Alexandra, The Dorky Writer: Chapter 9

A terrible curse had fallen in the kingdom where Alexandra, The Dorky Writer, lived. Everyone had to stay home, otherwise, people could fall ill and even die. Even though The Dorky Writer loved to stay away from adventures, she started to feel anxious because her look-alike angels started to look more like little devils who didn't know what to do with their lives while being trapped. Days passed and she received an owl-delivered letter. It was a tiny ad from her Dragon friend. A mean to escape while staying home. A new kind of adventure. She sent her answer. And that's how it began.

My beloved friend/Facebook daughter, Priscila Dragón, decided to open a writing workshop during this quarantine and invited people from everywhere. I actually didn't think about it twice and asked her if I could participate. I got in. This is one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I admit it, logging in every Tuesday and Thursday still gives me the bad chills, part of the anxiety, I suppose, but things flow in a way that is so natural, that, little by little, such anxiety goes away... until our next session, ha, or until I have to read what I wrote, of course. When sharing out loud I'm always feeling as if I'm going to be attacked somehow, and this is where it becomes magical. There are not attacks, not bad intentions. The LETRASIS group is well-intentioned, their criticism is incredibly constructive, our (I'm including myself here this time) reactions are pure and priceless. And the support! The encouragement is neverending!

I've felt braver when it comes to sharing. I've published one of the things I've enjoyed the most in here, as Sin pólvora, pero con tinta, and I also have a queue already for the other projects. 

Catharsis has been humongous, both when it comes to writing and still recent heartbreak. And, I haven't told this to them but LETRASIS is one of the things that are helping me coming back to the writing world for real, to the point I'm going to share my unfinished novel(s) for the first time (I'm dying inside a little, stupid anxiety), and thanks to them and Anny's advice, I even decided to go back to my Master's Degree classes (I feel I'm not going to finish all homework because my mind is in a bad learning state, but the point is that I'm back, bitches!)

This is where I fear I am in a maniac mood, the top of the rollercoaster, because my brain is in such fire I've been trying to to do everything at the same time: the reading, the writing, everything related to the world I'm familiar and that I love since forever. So I really hope it's not! I'm beginning to use my bullet journal properly!

I've had some trouble with the Master's, but talking about LETRASIS, my writing family, makes me not want to talk about that now.

Thank you Priscila, 313, Missael, Karla, and Juan Carlos!

End of Chapter 9.

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Sin pólvora, pero con tinta

La necedad es la razón de esta guerra; el papel y la pluma parecen odiarse al momento en que mi mano se acerca a cualquiera de ellos. Pero ahí sigo, aferrada, como si quisiera hacerle honor a todos quienes me han inspirado, pero también como si quisiera deshacerme de todo aquel que me ha defraudado.

Si logro poner las palabras, las oraciones, los puntos, las comas que necesito, mi sangre se vuelve tinta y el cañón se descarga, pero el proyectil a veces se equivoca, y en situaciones más dramáticas, la fuerza del cañón me avienta y me quedo sin fuerzas. Pareciera como si la necedad hubiera sido derrotada, pero no es así.

Sin embargo, aquellas batallas quedan inconclusas porque otras comienzan a vislumbrarse en un horizonte más lejano, por lo que parece que abandono cuando más bien termino del otro lado del campo de batalla. Adiós, prosa. Hola, reseña de libro número veintialgo. Adiós, prosa. Hola, poesía.

Prosa de mi vida y mi futura muerte, me alegra ver que, a pesar de tanto tiempo, sigas ahí. Eres igual de necia que yo en este campo de batalla. Parece que ninguna de las dos va a ceder en soltar la paloma de la paz. Vamos a seguir teniendo más heridos, vamos a enfrentarnos hasta que haya pérdidas, vamos a pelear por saber qué artillería usar. Vamos a aliarnos mientras nos odiamos y a amarnos cuando estemos perdidas.

La necedad es la razón de esta guerra, y parece que esta va a igualarse a aquella Guerra de los Cien Años.

