Writing.

Hello.

I have been thinking about writing lately. Well, about a few different things having to do with writing but that are kinda separate. I've been mostly doing this because, well, I'm actually studying journalism now, and writing is the thing journalists do.

First of all, I have a class about basic grammar rules. How to spell words borrowed from other languages, and where to put a comma and where to not, and which words to write together (well, we haven't actually gotten to that quite yet, but soon). A lot of these are things that actually a lot easier to do in English, because (I may be wrong about this, though) you can put a comma where ever you feel like it as long as it makes sense, and you never write anything together.
Oh, Finnish, how people love your grammar.
Anyway, since the thing that we're practising is not only knowing how the correct way to write is but also to learn to spot the mistakes in text, after two months I'm already paying maybe a little too much attention to how people write things. I mean, on facebook posts loosing up on the rules for commas is ok, as long as the meaning of the sentence doesn't change, but I'm still tempted to comment on people's things just to correct their mistakes. But I won't. Because people would hate me. Because people hate grammar nazis. Except if they are grammar nazis.

Ok, moving on.

For another class I have to write there practise news and stuff. Sometimes it's fun, and sometimes it's not. The newspaper news was fun to do. The one that I'm writing right now is less fun. You probably heard me complaining about it last week, since I was already doing it last week. We have to write a thing about a person. Then next, we have to write a feature bit. So basically we have to write about an interesting person and a bigger more informal thing about some interesting phenomenon that's going on right now, or a report from some event basically describing what it's like there. Or lifestyle thing. Something that interests people, and that holds some connection to something that's going on right now.
Ok, so there's one problem with this. When I'm doing it. The same problem comes up when trying to make interesting beginnings or headlines to news, because they have to be interesting to capture people's interest.
The problem is this: I am not interested in the same kinds of things the majority of people are interested in. Dad tried to tell me to write the kind of thing that I'd be interested to read. Yeah, well, I could, but it would suck, mostly because it probably wouldn't be very onteresting to the rest of people.
Most people are interested in who's gay and how to lose weight and how to decorate a home so that it's pretty. And I sit around at home looking at the headlines on the webpages of newspapers and tabloids (ok, I don't really do that, but still) thinking Why do people care?
I mean seriously, the world would be a better place if people just stopped caring about who's gay and cared about something more important.
Ok, I've studied enough journalism that I know why people care. Because the human mind simply gets some weird pleasure from knowing things about other people that they're not really 'supposed' to know.
It's the same kind of thing that I explained to you about how university courses seem to a little too often concentrate on the people who have previously studied the subject at hand. And I really don't care about the people. I care about the subject at hand.
Maybe that's why I like natural sciences better than social sciences. Social sciences are all about who lived when and thought what. Natural sciences are about how things work. Sure, you have to know the names of some scientists too. You can't really call yourself a physicist and not know who Einstein is. (Bad example, since everyone knows who that is, but you get the point.) But the majority of what you learn is the what and the how, not the who. Sure, learning the Kreb's cycle by heart on an atomic level is a pain, but it still beats memorizing an endless list of people having done research in the field of literature.

Uh... What was I originally talking about...?

Oh, right. The point was, that it's difficult to write journalism that would interest people when you're mostly not interested in the same things most people are interested in.

A third point of view to writing that I've been thinking about lately is my own, personal writing. Writing stories. You keep talking about your dragons. I keep not talking about my novel project, mostly because... well, actually mostly because I don't want to talk about it. But also because there's not much happening to it.
I have been writing stories since I was... four? Probably four. Mom can correct me if I'm wrong. When I was thirteen I wrote every day. I was writing that one novel thing back then, I don't know if you remember.
The point is, that then I somehow stopped writing.
And I hate that.
Back when I was still living at home, meaning three and a half years ago, I got the idea for Nocturne. In those three and a half years, I have written 44 pages. And a haldfull of short stories, but they're not really worth mentioning, because only maybe one of them is good enough to be ok. And, well, Cinnamon.
I have wanted to be an author (and a bunch of other things at the side) since I was maybe twelve. And now, in three and a half years, I have written 44 pages.
And that's just pathetic for someone who has been writing stores for all her life, and has been wanting to write an actual novel for half that.
So instead of writing, I just sit at home doing nothing. Seriously, right  now I have so little to do I actually do work so I wouldn't be so bored. Though that'll probably change once the second half of this semester gets properly started after the break.
The point is, I sit at home not writing, and I hate every second of it. But even if I opened the document and started writing, nothing would come out.
Because apparently I lost my ability to write stories somewhere in my teen years.
And that... just sucks. Because it's one of the greatest feelings in the world when I do get a few pages written.

Ok, one more thing. Actually about reading, not writing, but it's close enough to the same theme.
We need to get out brother to read.
I still don't understand how our parents have been able to raise three daughters, who all read a lot and write a lot, and one son who you can't get to pick up a book even if you forced him.
Ok, I actually got him to read the beginning of The Hobbit last summer, but that was only because he was doing the speech jammer, and he needed something to say, because it's pretty pointless if you're just quiet. So he read aloud the first couple of pages.
Apparently dad once asked him why he won't read, and the answer was that because watching TV is just so much easier.
Ok, back to the point.
How do we get him to read? (He doesn't even read our blog, so it's perfectly safe to discuss this here without him knowing.)
Maybe we could write him a story. (Hey, would you look at that, this bit turned out to be about writing too.) A story specifically to him. And then give it to him as a Christmas gift. So maybe he'd read it.
Though then again, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't, and if we're already doing another Christmas-calendar-story thing, two stories to write before Christmas might be a little much.
Would you have some idea?

That's all for today, I think. I'll hear from you on Friday.
Oh, are you still at our parents' place? Just wondering.

~matu