University Thoughts – Apologies

Sometimes you are the villain in your own story. You are not good, you are not nice and you are not wise. What you are is bad and mean and wrong. Because in life you aren’t always the hero, you aren’t the good person in the story. Because you’re the villain in someone else’s and even in your own. Even if you know this, even if you acknowledge this, sometimes being sorry isn’t good enough. People don’t always want to hear sorry, they don’t want to accept it because they want to keep you the villain. And that’s hard because you fell off your path and made a few mistakes that you are genuinely sorry for and wish you’d never done. And you can’t undo it and sometimes they don’t want to hear sorry, they just want you to suffer like they did. Which isn’t right either. Sometimes peace cannot be found. 

No one wins.

Thought no.30 – Endings

So I am writing my third book. I have already written two, they aren’t published or anything. It’s just a project I’ve been working on. Anyway, i am working on the third one and I am working towards the ending right now and i am stuck, completely and utterly stuck. I CANNOT THINK OF AN ENDING. Well, I say ending, I have a definite ending but it is not an ending for the plot of the story. So I need an ending for the plot.

It is so frustrating. The way i write, is more a lack of planning with a vague idea and milestones that I reach. My current milestone is the ending, and I am stumped. I have no idea how to end it. It would seem to me from research that most ending in the fantasy genre are endings where the villain dies. I just do not know how to resolve everything. Perhaps it is because I have tried to make the whole thing too complicated and the villain/s have become too complicated and I have tried to make them more deep and try and take a different route where the villain isn’t killing or whatever. But how do I stop the villain without killing them? Because I really don’t want to have to kill them, because I feel as if that is too predictable. But I guess if that is how the characters would resolve the problem then I guess I have to let them do what they want to do, right?

Endings are the hardest part to write, especially when you don’t plan. You have to try and pull all these separate strands that you have created and find a way to weave them all together into a finite knot of an ending. My problem is I have too many strands that are trying to fly away and my fingertips keep on creating new strands when I am trying to pull the other ones in. I am being left with a mess all around me, like a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces are the wrong size and so can’t fit together. I am very tempted just to write there was a giant explosion and everything worked itself out. Or and then … woke up, it had all been a dream. Just because it would be so much easier than trying to pull everything back together. Damn endings, why must they be so difficult.

Thought no.22 – Hero and Villain

Fantasy is one of the marvels of this world I live in. Without it I would be truly lost but also without it I would probably have lower expectations on life and what it is meant to be like. I read that there is always a hero, villain, sidekick, damsel in distress but I see none of these in my life. Presumably I am the main character of my own story, making me the hero, but I do not have a sidekick nor a villain. I have no one I am up against. But if I think I see that I am my own villain; I am constantly fighting myself. Though there is no imbalance of good and evil, there is only me and I am the hero trying to save the damsel is distress, yet I am both, I am trying to save myself from the villain. I am trying to save myself from myself.

I do not belong in a wonderful huge adventure full of excitement and danger, meeting new people and visiting magical new lands. I am not falling in love or saving lives. I am just trying to get through day by day, and sometimes I realise my life is not going to be like the stories I read in books. My life is a lot more difficult, because there is no evil entity I must face, as I must face myself as the villain and be a hero and save myself, as I am also the damsel in distress. My sidekick is nowhere to be seen, I am not even my own sidekick, because in the end I am alone in this battle. This dull, incessant, tiring battle, there is no magic in my life, no fantasy element. There is only me. Just trying to save myself and pull myself through each day. The only battle is the one going on in my head every single day.

Sometimes I wonder if I can cope and manage, if I can continue being the hero, villain and damsel in distress. I wonder that if I will be happy living in a world that is not like the stories that I read. Life is not beautiful and sometimes I forget that, sometimes I forget that my life will not become a wonderfully written fantasy novel. I have not lived yet, but I feel as if it is taking too long for my life to begin and I worry that it never will. I worry that it never will because a wizard is not going to turn up on my doorstep and take me on an adventure.

I wonder if everyone goes through this. I have no doubt that everyone does at one point in their life, but I wonder if it’ll ever stop. Everyone says in face of a bad situation that “it’ll get better” but I want to know when. Because isn’t the hero meant to bring about this better world? But if I am that hero then I know it shan’t be done any time soon because I am still trying to save myself and defeat myself. Real life is whole lot more complicated and difficult than a fantasy life, especially if you are both the hero and villain of your own story.