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Alexandra, The Dorky Writer - Chapter 5

The Dorky Writer already knew which path to choose, but the old fairies in the woods advised her to take the left side of the fork instead. Both of the paths looked different of course. One of them was full of fruity trees that whispered soft words to her, telling her that the answer could be there, while the other didn't look terrifying but had just some scattered and sad bushes waiting for some attention. That's where the fairies told her to go, but why? She wouldn't have enough food or water to survive.

"There will be hard moments for you, but the further you travel, the easier will be for others to follow. Keep going further, and then more dorky writers like you can pass through both paths with no problem later." 

"That sounds wonderful and everything, but that would let me weak for the moment I face The Mighty Thesis," The Dorky Writer said after she put her notes, some ink and quills in her bag.

"And that's where you'll know if you're worthy to win or not."

I was very afraid to tell a teacher about the idea I had for the thesis, because saying something about it would make it more real. The thing is that way before we discussed about it, another idea came up, an idea I also liked and that I hadn't considered it. So when the real moment to discuss the subject of investigation arrived, I had two ideas instead of one but with no problem to start.

Every thesis is born because of the need to know something or to answer a question related to the subject of investigation, and this need is called a problem. My problem was that that problem wasn't actually clear, of course. I doubt it, but if you read the first chapters of this insanity, I was kinda sure to talk about women's memoirs and how different they are from one to another. Hell, I already had an idea of what to read but I stopped because of my lack of money to get the books (a downfall of not having good libraries here). The thing is that in another class, before taking the first Thesis Seminar, I mentioned something related to fan fiction. I don't really remember how and why I mentioned it, but my teacher said that investigating about that would be very awesome and different because it was related to my specialization, which is Creative Culture. I have to remind you that this teacher, who is the principal of the school too by the way, didn't know about the idea I already had in mind.

So, the weeks went by, I couldn't write a thing in here again but book reviews, another kind of writer's block I suppose, and then the first Seminar arrived. I mentioned that I had two ideas and between the teacher-principal, who was acting as a substitute for that session, and my classmates, advised me to take the fan fiction subject and find a problem, find a reason why I should defend it, because there are a lot of similar works related to comparative texts (women's memoirs in my case) as written final works. 

After that session, ok, why, oh God, why do we have to share these thoughts out loud? My anxiety kicked me out right on my head! my mind was so crowded I had to hide my school notebooks and books under the bed and I better started to clean so I could keep my mind focused on something else. I couldn't even tell my boyfriend or my mom about it, no matter how much I needed to talk about it with anyone because I wasn't really sure what was going on. Had I really chosen an unexplored and almost empty path? I know it's not completely empty, I mean, there are a lot of trails inside that are full of wonderful written fics but I'm going to go beyond that. And I'm more than scared.

This work has changed and it has changed completely... and I haven't actually really started! I think I have a tiny question that demands to be answered, but it won't become real until I talk with the actual teacher of the Seminar. Until then...

End of Chapter 5.

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Alexandra, The Dorky Writer - Chapter 3

I've discovered a very funny thing: writing inspiration strikes when I need to do homework. And, if I really think about it, I used to do that at the University... I could be doing a translation exercise and BOOM! Ale had to write. And she did! Mostly in the last pages of her notebook, and rarely on a second Word document.

So, in what am I thinking about now?

The Dorky Writer had a job: she was also a Jedi Master [insert disc scratch]. OK, OK, not a Jedi Master, but still a teacher. An English teacher, if I want to be more specific. A pretty average one. Nothing special. Anyway... After months, and months, and months of wanting to go to a dragon's hoard, maybe not to steal some money but to politely ask for a loan, the Dorky Writer could finally get paid and feel some silver coins in her pocket. Her first stop? THE BOOK SHOP [insert another annoying disc scratch]. OK, I didn't go there, I had to pay school, and gas, BUT the idea of going is still there. 

