I mentioned earlier that I would rather write one 50k-word story than fifty 1k-word stories. This year's entry is an experiment on writing fifty 1k-word stories. I tell you, it's a damn pain in the ass.
The theme for the stories was ``50 Ways to Die''. Naturally, each story is ``a way to die''. Just keeping it that spread out as writing 50 ways to die was one sure way to die and fail this years NaNoWriMo.
So what I did was to create five general categories in which the death may be classified as. They are:
- Suicides;
- Self-inflicted accidents;
- Others inflicted accidents;
- Executions; and
- Failure of Survival
It did not reduce the total amount of work done, but at least it helped in narrowing down what to think about.
A further thing that I did was to use a small little Python3 script to randomly pick which of the five categories I should work on each time I was ready to begin a new 1k-word story. The weightage is proportional to the number of stories (out of 10) in that category that I have not written a story for. So the distribution of the categories throughout the novel is truly based on a random process, and not me deciding ``manually'' what I wanted to write.
Oh, it's technically a novel because of the prologue and epilogue, which framed the entire set of stories as being part of some undescribable creatures' view of the insane nightmarish thoughts of a single person.
So, why this topic of ``50 Ways To Die''? As I had previously mentioned, it was meant to be cathartic. It is no secret that I had spent much of last year and this one mentally bouncing everywhere. My pay was cut to save the company (bayl gb or fynccrq va gur snpr jvgu arj uverf sbe zber guna gur phgf V trg juvyr V trg zber jbex ng yrff cnl---ohg gung'f sbe n qvssrerag qnl), my supposed spouse-candidate decided to fly solo, and I was starting to question the ethics behind the entirety of my field. I went on a sabbatical, a break from the craziness of the world, and throughout the entire process, had various occasions where intrusive thoughts of death and despair would keep popping up.
My solution to them was not to ignore them completely or pretend that they don't exist---I write them down in as much detail as I can, daring my brain to put into words all that existential dread that it was sneakily trying to poison itself with.
That is the essence behind 50 Ways to Die. I forced myself to consider 50 ways to die in sufficient detail so as to exhaust and exorcise the demons that were hiding in my head. It works in two ways: those that involve suicide forced me to put into words all the ideation that had floated around, while those that involved non-suicide deaths made me realise that there were just so many ways of dying that it was a much larger miracle that anyone was able to stay alive in the first place.
That whole idea of exorcism through writing is not something new either. Part of the reason why I keep paper journals and even this blog is to allow me to put the thoughts that I have onto them---the act of doing so takes the attention away from the thought, freeing up my mind to do other things.
Compared to the darker periods earlier in the year, I can report that I am feeling more like myself. It's like I reverted back to a time where I was not completely burnt out by the greed that comes from the business world. I was doing and getting into patterns that were comforting to me---see also the whole thing about retro-programming and the like. And those really helped me fight against the demons in my head.
Apart from these physical actions, I think a large factor too for my relative happiness now is that I have found that something that keeps me grounded in ways that are comforting. It was that quality that I was so envious about that made me realise that there was something that could make this journey through life that much better. And it was the acceptance of Jesus Christ as my personal saviour, and the understanding that no matter how bad things of this world are, He is in control, and that His Will be done. We can boldly do what our free will and logical thinking tells us to do, and not fear too much about the uncertainty that we cannot control, because God the Father is there, and we are His adopted children, and in the end, He will not forsake us.
To the unbeliever, that whole paragraph may not make sense---it's okay. Maybe I'm a weaker specimen because I trust and believe in the Father's ability to safely guide me home; or maybe you are stronger because you don't need someone like the Father to help you. I've mentioned it before---it's alright. I don't judge; everyone has to answer to God on their own when the time comes. And no, I'm not even smug---I am just stating it matter of factly.
But I digress. Going back to this year's NaNoWriMo entry then, 50 Ways to Die should not be read as an attention-seeking attempt or a cry for help becaue it isn't written that way; instead, it is my attempt to sober up by pouring out all the bad things that can happen that we can learn from and realise that we truly live blessed lives.
For the really obtuse, no, I am not going to kill myself. I also do not have a death wish. I just want to go through this life peacefully, doing what I am good at, at places that the Lord places me. That is it.
Sometimes simple is the greatest thing.
Anyway, that's all for now. I am really exhausted now... the total word count for yesterday alone was 13k+... or more than 6× what I usually budget myself to do.
And that does not include these blog posts either. ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
Till the next update then.
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