Not too long ago, this dusty little site here had its share of visitors.
Over the languid months, its magic has faded away—more my fault than anyone else’s. I simply stopped updating. I simply stopped caring because there were so many other worries that seized my attention and refused to let go. Yes. Tragic story, isn’t it? These past few months, too, I have even ceased to think of myself as a writer. I know—I can hear your gasps. I must be the biggest traitor the writing world has ever known. How can I even pass a day or an hour of not writing? But I did.
Now I’m back, though—hopefully for good.
It’ll be inexcusable, however, if I keep on going on and on without telling a little more about myself. First off, my name is Junmei. I don’t think you see that name often. I know. I tend to stay away from it, too, because whenever I type it down in Microsoft Word, those squiggly red lines come up, and perhaps the first thing you should know about me is that mistakes drive me crazy. Instead, everyone refers to me as Merry. Merry—as in Merry Christmas. I think this title fits me better—don’t you think?
Every person's life is different from another's. Taken in this context, every writer's life is different from another writer's. I started out writing short stories for class. Mrs. S had assigned us to write our own book; later, we would illustrate it and send it to this place to be bound. My first days as a writer were spent in her room, typing away at our laptops. No one talked. There were only a clack-clack of keyboards. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and afterwards, when I held my first manuscript in my hands, hot off the printer, like a newborn, I knew I had to write more.
It was more the fascination of the process that drew me in rather than love. Love came later when I was in seventh grade, depressed, and holed up in my room writing all day long. I astonished myself. I became more than myself as I sat in front of the computer screen. My fingers moved of their own will. In school, I was no more than the nerdy Asian girl who always hid behind a book. At home, I was no more than the daughter who read too many novels and therefore, would never make it past college. While writing, though, I was someone who had words holed up in her head. I had stories, and I had the power to tell them--however hackneyed they first were. So I wrote and wrote and wrote. The first were what I now consider fanfiction. The rest were developed from paintings I found on the internet. Based on what I thought was occurring in the scene, characters and plots formed. I never had to draw an outline. Outlines were stupid, restraining contraptions.
I enjoyed writing from the top of my head, taking sudden curves at a sharp angle. As a result, I no longer show anyone those feeble first steps. Though some are my pride and they have started me off on my path as a writer, they are all--every single one of them I am sad to say--false, empty, and hollow. The words I set down meant nothing. Story was not enough. Purple prose meant nothing if there was nothing behind it.
Upon entering high school, I was fortunate enough to get Mr. B for my Creative Writing teacher. His fervor for writing and the sharing of ideas fueled us all. I grew in that room not just as a writer but as a person. We shared poetry. We learned and then we learned some more. Characters, setting, writing, dialogue, description, plot--we learned them all. We scribbled away at our journals and shared them. In the beginning, I broke out in cold sweat at the idea of sharing anything with anyone but as the term progressed, I began to know the people around me and I talked at will. I never did write at will though. I was still too scared, still held back even though Mr. B advised us to "be ourselves." It's easier said than done. However, on many occasions, we did sit around in a circle, passing around papers, creating characters from the first thing that popped up in our minds. We ended up with crazy characters no one would ever have created.
I am still learning how to write. At the rate this learning process is going, I think I'll always be learning how to write truthfully, but I am not boasting when I say I do know how to write better. I know how to "hatch" a plot now. I know better than to pen a character who is two-dimensional (Creative Writing has taught me that). Currently, my main project is Henge of Time, which I started more than two years ago but am still on page 0. Revising is something else writers have to get used to.
So with lots of revising and cutting, let's hope I can finish my story and restart this website. May written words forever be magic!
Take a look around. I'll be updating rather slowly, but I always have the guestbook and comment boxes running so don't be too shy to leave a message! ;)