Some months ago, I made a TBR list featuring female writers. But I can't lie: I know I still need to narrow my idea for The Mighty Thesis. Should I compare them according to their age? Should I go through a political path? An educational one? What about feminism? Or cultural differences? THE HELL I KNOW! But I think I've selected a good bunch for either case:

• Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir (born in France, 1908)
• Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (born in Germany, 1929)
• Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (born in Iran, 1948)
• Geisha, A Life by Mineko Iwasaki (born in Japan, 1949)
• Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (born in China, 1952)
• Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Malika Oufkir (born in Morocco, 1953)  
• Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard (born in UK, 1955) 
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (born in Iran, 1969)
• First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung (born in Cambodia, 1970)
• Daring to Drive by Manal al-Sharif (born in Saudi Arabia, 1979) 
• I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai (born in Pakistan, 1997) 

With the exception of Beard's book, all of these are memoirs (the ones in bold are the only ones I've read, but definitely need to visit again). IMPORTANT NOTE:

I have the idea that when I finish with another two books, I'll get closer to what I want. And I know it seems I hadn't started at all, but I realized something: I started to read Amy Poehler's Yes, Please, and even though her story is interesting and funny (I mean, have you ever seen Parks and Recreation? That woman is fun indeed!), getting to know how an artist of any category became a celebrity isn't what I want to write about.

POINT FOR THE DORKY WRITER! 

It will depend of its availability, but I feel I need to read Women & Power first. It's the only one that has historical references and it might even mention some other women's stories that can help. 

End of Chapter 3.

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Book Review: "Fangirl" by Rainbow Rowell

Previously posted on Goodreads!¹

I had a lot of unfulfilled expectations, especially after one of my friends started to send me some excerpts BUT ALSO got surprised in some aspects, like FOR REAL!

Apart from being a book that talks about being a fangirl, this book also tell us the part of a life of someone with social anxiety. Maybe, some readers (that don't know the term) just read about a girl being paranoid about everything, so, how did I recognize the term? Because I have it, so I can tell the difference. I felt identified with Cath all the book along, I've also found shelter in my sister and in fandoms, I can count my friends just with my fingers, I find alcohol and drugs repulsive... the list can go on.

Even if you don't feel identified with that, you can also read, and learn, about a MAN with a bipolar disorder, you know that mental disorders are just entitled to women, so this is big; read about early alcoholism... even read about writer's block! (BTW, this is a thing I've been fighting for ages, literally! It was like getting a slap!)

Why 3.5? Its pace and its structure.

For me, it was really slow at the beginning, perfect in the middle, disastrous at the end. Mostly the end. The author was like "oops, I'm gonna reach page 433, I need to finish it now, no matter if it ends with half a statement" (ok, I'm overreacting a bit, but that's how I felt when I read the end). Why include excerpts of Simon Snow's books, and fanfics? I know Simon Snow's are based on Harry Potter's, that made me feel like paying a visit to my childhood-teenage years, but REALLY! It wasn't necessary to read them! Especially the fanfic parts because Cath was supposed to be an AMAZING writer but I didn't believe it.

But I enjoy Rowell's writing in general, I couldn't have read this or Eleanor & Park otherwise. 

RAINBOW ROWELL writes books. Sometimes she writes about adults. Sometimes she writes about teenagers. But she always writes about people who talk a lot. And people who feel like they're screwing up. And people who fall in love. When she's not writing, Rainbow is reading comic books, planning Disney World trips and arguing about things that don't really matter in the big scheme of things. She lives in Nebraska with her husband and two sons.

¹This review was written and originally posted on my Goodreads profile in 2016. It might now present minor changes in structure or corrections but has not changed its intention.

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Alexandra, The Dorky Writer - Chapter 2

This entry was originally posted on my Goodreads blog on February 2nd.

One evening, the Dorky Writer went to a book presentation of a very good friend of hers, The Dragon Writer. Apart from being absolutely proud of seeing her friend flying up to reach out the stars and come back with not one but two of them, she couldn't help herself to feel nostalgic about writing.

Unfortunately, that nostalgia transformed into a heavy, yet invisible monster: Anxiety.

Some years ago, when I was in high school, one of my teachers asked my class to write a story based on the insecurity the city had in that time. I wrote about a girl that had lost her father because of a confrontation between a drug cartel and police. Very cheesy, very Mexican soap opera.

But the teacher loved it and I got a 100 for that month. He even believed that that story had happened to me, but my dad still lives, and breathes, and works... and not as a policeman.

