....Which means I'm on Month 5/10.
Officially half way there.
That's more than a little bit exciting/terrifying/awesome.
Firstly, apologies for being a bit absent of late - I've been desperately trying to scrounge together and finish my second year at University which I can gladly say I have FINALLY done. Woopee!
I am now free to enjoy the summer, work hard, adventure, and fill my days with endless blogging, writing, dreaming and just being happy. It's strange, I always think I belong to the Winter, right up until the first rays of summer sunshine touch my cheeks and I realise just how wrong I could've been.
Secondly, the first of May hit, and I received word that I didn't qualify for the Holstee Fellowship. To be honest, I kind of expected it, although my whole blog is based around the idea of The Holstee Manifesto, I can't see them being willing to grant the prize to someone who, essentially, is going to use it to throw a massive party. Regardless, I still really want to go through with the party, and who knows, by this time next year I may dreamed up another project to bring silver people together and be worthy of winning.
*
As the seemingly limitless summer months stretch out before me, I guess I find it a little but daunting. I am so plagued with a potent combination of having a morbid fear of wasting time, but being a top notch procrastinator at the same time.
So, I have decided that I need a summer project. Hell, my whole plan was to have created something spectacular by the time I turn 21, and so far, all I've really done is talk about doing it. There's only 5 months to go, and although this blog has become pretty recognised, its just not enough for me.
That's why I have decided, after a lifetime of writing short stories, vignettes and more recently blog posts, musing on the concepts of Philosophy, Romance, Art and History, I have decided I am going to write a book.
By the 7th of October 2013, I will have written a novel.
Obviously, my first thought was, well, shit. What the hell am I going to write about? But then I started to smile. What can I write about? I looked around myself... I'm already writing it. I realised that since January I have been constructing a living novel around myself and my life, autobiographing life as it happens to me. If there was one thing that shouldn't be a problem, it would be finding something to write about.
So, I went through my old documents (heartbreakingly, a lot of my work was lost when my laptop got stolen) and found five stories that I'd written or planned, that had considerable quality above the rest. And the curious thing was, they all fit together. It was like I'd always known that these stories were meant to belong as one, but I'd written them as seperate pieces over the course of five or six years.
This novel spans over the course of around 100 years, and follows five different groups of people in five different generations who all suffer from the same needs to escape, create and live the silver life, whilst constantly being oppressed by the grey monotony. The thread of silverness has no bounds of time, generation, era, or circumstance. There is always silver in the grey. All of the stories are based around the school that the first character founds - The Academy.
And this is what I have decided to write:
'The Academy'
A collection of consciousness.
1900-1920's
Ophelia is a twenty year-old writer and lover of art and music, living stifled under the hand of her social and economic circumstance and her oppressive and aggressive bussinessman fiance, Thomas. She possesses a burning desire to escape everything and everyone, fleeing the repressive constraints of a world she was reluctantly born in to. To her surprise, she finds these existential frustrations mirrored in her fiance's notorious, renegade best friend and painter, Oscar. After a whirlwind and illicit romance, Ophelia finds herself at the point of make or break, with her very sanity and life on the brink. As her story comes to a close, Oscar gives her a heart-shaped locket necklace with a corresponding key, to remind her that there is always more to life, than just the need to be loved.
1930-1950's
Harvey, son of Ophelia, a Philosophy teacher at the educational institution his mother founded, The Academy, is a recognised and well-respected academic figure, loved by colleagues and students alike. He possesses an extraordinary mind and is regarded as one of the most radical thinkers of his time. While at The Academy he falls in love with and marries as woman named Rose, who goes on to teach Literature there. World war breaks out, Harvey is impassioned by it, goes to fight and dies on the front line. Rose is left widowed and broken, with nothing left to live for. After a while she starts receiving anonymous letters under her office door at The Academy, professing the deepest of admirations, adorations and sympathies. Rose begins an epistolary love affair with this anonymous writer, whilst slowly losing her grip on sanity and on the discovery of their true identity, goes on to take a monumental risk.
