Character-driven

It's eight in the morning.

I'm sitting in a local coffee shop, all alone. This is good. Life feels good. Beside me is a group of older men enjoying their breakfast coffee. They're all excited and loud, mouths almost foaming as they go on and on about things like "society" and "the future of our country". They don't sound very angry or frustrated but rather confident about their own expertise. I think every middle-aged man is very confident in their own opinions. It's fun to hear them talk, those experts.

Next to me is a quiet older man. He's a stereotypical café visitor in the morning, sitting quietly with a cup in one hand, leaning over his newspaper. Another man got up from his table! He was quietly browsing his phone alone but approached the men talking loudly about presidents and elections. The visiting man came to talk with the group about an article he found about politics. It made me happy to see the scene: a stranger, going to talk with a group of complete strangers! No angry remarks, no confusion, just an interesting conversation. As a person who comes from a society and a culture fixated on silence and not approaching any stranger, ever, it made me happier than I think I'll be able to explain. I don't think our culture of silence will change too quickly (and honestly, it has its perks, too) but it's always nice to see someone burst that bubble every once in a while.

People watching is fun. Even if the people aren't any celebrities, nothing too exciting or special, just regular people. I still think it's fun to observe them - not to analyse, not to use that for anything, just to feel like a part of something but from the outside. Just because I want to see people, I want to look at other humans. It feels nice, looking at normal, normally pleasant people.

I started to write. I used to write novellas, poetry, short scenarios and short sentences that just felt like I had to put them out there. I used to love writing. One of my biggest ambitions and dreams is actually to one day publish a novel - I don't really care for becoming a public figure or a hugely popular author who makes a living through books only, but I'd like to be able to create an entire book and get it out there. Maybe someone would enjoy it, maybe it'd only sell a couple of volumes. It doesn't matter to me! If someone enjoyed it, that's good enough to me. Currently, I definitely lack the skill to write in English. I may be able to form some kinds of sentences but I can't wrap my words around the concepts and the feelings I'd like. That's why I write mostly in my own mother language, although it isn't very popular and probably wouldn't get me very far. That's just how it is right now - with time I'm sure to improve!

I have a lot of ideas. Obviously, I'm a sucker for romance (no kidding... I might spend hours creating love stories in my head, I might just lay in my bed thinking about romance for hours and hours up to no end.) and would like to write a romantic story - or maybe a couple - someday, but furthermore, fantasy has always been important to me. I hold it close to my heart. All those hours, fascinated by the worlds some talented authors have been able to create, all those images, those chains of letters and words managed to be put in my head, the feeling of love towards those fictional characters and worlds and towns and concepts. All those lazy, magical afternoons after school... History is another thing I fricking love - both prehistory and the 19th century. And I also like philosophical, intelligent stories that teach some kind of a lesson, subtly, in between the lines. It's very discreet, but it's there.

Right now I started writing a couple of lines about an idea I've had for around four years now. The ideas may be there, I just lack the execution. The idea is about an all-girls magical school (wow, no surprise!) with a lot of fantasy creatures, spells, books... I'd like for it to be a story I'd want to read myself, and would've wanted to read as a child, as well. A story about persistence and hard work. Another idea I've had for a long while is a story about a bullied boy who gets sucked into a magical world through a portal. In the world there are all kinds of creatures and animals, but almost no humans. In the middle of the continent (I've already drawn maps, too lol) there's a huge tree. The entire cycle of the world and the residents is connected into the tree of life. The inhabitants of the world live in tribes, for instance mermaids live together with other sea-related magical beings, there's a small population of huge desert cats and human-like warriors and so on. Every tribe has to take care of the tree's cone, one at a time. The cone is very important as without it the tree won't be able to grow anew. If the tree dies, the inhabitants of the world will also stop growing and wither away (read: die). The tribes are at the brink of war, everyone is blaming each other for the disappearance of the cone. That's when the boy comes in; every now and then a human is invited into the world. They're somehow of help for the world. Because everyone lives together with a tribe, the rare humans have to also be accepted into one. So the boy gets chosen for one, he'll live in the world, meet people, make friends, gain confidence... And help the world be saved, too. The important part of the story would be that the boy is completely average. He won't be any saviour or big hero, he's just a child. But he'll still be of help, just not in a significant way, whereas others will do "the big work". He'll gain confidence, he'll come to understand that he's alright, too. That in here he can make friends and be courageous for the first time. It's important to me that he's completely normal and the themes of the story won't be inhumanly epic, but friendship, confidence and self-love. And there would be all kinds of cool tribes and magical creatures involved, huge, magical cats, unicorns and other horse-related animals, mermaids, mermen, jellyfish and whales, warriors and dragons...

