So I bumped my head into the car door yesterday and now I’m left with a nasty bruise near my temple. It hurts to yawn and chew, but the writing must go on.

Luckily, I’ve discovered that writing depends a lot on intuition, and when my head isn’t overthinking it, my intuition comes out to play.

This past week, I’ve been working on a story for my zine, Where the wild stories grow, and as an overthinker, I’ve changed the story three different times.

Here’s the rough illustration of the cover:

Each time I come up with a story, I end up thinking: it’s not good enough, it sounds too simple, or nobody would like it. Perfectionism really is a curse for achieving nothing.

So I’ve decided to leave my brain out of the equation and stick to the first story I came up with. It’s simple, but intuitively, it creates the feeling I wanted.

These are the draft opening lines to the three different stories I came up with. Even though I won’t be using two of them, I can still save them for another day:

Story number 3:

I met my friend on Christmas Eve. The day I met him, I thought he was my Christmas gift. That was because I had always wished for a friend. Every candle that I blew out, every shooting star that passed by, every firework that lit the New sky was for him. Or her. It turned out to be a him. But you know what they say? All wishes are double edged, so be careful what you wish for.

After reading it again, I realised this sounded a bit too chic lit for me, which was not the tone I was going for. I think I wrote it because I missed not hanging out with my friend.

Story number 2:

Wild stories grow in the back of my neighbour’s garden, where the weeds are cut too long, and the hayfever makes my eyes itch. I brave the elements and carry with me a shovel and a small, tin can, and make my way up through the overgrown weeds.

This sounds too much like a literary story. Again, not the tone I was going for.

Story number 1

Ginny Cooper had been writing all night when she accidentally knocked over the bottle of black ink.

It splashed all over the pot plant beside her, and as she mopped up the spilt ink, the flowers began to grow.

This was the first story I came up with right after I had drawn the illustrations for my zine. Because it was the spontaneous result of what I had drawn, I’m going to stick with this story.

What do you think? What story suits the tone of the illustrations?

I know it’s quite simple, but I wanted to create a story that I could make before Christmas. And since I’m designing the cover and illustrations, I didn’t want this to turn into a complex novel. I thought it would be a great gift for a friend.

Since it’s turning out to be a rainy day today, all plans are cancelled, so I’m going to spend the morning finishing off the majority of the story, using my intuition and getting things done! Then I can sit back and get ready for Christmas.