I feel a need to write something real and honest and direct and my junk shop is the perfect place to put this because there isn't any pressure or expectations. No one but a couple of you actually read it which is why I have it, lol.
So I was doing a lot of thinking this morning, and I realize that I spend a lot of time inside my own head to the point that I can easily, accidentally, forget those around me. It's very much something I just need to do sometimes, and I was even contemplating taking a vacation from loved ones just to see what would happen if I were to stay in a hotel or something for a few days just on my own with no one I know near by.
That was when a sort of truth hit me about Ruin. This is a story I've really been working on since I was an angsty teenager. It contains a lot of me inside it, and a lot of repeating themes. In a way it had me worried because I could see it, and it was almost like that was all I was writing and all I could write.Beth brought up the "virgin myth" thing last chapter. I was keen to explore it because it's something I recognize in my own work frequently. An innocent, usually a girl, needing some form of protection.
But then as I really got thinking about it, I realized that the theme that keeps popping up isn't one of an innocent girl needing protection. The theme that keeps popping up is actually someone being in a place she (or he) doesn't want to be in and doesn't feel she fits in, trying to survive like she's treading water.
A lot of the time it deals with someone on the outside looking in or watching something going on around them with an inability to change things.
In these situations, what can you really do? You can't control the forces around you, so your only option is to control yourself and make yourself as close to the person as you would honestly like to be if you could.
So that is the truth about Ruin's actual repeating theme.
5 comments:
Repeating themes are so interesting to explore though, on a personal level. I get nervous about mine, lol! I know I have them, and I tend to get stuck on something, a certain kind of conflict or theme, for months or years at a time, before I move onto something else and get stuck on that for a long while.
It makes you really want to explore why you write about the things that come up again and again. I know some of my favorites are random chance events, regrets and mistakes, and the way they shape a life.
And I think you're right about these repeating themes really just being a part of an overarching huge life theme. So thank you for writing this! Because recently I've come up with three separate stories, all dealing with the same big hot topic conflict (a-b-o-r-t-i-o-n, lol!), and I'm thinking, why the crap am I writing about that all the time lately!?! It's beyond bizzare at this time in my life, because we're actually going to be *trying* for another soon, lol!
But I get it now. What I'm really writing about is the same thing I always write about - the sacrifices one wants to make (or doesn't want to make) for a relationship or love. It's just one way of exploring that common theme. And one I guess I find fascinating right now? :\
But sorry to blab on your blog, lol! Yes, I definitely see the overarching theme of "being helpless in a place you don't belong" theme in this story. Even glimpses of that among your male characters.
I don't think that has to do with the virginity thing, necessarily, if that's what you were worried about. I think the helplessness of the females we've read about so far in Ruin stems from the culture of the place, rather than the storyteller. Because if you wanted to compare, there were plenty of strong and empowered female characters in Tierra de Legado. Ruin is a different place though, entirely. So the same rules don't apply. In Ruin, the women are strong in their own ways.
This is quite an interesting look at the themes that do crop up within any story that you write.
You once said to me that when you write, you put a bit of yourself out there and I think that is very true.
Writing I find is a way to work through things, to try and make sense of this sometimes chaotic and messy world of ours rife with their own highs and lows.
In Ruin, I find the repeating themes intriguing and I wholly empathise with the female characters and their constant struggle in a world primarily dominated by those perceived as the "strongest". I often find when I read the story this echo of our very own society in which the strong overpower and rule the weak. It's not a good thing to happen in our society but it is just the way things are.
In Ruin, I feel the heroines echo my thoughts on this, "It's just the way things are..." so they try and work with what they are given and survive in a world that values power, strength and intimidation, a world that feeds off and uses fear to control others.
Your story gives me a lot to think about with all its complexities and stories within stories. I always find myself drawn into the world and the characters and I do find that instant connection with all the female leads. It reaches out to me and that is a beautiful thing for a writer to be able to achieve with their readers, that bridge, that connection.
I find in my own writing, I also have a lot of repeating themes, a lot of which center around betrayal and usually by someone close to the main character, someone they trusted and loved and that always makes me wonder why this one theme seems to constantly appear in my stories.
Laura, repeating themes are very nerve wracking! Especially when you become aware, and then I worry that it's too easy to get a complex which leads to lack of confidence and then back into writer's block.
Understanding that they happen is important, I think. And I'm starting to think that it's just going to have to be one of those things I give myself permission to do, like writing badly just to get an idea out and worrying about it later. No holding back, no worrying. I do enough of that in normal life!
But thank you. It's actually encouraging to hear you "blab" because I know I'm not alone with my little ruts. It's just one of those things.
Carnaxa, I'm sure I've said more than once that I put a lot of myself in my writing, particularly Ruin, lol.
Thank you for all the support. I'm always terrified to put so much of myself out there in this project even when I try to not be. I'm still always a bit unsure about sharing it.
It means a lot that you can actually form any sort of bond with any of the characters that I create.
That is a very interesting theme to have continually popping up, and knowing what I know about you, I can see and understand why that would keep popping up in your writing.
Your theme is really very interesting, and I think it explores a different variety of strength that isn't really talked about all that often--the strength to simply endure and hold onto your humanity in terrible circumstnaces. In your stories, I see characters who are struggling against becoming amoral and numb because of what they've seen (mostly the females). They want to remain compassionate and sympathetic in a world that is almost sure to drive those instincts out of them. In many ways, they are simply reacting to the horrors around them, but the actions they are taking are almost wholly internal (and thus do not seem like actions)--reminding themselves that it's not that way everywhere, trying to reach out still to people others have branded as monsters. In that way, they are serving as redeemers of these people, because they can see something worth loving or caring about in them. Maybe they're wrong--but it's hard not to share their hope.
Well...that's what I get anyway. I'm really not sure if there's a theme popping up in my own writing...if there is, it certainly isn't something I'm consciously doing.
Rachel, wow. It definitely is all that. That's why I'm so glad that I decided to go ahead and start posting this story. I like hearing how other people see these stories. It's all data gathering for me, lol.
There is some fantasy, and there is some realism, and it feels so good to hope even when you end up being wrong.
Themes are rarely conscious I think. You just sort of end up writing, and later on look back and go, "What is wrong with me?" See Laura's comment above, lol.
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