View RSS Feed

Cainanite

Writing is hard.

Rate this Entry
I had imagined how easy it would be to write, if only I had the time. I thought I could write a novel with no effort, if only I didn't have the distractions of work, or had enough days off in a row.

I was wrong.

I've been off of work for two months now. I've had ample time to focus on my writing. There have been a few excuses, but overall, I've had the time I wished for so often.

My brain is a funny place. Even if I know exactly what I want to write, and have all of the plot points laid out, I can still only write when the inspiration hits me. And I thought I was creative.

The story I'm working on now, has been forming for almost a year. On the 20th of this month it will be exactly one year since I started it. The novel evolved from where I started, and I've had to re-write much of it to conform with that evolution.

I've had to write a prologue, an epilogue. I've added chapters and characters I never thought I would include. Those characters keep surprising me. I find, if I am not surprised by my characters, I can't really write their story.

I started to write the novel, a few days after I became a member on this site. It was just after I learned I was sterile, and suffering from low testosterone.

I'm not critically low on my T levels, but low enough that it has caused me some problems. Writing my story was my way of working through those issues. I don't think those issues will be resolved once I've added the last word to the page, but it has allowed me to change the way I think, and re-examine the way I've been reacting to things over the course of my life.

I'm writing this blog today, because I feel like I am getting close. I deeply desire to finish what I started, before my year is up. My need to share what I have written is growing in me like I have never felt before.

A few people on this site have read the start of the story, and chapters still in flux, but no-one has read the chapters that mean the most to me. I woke up one day realizing I didn't have the inspiration to write the chapters in order. I did however feel a great need to write the end of the story. So, I jumped ahead, wrote the last chapter, and the epilogue.

I am not ashamed to say that I wept real tears as I wrote the conclusion. Of course, writing the ending caused me to go back and re-write other chapters that suddenly didn't exactly fit where the story needed to go. Writing the conclusion re-inspired me to write through where I had stopped.

I'm jumping around the story now, Going from the beginning, middle and end with no order, but always narrowing in on where I can see the end in sight.

When I started the story, I thought I was writing about my fear of being in crowds, and my low self esteem. I thought at most, the story would go seven or eight chapters. I foolishly called the story, "How to Become the Life of the Party".

As I wrote though, my understanding of the story changed. I noticed themes I didn't know I was writing. Yet, my subconscious knew what it was doing. I was writing something much more important to my mental health.

Will it be important to anyone else? I doubt it. Nonetheless, I feel a growing need to share it with someone who understands. I need to discuss the themes, and meanings, metaphors. Writing it has been an outlet, but not the only one I am needing.

There is no-one in my life I can share this with. My story involves the sex of children, sex with children, sexual experimentation, abuse, sexual orientation, castration, and other themes best never mentioned in public. Running through all that though, is a simple love story, and a statement about real human nature, I think is important.

I am using forbidden topics to confront and analyze my own issues of sexuality, self esteem, and confusion with what seems a sexual world around a non-sexual me, and my purpose in it. My main character is a child, not because I wish I were that child, or desire a child sexually, or wish to do to a child what happens to mine in the story, but because I am that child.

I have no family, no friends or confidants I could comfortably share this story with, without them thinking I was a monster. I could only ever trust the people on this site to understand that what I am writing is not literal, but emotional.

I am writing this blog post, to vent. To get out of my system the need to explain myself and the story I am writing. To share with you what has been ripping me up inside.

I have decided I won't share the chapters I have written again, until I am finished. Perhaps I can use my burning need to share it to overcome any writer's block I may be feeling. I just need to discuss what is going on in my mind.

It took realizing I had a medical issue with my sexual development to realize a lot of this. I always fancied I'd write a novel one day. I had tried several times before.

My previous attempts to write a novel all had a similar main character.

The first novel I tried to write, was about a child created by science to have inhuman powers. Through an accident, he had the mind of an adult imprinted on his own. A kind of ghost Jiminy Cricket for his Pinocchio. A child guided by the mind of an adult.

My second try, followed a dying scientist who managed to reverse his age before he died, only to find himself trapped in the body of a child. A child with the mind of a man.

My third try was less science fiction and more fantasy. I tried to write of a child who would not age, and could not die. He bore the curse of his tyrant father, to spend all of human history as an insignificant boy, always present, but never vital.

