JUST ONE MORE THING..

Another (probably very cliche and horrible) idea has struck me.

DREAMS?

Probably overdone, but it fits with the surreal element, and might work well with the whole Isolation concept - dreams as an escape, maybe?

Hopefully in my research, I'll find something better than just 'dreams.'

REINVENTION

Well, my Viva went horribly, so I'm pretty sure I want to recreate my idea.

1. I've decided to ditch the historical fiction - to be honest with myself, it wasn't that interesting to me either. I just felt like I needed to have something to research.

2. I've ditched (maybe) the autism idea. I haven't entirely dismissed it - I still may bring it into my idea - but for now, I'll put the idea itself on the backburner and instead, focus mostly on

3. The character of Jane. I've decided to reshape my three stories so that they will be placed within different stages in her life, as opposed to having three completely different perspectives. I've also decided to incorporate an omniscient narrator between the stories, so it all feels more cohesive. As well as all this, I'm working more on figuring a quote or some idea or picture or ANYTHING that I can interweave into the three stories. So far, all I've got is

No man is an island

courtesy of John Donne.

One of the biggest issues is the fact that I've left it so late to reshape my idea, and I'll need to have a draft in by the end of the term, and I'll need to figure out half yearly exam study too. And from all this still stands the BIG PROBLEM:

I DON'T HAVE STORYLINES.

This itself is turning out to be one of the most stressful parts of the whole process. I need to come up with something SOON. I'm thinking of basing the plots themselves on the John Donne quote.

IDEA: TRIPPY.

After listening to Matthew's idea and thinking about Lucy's a bit more, I've decided that my story would be made infinitely better and more original if I introduced a more "surreal" element. I'm not entirely sure what yet, but I know the influence will come through most in the first and second stories.

IDEA; SAVANT?

I came up with this idea maybe a few days ago but I didn't get to note it down.
In the previous post (or the one before) I mentioned that I was thinking of using a mental illness as the main thing in my third story. I've now decided to expand on that and make it a story about an autistic savant. Just thought I'd record it here.

GOOD WILL HUNTING

Last night I watched Good Will Hunting, and it opened up more ideas to me: wanting to belong to a smaller, 'less desirable' group as opposed to 'making it big.' I'm not sure whether that will fit anywhere in my suite, but I thought it was interesting.

STATE LIBRARY VISIT #2

Well I didn't get to note this down, but about four days ago, on the 28th of January, I went to the State Library again to get some more research done.

As well as actually getting to photocopy some pages (which are also included in this journal), I got some solid thinking and planning done, and by the end of the day I had figured myself out a rough plan to follow, in terms of both structures and content.

MEDIUM: A suite of three short stories, each one exploring a different take on isolation. Preferably, all of these stories would be joined together (not that the characters are aware) by a single item. I have yet to decide what this item will be, but I brainstormed some things I could possibly do and here is what came up:
- A photograph

- A newspaper article

- Maybe not something so simply material

Story 1: I'm thinking of some sort of historical-based work (though obviously not to the point where the history overtakes the English aspect), based on some sort of famous (or not so famous) incident involving isolation - probably social. After brainstorming, here are some things that came up:
- The samurai after the Meiji Restoration, who lost their prestige (probably not this)

- Segregation within America (Probably set within the civil war. Has this been done before? Rhetorical question, it most probably has, so I'll need to take a look for some MWs that have explored this)

- Apartheid, as suggested by Ben Soo.

Story 2: The second story would focus on the isolation of an individual from society (as opposed to the historical one, where an entire group would be isolated). I'd probably take inspiration from the various texts I've checked out that explore this kind of thing, like An Imaginary Life by David Malouf, or the Monos and Daimonos text by Bulwer. I would most probably be basing drafts of my character for this story on Jane (whose biography is also in this folder), the character from my previous writing exercises.

Story 3: The third and final story would focus on isolation within oneself, by which I mean, most probably due to some sort of mental condition, even though I know this has probably been done about like a thousand billion times already. I brainstormed a bit and thought I should probably take a look into:
- Autism

- Schizophrenia

- Dementia? Maybe?

I've yet to read anything about any of these yet, but I know I'm bound to find some sort of other illness that will better suit my cause when I'm researching.

I've also been considering some sort of overarching message about isolation to convey in all three texts. So far, I've only come up with simplistic things like "Isolation is neither completely positive or completely negative" and "People need isolation and privacy at times to stop and take a look at their lives and what they want to do next."

Speaking of privacy, there's a bit that I photocopied on privacy, but I'm not so sure how useful it'll be in the long run.

COURTESY OF SABRINA

Maybe I should check out And The Ass Saw The Angel, since it'd probably help with the whole 'writing with a silent atmosphere' type thing.