holding his new born son, just before being sent to Afghanistan. Their shared grief over the upcoming separation was only apparent in the photo. It was them who inspired the story.
The writing of Homecoming was harder than anything I had written. Before this piece, writing was simply a hobby. Most of the stories are based on personal experiences and observations, and were of completely fictional, flat characters who were merely there for bringing out the abstract theme and ideas behind the stories. Yet in "Homecoming", I care much about whether I could actually do the the experiences, views, and beliefs of war veterans justice.
I started taking an on-line writing course while working on the story. One of class assignment was to describe the writer myself from the perspective of the character of a story I was or had written. I chose to write about the interview between Jessica the war veteran and me in the setting of her kitchen from her perspective. Many doubts arose from doing that assignment. Who am I to write a story about veterans when I haven't actually experienced combat myself? How little do I know of war, but the snip bits I have read in books, or seen in movies? With all these doubts, after rewriting and rewriting, I finally came to a halt, and took a long break from writing stories for several months.
The above belong to the generic doubts that arise for writers of fictions who sometime in their life, undoubtedly will have to write from a point of view that is not their own, unless every story they plan to write are autobiographical in one way or another.
The current edition of "Homecoming" is built upon the helpful criticisms and suggestions of many classmates from the Writers' Village, helpful peers from a writing forum (now kind of defunct Valley Sun Sims), and the editors of Everyday Fiction (as included in the rejection letter). Not many words, scenes, and ideas but the very essential ones from the very first version survived. Letting go is all for the better.
Hi Lepifera! You know, I don't even remember how I found this blog in the first place, but once upon a time, I'd put it in my feed reader, and I haven't seen you around for a while, so I thought I'd say hi! :D
ReplyDeleteI'm very glad to see you writing again! And I know just how you feel, writing about or around war, but not having experienced combat personally - eeek! I'm doing something similar in my book, and I hope I can pull it off!
A writer can never just write what she knows, because that's such a small box to live in, and what fun would that be? So I'd say, write what you know OR what you're interested to learn about. ;)
Also, how come you're not on Twitter yet!?! That's where we're all hanging out these days. Would love to see you there! :)
Laura,
ReplyDeleteI have been lurking around your blog once in a while, and I do expect it to be a little quieter than usual since it is the NanoWriMo after all. I will think about joining the crowd on Twitter, though there are reasons for me to resist the pull of the cyberspace for the time being.
Thanx for visiting! It is always nice to hear from you. Surely you can pull it off with the project you are writing, you are a seasoned warrior in that department:) Writers do combat of a different sort.
As about getting back to writing, I am currently at a loss of what to do next after wrapping up this loose end which had been dangling for far too long. At the average speed of about 2 words per day (from March to now), the next time I post another story is probably next year!