My fourth try was a lot more successful, and I still have friends that beg me to finish it. I went all out Sci-Fi, with weird alien races, space ships, wacky technology and the rest. My main character was a man forced to live among aliens who all shared two bodies. To blend in, he had a second body cloned, to which his mind was linked. That second body grew naturally, and the man was forced to live as both a man and a child simultaneously. There was a lot of humor to be had, and my friends enjoyed the story.

My issue with all those prior attempts to write a novel is that they all shared the same problems, which led to my abandoning them. I was trying to write to be published. I avoided talking about sex and sexuality. I was trying to write for a broad audience that wouldn't judge me. Keeping the stories PG was restricting my creativity. It was a barrier I could not overcome.

This is the novel I have been trying to write since I was seventeen. It has taken me twenty years to sort out my brain enough that I can finally do it. Diving into that which is forbidden is the only way I could understand myself. It is the only way to honestly tell this story.

I'm scared that when I finish, no-one will understand it. No-one will be able to get through those taboo subjects to enjoy the meat of the story. Even when I'm done, I won't be able to share the message I want known to the world.

I understand now that the story I am telling is really my autobiography. It is the story of my life, and what I have learned. It is not literal. The graphic detail I use in the story never really happened, and possibly never could happen. Instead, it is the story of my life told through emotional beats. I am writing how I feel, and how I have felt. It is all the emotions of my life taken to extremes.

I hope that when people read it, they can overcome the taboo to see the love and compassion I have felt, and still feel. I hope they read to the end, so they can feel the freedom I finally feel, and the gratitude I have for my life.

I know that is a lot to ask of a story meant for the Eunuch Archive, but it remains my wish.

I'm going to go back to writing now. I just needed to get that out of my system.
Tags: None Add / Edit Tags
Categories
Uncategorized

Comments

  1. loveableleopardy's Avatar
    Great blog post. When you say that you are that child and that this is a metaphorical look at your life emotionally, do you mean that you feel that you have been regularly abused by humans who are sexually obsessed, and that the difference in your feelings - being very non sexual - has made you feel like an outcast, and forever a child rather than one who becomes an adult?

    Your point about a lack of motivation when having an abundance of free time is a good one, because sometimes I have had this too. I think that being forced to go to work can be good for motivation. One wishes to be able to write now now now when stuck in front of a computer etc, but it's that restriction which can encourage the writing for when the free time does become available. I have the next 4 days off work - so lots of time to write, though I may do very little lol. Yet sometimes after coming home and maybe having just 2-3 hours of writing time I will feel inspired and be very productive.

    Another thing that may be making it difficult to finish your story is that the most fun part of fiction is probably the flowing ideas (well, when we actually have them) side of things, and getting the skeleton of the book together. You seem to have done all that, and are up to the icing on the cake stage, which I could imagine might be a little more monotonous. Though taking another perspective, the fact that you are soooo close to the finish line could be seen as being inspiring too.

    Maybe it would help you to allow yourself to work on another writing project briefly, and that may re-energise your creative juices for your favourite story?

    I think it is totally fine to jump from one part of your story to another; just writing the parts that you feel inspired to do so at the time. To write just from beginning to end would be very difficult indeedy.

    Has the story more become How To Sit In The Corner At Parties And Still Feel Comfortable About Oneself?

    Hopefully humanity can read your story with an open mind. Because if humanity can achieve real tolerance, then almost anything could be possible.
  2. Cainanite's Avatar
    The sex in my story is really more about expectations, and social pressures, than something desired. It is something offered with all good intentions, real love and concern for the main character. I never suggest in the story that what happens to my child character is wrong or sick. Every one of my supporting characters acts and reacts as though what happens is expected, and natural. Yet I want the reader to feel that unease of of knowing a child is being used and abused. That it is a path he shouldn't be on.

    It is a risky move on my part to do this. I worry that people will read it as an endorsement of sex with children, and abuses of the worst sort.

    How else can I show what sex is like to me, except by giving myself over to extremes? How can I make sex seem alien and bizarre, and too much to handle, for one who isn't wired for it? The child is the metaphor I have chosen to make my point.

    I do feel like an outcast when it comes to sex. Just watching prime time TV can make me feel like the only one at the orgy who just wants to play checkers, and have a nap. I can't say those sexual expectations haven't been damaging to me.

    I certainly have taken time to write other things. I wrote a short story, (I thought you read it?) a few months back. During Christmas I came here and wrote my story about Santa Clause and the obedient little angel. Even my blog post was an attempt to keep the writing juices flowing, while I waited for inspiration.