The thing is that that encouraged me a lot when he asked us again to write another thing. I dared and I wrote an even more stupid thing: a play. He didn't like it, by the way. I don't even remember exactly what the story was about, but I do remember the characters' names because they haunted me long enough to the point I decided to write an original story with them. The story had a lot of changes and turns throughout the years. It started as a contemporary young adult story and at the end it became a fantasy one. And the characters' names? Their personality? Still there.

I wrote snippets of that story, edited them, read, rewrote, for around 7 years. It all ended, as a cataclysm though, when I watched Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix. I discovered that the idea that I thought was original actually had some similar parts in that magnificent show. I couldn't continue. For God's sake! I'd even divided my book series (of course it was a book series) in 5 parts! Water, Earth, Fire, Air, and a still-not-named-book. I thought if someone read it sometime, they would accuse me of plagiarism or would tell me that the story, which didn't have an Aang or a Toph precisely there, wasn't original.

Time passed and I started to rewrite for the 1,000,000,000th time. I had to get rid of a lot of things that reminded me of ATLA. And the story changed completely again. This time, the story was actually getting somewhere and I didn't even think about it as a book series, just a single story, so that was good. The bad part is that it just started to happen in my head and couldn't reach a piece of paper, a Scrivener or Word document.

BOOM: WRITER'S BLOCK.

And it hasn't really left my side.

You could say: "Eh, YOU'RE WRITTING NOW!" But I'm a very stubborn person, so I would say: "I'm not writing what I really want and need to."

All of these memories collided and I ended up having a crisis. I told my boyfriend about this and he gave me very good reasons why I could have this problem: "You're holding down, basically, a full time job, going to school yourself, taking care of the house... none of that is gonna be inspirational, so is not gonna flow and you're not gonna have anything to write because you're busy thinking about the other things you do in life." The thing is that, ok, I do have to worry about all of that now, but back then? And then, of course, he said: "You're one of the most self-critical people I've ever met in my life." Good thing you don't live with me yet, handsome ;)

I didn't take that as bad criticism. It was actually a reminder of what a therapist told me years ago. I NEED TO GET MY SH*T TOGETHER AND DO NOT AIM FOR PERFECTION.

"Don't write a book, write effectively a comic but without the pictures. Write other things and just get your creative juices flowing from something else and maybe that will help you with what you actually want to write about," said the handsome wizard. Of course I'm having a handsome wizard as a boyfriend instead of a prince! Once a Potterhead, forever a Potterhead.

Well, I'm not writing a comic, but I've come back to a blog. Y A Y !

And now I need to stop procrastinating and do my homework.

End of Chapter 2.

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Alexandra, The Dorky Writer - Chapter 1

This entry was originally posted on my Goodreads blog on January 19th.

Hey, everyone! I normally don't post ANYTHING here, but that's something I intend to change because I don't want to be alone in this, because the Goodreads community seems to be extraordinary, and because it's time for my social anxiety to get out of the way... for now... I don't know how much this is gonna last, to be completely honest! (I have the feeling no one's gonna read this, so this might work as a diary).

Let me tell you a sad story:

Once upon a time, this dorky and amateur writer collided with the biggest writer's block in existence, so in a way to defeat this ferocious evil, she decided to return to school and get a Master's Degree in Writing Culture. This ferocious evil, whose name she's still searching, proved to be the biggest challenge, academically speaking, for this angsty translator, and even though she faced great monsters, she was acceptably victorious and started to write a tiny bit again, nothing extraordinary, but enough to keep her sane...

But no one had prepared her at all for the biggest obstacle of all: The Mighty Thesis.

Obviously the story hasn't reached its end.

So, the real adventure begins. Even though I can't take the thesis seminars yet, I need to dive in and read a lot. The thesis' main route right now is the study of women's memoirs and their differences in different cultures (The Complete Persepolis inspired me). The problem is that I don't know what would be good to read next, so if you are reading, by any chance, and know about a good memoir, please recommend it to me and I'll give it a look at its Goodreads page and users' comments too!

End of Chapter 1.

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