1930-1950's
Harvey, son of Ophelia, a Philosophy teacher at the educational institution his mother founded, The Academy, is a recognised and well-respected academic figure, loved by colleagues and students alike. He possesses an extraordinary mind and is regarded as one of the most radical thinkers of his time. While at The Academy he falls in love with and marries as woman named Rose, who goes on to teach Literature there. World war breaks out, Harvey is impassioned by it, goes to fight and dies on the front line. Rose is left widowed and broken, with nothing left to live for. After a while she starts receiving anonymous letters under her office door at The Academy, professing the deepest of admirations, adorations and sympathies. Rose begins an epistolary love affair with this anonymous writer, whilst slowly losing her grip on sanity and on the discovery of their true identity, goes on to take a monumental risk.
1960's-1970's
Annabel is a young girl, in her first year at The Academy, imprisoned by her Mother's impossibly strict regime and rules. Annabelle has never known true fun, enjoyment or had any friends at her mothers persistent interference and control over her daughters life. One day, walking home from The Academy, Annabel is struck with a flare of rebellion and tears away from her Mother, sprinting into the local park. She delights in the freedom and finds herself on the edge of a glade observing a group of Traveller children playing. One of the young, wild, boys notices her and approaches her curiously. Annabel wishes nothing more than to be one of the children, and resents everything her mother has ever imposed upon her. Just as they are about to speak, Annabel's mother finds her and drags her away, furiously, and Annabel weeps in sorrow of a loss of innocence of which she is too young to understand.
Present Day - Part one
Oliver is the youngest sibling of the wild children seen in the glade, but has now grown up and fallen in to the mundane life of an architectural assistant in the city. He attended The Academy and was part of a close-knit friendship group that fell apart after some great divide. Ten years on and he is bored and exasperated by his life. This is, until one day, he bumps into an old member of the friendship group, and past flame, Scarlet. Scarlet wears a heart-shaped locket necklace. They agree to put the past behind them and start afresh from strangers, and for weeks go on the most exciting adventures across the City. Day by day she chases away the dullness of his life and shows him the true meaning of being alive. All is going well and Oliver finds himself falling in love with Scarlet, until one day she reveals to him a painful truth which tears them apart again. She disappears and he cannot find her, and he realises that he can not return back to a life of normality, after an awakening like her.
Present Day - Part Two
Simultaenously, Oliver's niece, Mary
is a teenage girl in her final year of The Academy. Although she is very intelligent, she is lazy and overly-critical of everything,
especially herself, and is a typical cynical and sarcastic teen. She
is unhappy with many aspects of her life, including her appearance,
but does nothing about it except complain on the internet. One day, a girl from her bus, a girl with a little heart-shaped locket necklace, decides to talk to her. They begin to talk every day and Mary finds that this girl is a truly spectacular human being. She shares the same thoughts, frustrations
and fear as Mary, but conversely actually does something about it. The girl intrigues, inspires and captivates Mary's imagination and intellect, and Mary begins to keep a journal and write a book about this mysterious girl and the conversations they have. Then one day, the girl stops showing up on the bus. After a while, it becomes apparent that she will never see the girl again. But instead of resorting back to her own ways, Mary decides to make a change in her life, and writes a novel based around this mysterious girl from the bus.
Epilogue - Near future
Scarlet is sat at a coffee shop in Paris writing some profound words in a notebook, about the impact a single person can have on the life of another and how they then go on to inspire other people, so that inspiration in a way is like a virus. All you need is for one person to find the silver in all the grey, and then it becomes contagious. Once you realise the true greatness of life and what it truly means to live, it is impossible to ignore it. A waiter comes and brings her coffee to the table, but then stops, turns back and approaches her again. He looks down at her, looks at the heart-shaped locket around her neck, and asks if they have met before because she seems familiar. She take a moment to really look at him in detail. She replies that they do not know each other... yet.
The End.
This novel summarises everything I have ever felt and expressed in this blog, that so many of you have said you recognise too, and I don't know... I'm excited. I feel like this novel will be the final piece in the puzzle, the final, closing step in turning my previously dull, frustrating life into the one I've always dreamed of having. The last closing scene on the life of grey, and that first push on the door to a whole world of silver.
Are you in?
Scarlet-Ophelia.