    I think having a deadline is helping me. I really don't want to go over a year without finishing the story.

    I have left to write only one and a half chapters. I can't sleep right now, because my brain won't let them go. I don't trust myself to write them when I am this tired though.

    No, the story isn't about sitting in corners and feeling comfortable. It has become something much more to me. I won't say anyone else will get it, but I hope the message gets through. It's become about overcoming life's obstacles, by finding joy and a reason to live, even when you are at odds with the world you live in. Finding confidence and trust in yourself. Loving, even when there is no love in return.

    All that is a fancy way of saying to accept yourself for who you really are, honestly, and without self deceit.

    When I was writing, I noticed certain phrases I would use, cropping up again and again. A certain way my character dealt with things that were too much for him to handle. When I examined the words I was writing subconsciously, I knew what my story was really about. How I could take a character from the edge of madness, to a real human being. I realized what I was writing could be meaningful to more people than just asexual people like me.

    I like to think the story is about how you can live, and overcome things that feel impossible. You don't need to be destroyed by the expectations society and the people around you have decided for you. I feel those societal expectations are damaging for all of us. I feel we all suffer, when we feel like we don't fit the mold.

    Society will tell you you're too fat to be attractive or too skinny. Your nose is too big, his is too small. You can't be taken seriously if you wear that. You can't think a certain way, or act a certain way, or love the person that you do. You are the wrong gender. You are the wrong color. You're too tall for this and too short for that. If you're too smart you are arrogant. If you are too dumb, you are a joke.

    When we don't fit the mold society has determined for us, we punish ourselves. We tell ourselves we aren't good enough. We're wrong. We're flawed. We're broken. We don't belong.

    This story is my own journey to overcome all that. To find peace, and to stop punishing myself for the ways I don't fit.

    I'm longing for the day I can share what I've written. I know with the subject matter, It will never be professionally published. I'm hoping we have the story submissions up and running before I go too crazy.

    I'm sure my story won't be as poignant to others as it is to me. I'm sure it won't be, for the people who read it, anything profound or even that different from anything else on the Archive. But because it is to me, I need to share it.

    I've got, including prologue and epilogue, 25 chapters, and I am already at 110,000 words. It is your standard 400 to 450 page novel. I'm not even sure anyone in the EA community will want to read something that long and involved. I pray I've written it interesting enough to hold someone's attention that long.

    The castration doesn't happen until chapter 14. Castration doesn't even become central to the theme until chapter 5. Will readers of the Archive appreciate a novel length offering like that?

    Doing the editing of the old archive, I know there are a few submissions like that, but they are in the extreme minority.

    The Anguished 'E' by Chris Bellows
    Andy by Charlieje
    A N.I.C.E. boy by Ganymede
    The Choirboy by Il Musico
    XY-N by Paolo

    There are a few more, but I can't remember them off the top of my head. Few authors are daring enough to tell a real story in chapter form. There are a lot of multi-part stories in the archive, but only a handful I would call novels. I can't really explain the difference, maybe I'm just being arrogant. I guess (for me) it has to do more with creating a story arc, or a compelling journey, rather than just a list of things that happen.

    I'm trying to be daring in what I'm writing. I'm pouring a lot of what I am into the story.

    I guess I'm just being scared that I've wasted my time.

    It's petty, but I'm I'm probably just craving validation.
  3. loveableleopardy's Avatar
    Firstly, it's not petty to crave validation. We all do.

    We don't have to respond in the exact order of a post, just like we don't have to write a story from the beginning to the end :-)

    Would it be fair to say that the main of theme of your story is a dream to gain acceptance for all human beings regardless of how much they differ from the so-called norm? I agree that some people just are not meant to be adults in the sexual sense, and this can even be for ones who aren't asexual. Like for me, it is probably more difficult to resist temptation now because I have experienced sex, and to a certain extent I should not have - at least not until this stage, if society had accepted what I wanted to do. On the plus side, having had sex should logically give more people acceptance towards what I am doing (trying to remove my sex drive), seeing as it means that I've had different experiences and can hopefully look at things from different perspectives.

    I think that I am like 'most' men when it comes to sex, but I think that I have a different understanding to 'most' as to what it does to me, and that it is not a positive, though I have to acknowledge that for me it is pleasureable. I struggle to understand though how others can't accept/understand difference in another to do with this, or anything really. Like I just accept that you are asexual - there is nothing to be offended about there at all (in fact I see it as more positive than negative because as a whole, men are far too obsessed by sex). Maybe it is just that only humans who hate themselves therefore have these hate filled attitudes towards any sign of difference in others. Maybe it is hate filled humans who are unable to see things from a different perspective.

