Day: November 17, 2018

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Where the wild stories grow

After a fever-induced week of dizzy spells and delirious thinking, I took a day off work and spent my sweet time writing. Since I’ve been trying to create some zines for a while now, I thought I’d use my sick leave wisely and do something a little more creative.

There are a couple of weird looking plants around my house, and on that particular day, they were starting to look a tad bit stranger than usual, (probably brought on by my deliriousness). I kind of fell into a strange twilight zone while staring at them, which inspired me to draw this wild thing:

Now, I’m not a great drawer, but it kind of looks like a forest with giant flowers. Am I right? I’ve been trying to work off of this picture all week, coming up with a story for my zine. I imagine it to be a place where wild stories grow and… I’ll come up with something wild. 

The title for my zine: Where the wild stories grow.

That’s all there is to my zine so far. But I’m going to push myself into productive mode to get it finished. So, here is my zine-making to do list:

  • Come up with a story
  • Finish the illustrations
  • Lay out in InDesign
  • Print out the zine
  • Distribute to friends and family or online

I’ll keep updating this blog with my zine-making progress. Since it’s my first time making a zine, it might take me a while. But here’s to hoping that wild stories can grow out of a frenzied state of mind.

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A room of one’s own

My bedroom floor: scraps of coloured paper, half-torn pages and sticky glue – the place where my ten year old self unleashed her creativity without any inhibitions.

My bedroom floor was made of carpet, the worst material to carry out any type of craft work. But I produced some of my most creative pieces right here on this very carpet:

bearstories-fashionmodels-e1542006195361.jpg
Bear stories and Fashion Models, unpublished titles I produced at ten years old.

Bear stories, Fashion Models, titles unknown to the world, but instrumental to my ten year old creativity.

As Virginia Woolf once said:

“A woman must have money and a room if she is to write fiction.”

At ten years old, I was already planning my future as a writer. I had a room, (my bedroom), but no money. So I did what any ten year old did to earn pocket money; I diligently practised the piano, something that was akin to doing chores. By the time I was fourteen years old, I had amassed a fortune of $500.

money and a room of one's own
Me at fourteen years old with a fortune of $500.

Sixteen years after my unpublished titles first saw the light of day, I have everything I need to write fiction: a room and a job. 

So I’m continuing the legacy I started at ten years old: writing and producing books from my bedroom floor.

I wonder if my carpet still bears the old stains left by a ten year old me. Can I still see the worlds galloping by? Are the horses, kingdoms and stories still there where I left them last?

After all, I’m doing nothing new, just bringing the craft of fiction back to the bedroom floor, where many of us created our very own, first works of fiction.