Other ideas include: some kind of horribly twisted Stockholm-syndrome infused "love" (absolutely not real love, horror with a very twisted sense of attachment) story with a naive girl and her ill, deranged kidnapper... And a lot of actual romantic stories, dipped in angst and drama, or maybe sweet melancholy, maybe young people and young love, maybe older and more mature love. Just. Love. Lots of it. Written for my own pleasure! I'm terribly sorry for this, I just really like to read and write and watch and everything mature, believable romance. Romance is so nice. Okay, but other ideas include lots of coming-of-age, growing up stories, and I'd like to write something that would include my own hardships and difficulties with loneliness, too. Something a little more subtle and abstract, think John Steinbeck, maybe. I'm no good as a writer, though. I won't be Hemingway or Steinbeck, but maybe I'd be able to write something that awakens emotional responses and... teaches or rather, shows something important, but not forcibly and in a direct manner.

I'd also like to write a dystopian novel (no teen drama here, though) about the future of technology and boring equality, where everyone lives in a small cubicle, a white box that contains all the same things and objects. No one walks anymore, no one goes outside, no one sweats, no one has to. Technology does everything for everyone, no one even remembers nature or thinks about creativity or exercising. I don't know if this is a possible or realistic outcome, even in the distant future WAY beyond, but I've been toying with the idea for a couple of years and thought it could be interesting to write. The novel wouldn't be very story-driven, more interested in settings, scenarios and characters. Maybe someone would start to escape the machine, maybe someone would escape their cubicle and wander so far from their little white, stainless, boring world that they's discover a sunset for the first time... I don't know. Even the idea has a lot of plot holes.

Yet another thing I like: horror stories. Stephen King's and Gillian Flynn's books, for instance, are really entertaining but also pleasantly scary. Flynn's books aren't maybe horror per se, but I still enjoy them. Maybe like a cat-and-mouse story with a hint of obsession and lust and... gore and blood and.. Okay chill with your weird sexually-tinted psychopath stories. Or, how about a really strange story that has some kind of huge plot twist that everyone could've seen coming due to the hints dropped but still comes as a huge surprise? Like, say, the characters of the story are ridiculously nice and humane and lovable but one of them is, in reality, a psychopathic, sadistic killer who torments the others by implementing paranoia and fear in them because of some huge childhood trauma and no one ever even thought of that... OR MAYBE a seriously creepy story that has a really... odd atmosphere. A feeling that something is really, really.. off. That something is absolutely, completely, utterly.. wrong with the world. Not only with one character or one group but with everyone, with everything, with the entire world. Like there's something terrible lurking behind the sky, something so terrifying and haunting hidden behind our everyday lives. Something that naturally makes everything turn wrong. I don't know how I'd ever be able to write a story like that and make it so powerful it'd make someone feel it, but it's really an interesting concept.

Anyway, I'm almost finished with my huge-ass latte and will go to the library now, it's been open for 45 minutes already. My coffee is definitely cold by now but I don't mind, I'm a really slow drinker and will enjoy my cooled-down, lukewarm drink in peace. I'll go study German in the library and enjoy some peace and quiet. Then, later today, I'll have to study chemistry, play the piano and hang out with mom for no other reason than the fact that I love her and want to hang out with her. Maybe later on I'll watch a couple of episodes of Little witch academia, and another episode of another series also came out... I'll consume them after I've done what I need to do.

I was serious yesterday, you know. About chasing after happiness. Yesterday evening I was ridiculously sad and felt like garbage - I don't remember when was the last time I felt this lonely. So, now I'll actively battle against feeling like a pile of poop. Today started good with all the coffee shops and whatnots, I have to keep this up!