    I think that sex can seem bizzarre even to the sexual person. Because sex is such an overpowering controlling thing - it can be rather scary. We can be quite out of control of what we really want in life as a result of it; we can risk throwing everything away with it. People behave irrationally. Men have sex with women even when they know it isn't the right thing to do, and women have sex with men often simply to try to win them over; the feeling that the man doesn't really love them is just an extra challenge so to speak to capture their prize.

    Good point about their being too much sex thrown in our faces (like on TV).

    The short story that you are referring to is the futuristic one where castration has kinda taken over as an ideal lifestyle for many (you asked for my assistance with Aussie slang, though I don't think I was much help there my fair dinkum mate lol). It was based around 2079 maybe. Sorry, I sort of forgot about that; it was a pretty awesome story to just punch out in-between your main work!

    It's become about overcoming life's obstacles, by finding joy and a reason to live, even when you are at odds with the world you live in. Finding confidence and trust in yourself. Loving, even when there is no love in return.

    These kind of statements could be appropriate as part of your blurb, because they are very worthwhile and admirable themes. Especially this last sentence. With me, I was always a generally nice person, but I'm not sure that I ever really loved until I was loved. Well it is difficult to tell, and I haven't thought about this greatly maybe, but I believe that for me, it is mainly another who helped me to love myself more, by loving me. So to love even when there is no love in return is massive. But I must say that it was done by another, loving me at a time when there wasn't that love in return. And come to think of it I have continued to love others even with apparent rejection, but still, to be able to become mega hugging loveable to another, I believe that I had to receive such incredible worthwhile love myself.

    Oh my, what a rather ridiculous ramble!

    I like to think the story is about how you can live, and overcome things that feel impossible. You don't need to be destroyed by the expectations society and the people around you have decided for you. I feel those societal expectations are damaging for all of us. I feel we all suffer, when we feel like we don't fit the mold.

    More quality for the blurb.

    When you say that society expects us to look, behave and think in a certain way it is very true, but the silly thing about it all is that on the outside there is the constant encouragement that we should speak out for ourselves, be ourselves, try to live your dreams, love yourself for who you are, etc. Talk like this is almost as common as breathing! But alas, it is not really the true reality. Because can we really be our true self? I still don't have the courage to come out with my own autobiography; though there aren't really great reasons for logical offence to be caused. It's just fear that people are scared of a lot of the time - they don't think logically. Like no straight man should feel any negativity towards me reducing/removing my sex drive - they no longer have to lock up their girlfriends, wives, daughters, sisters lol. But what a lot of people just see is difference.

    There is a lot more to life than castration, or the idea of it, so I don't see it being an issue that it isn't mentioned until chapter 5.

    I think that this story of yours is more in chapter form compared to many on the archives, because this is like your autobiography, whereas many of the stories in the archives are kinda fantasy pieces. Correct?

    Also I don't believe that short stories are necessarily a lesser compelling journey; though I simply say that from my own writing experiences, where I am more proud of more short story stuff then I am of 'book' form writing. At least to this point.

    Actually another thing is maybe that there are more short stories on the archive than novels because the writer craves the validation faster?

    If the quality of these blog posts are any guide, I think we have plenty to look forward to in regards to your 'Life Is Much More Than About Trying To Fit In At A Party' auto. I for one am looking forward to it leaving the showroom.
  4. Paolo's Avatar
    Greg raises a lot of good point, C.

    I've worked my ass on original fiction since 2000, had it rejected twice, yet turned it into 3 huge works before I mothballed it. And that can hurt. Glad you got it done. But...I've shared it with almost no one.

    I think I know exactly what you mean.

    Send it to me in MS word format, or just RTF or TXT.
    I don't have a fancy ebook thingy!
    hehe
    I'm lucky if my PC runs.
    P
  5. Cainanite's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Paolo
    Greg raises a lot of good point, C.

    I've worked my ass on original fiction since 2000, had it rejected twice, yet turned it into 3 huge works before I mothballed it. And that can hurt. Glad you got it done. But...I've shared it with almost no one.

    I think I know exactly what you mean.

    Send it to me in MS word format, or just RTF or TXT.
    I don't have a fancy ebook thingy!
    hehe
    I'm lucky if my PC runs.
    P
    It is on its way now.

    Thanks