Dismal

 It has been both a fruitful and unproductive week. 

I am now free from the shackles of paid assignments for the time being and can now, supposedly, focus my brain power on writing. But I've fallen sick again with the flu. And my eldest son is unwell too, meaning that he is home and not at school, thus derailing my plans to savour some peace and quiet in the mornings to write.  

In the mysterious world of The Novel, some new scenes have gotten fleshed out, while some old ones have gotten refined. Story arcs are diverging. The plot is rounding off in some corners. 

But plot holes still abound, and I struggle to feel okay with the rationale for many things in the story. I doubt myself and I do it a lot. I wonder endlessly whether the reader will buy the story, will even bother to plod through it to see it to the very end. 

However, the most painful part of all of this is that I recently realised that it's already been about A YEAR since I began working on this novel. And with this awareness comes a sense of awe... and also alarm. 

When will this stupid novel ever be done? 

If memory hasn't failed me, I believe it was on a Sunday morning that I laid down that very first scene that eventually became the beginnings of Intersection. 

My youngest son was ill that day, and so my husband and I had agreed that we'd split duties and that he'd take our eldest son to church while I stayed home with the sick one. 

And so, after my youngest son had finally drifted back to sleep, I found myself free for awhile. A very rare occurrence for a mother like me. So I of course did one of those things I love most in life: I decided to write. 

I was aware, at the time, of a novel writing contest being run by a local publisher known as Fixi Novo, and thought fleetingly to myself that perhaps it might be an opportunity to try and submit something. I didn't really expect to win, but I told myself that perhaps the whole experience of fleshing out a novel would be a good thing anyway. Plus, with a definite deadline in place, maybe I'd actually FINISH SOMETHING for once. 

Well, here's the thing: I did submit for the contest BUT I didn't actually finish writing the novel. I mean, I did put in a concluding scene/chapter in it, but there were LOTS of MISSING PARTS in between. 

YES, you read that right, dear Reader. That is really what happened. And this is the first time I'm admitting it here out in the open. 

Nevertheless (and for this I am eternally grateful), the kind organisers of this contest somehow did me the huge honour of still reading my story, and I was actually shortlisted as one of the finalists in the running to win the contest. But of course, now that you know what the actual state of my manuscript was at the time, I'm sure it would not surprise you at all that I most definitely did not win. 

Something else quite unexpected and charitable that the organiser (ie publisher) did for those of us finalists was that they passed along our contact to another local publisher who is open for submissions. On the one hand, it felt somewhat like a breach of privacy, since our express consent had not been sought for this sharing of our contact information. Then again, in this instance, maybe I'm kind of thankful for this happening because it has given me another chance at finding a home for Intersection. 

For those of you who haven't read my previous posts, basically the gist of it all is that this other publisher has expressed interest in seeing my full manuscript after I had passed along some sample chapters to them to read. 

So I am beyond elated at this opportunity because it's the closest I've ever been to having someone consider publishing fiction that I've written. Yet I am self-sabotaging everything by not being able to conclude the writing of this novel in its entirety. 

Sigh. 

"How far are you from being done?" My husband has asked me on more than one occasion. I have never been able to answer very definitively. 

Perhaps I'll never be done. The sheer fear of having worked on something so extensively that is ultimately worthless continues to haunt me. Also the fear of having hoped on the publisher being open to my work only to have them slam the door on me once I actually have something substantial to show. 

I don't know. They call it Impostor Syndrome. I would term it more like the Infirmity Of A Lifetime. 

Well, anyway, that's that. Now you know something you didn't before about this novel and its background/beginnings. 

For now, I'm still keeping the light on and allowing Audra, Radhesh, Chen Hao and Mastura to keep me company. (Not to mention Alfian, Putri and Dahlia too). But I hope they divulge their personal secrets to me soon because trying to guess at what their lives and inner feelings are all about is killing me. 

I know this blog is mostly an exercise in talking to myself in order to stay motivated to FINISH THIS THING, but if you're out there, and you bothered to read all this gibberish, then thank you from the very bottom of my heart. I'm really glad you came. 

I'll do my best to make it worth your while. 

I'm still working on it. 

I'm still writing.