F was friendly and patient at our English lesson today as usual. The students looked at him with loving eyes as usual. I went to Tully’s after the lesson, ordered the avocado hotdog and a latte as usual. However, I could not concentrate on reading; maybe the sun coming from the window behind me was too bright and hot. I had to go home soon anyway, because E was coming home early since his class was earlier dismissed because too many kids contracted Influenza.

“Rewrite” is just the book I need to be reading. I saw an article about a young writer who had won an award. He talked about writing and rewriting, so it occurred to me that rewriting is where the real work is. So I thought that it’d be a good idea to read the book “Rewrite”, which I had on my bookshelf for a long time. The more I read, the more I realized that writing is not just about putting my thoughts on paper. Writing is a process, and putting down my thoughts is just the beginning of the process. Writing is fun; rewriting is not, but it is a necessary step to make a piece of writing better.

“Rewrite” talks about acts, goal, Protagonist, beat sheet, and they are just everything that I have been using on the app Story Planner app, but didn’t know exactly what they meant. Now I know what they mean, and the knowledge is very helpful for me to write my next story. I can use my old script as a practice to rewrite, while I collect information for my next story. I am still interested in screenplay writing because of its simplicity, but I also want to practice story writing because it will help me to work on scene-descriptions. Story writing and screenplay writing are different ways of story-telling. The challenge in writing an outline of a screenplay is in revealing thoughts in action.

Finally I started to read the book again around 4pm. The writer uses the metaphor of polishing a diamond for writing better. The diamond polishing idea gave me encouragement that I needed to keep working on my story. Suddenly I got the feeling of making my script happen as I continued to read the book. Nobody believes in me making the story happen; or nobody could care less. However, it is not the reason why it won’t happen. Actually, it is the reason why it needs to happen. My story can be a good story if I put my heart and hands to work, to quote a basketball coach from my high school. I have everything I need: I have the advice from the book, I have the 1st draft, I have enough time; the rest is up to me. If I am willing to work hard, if I want it to happen, I can make it happen. Everyone has a voice; the question is whether one wants to be heard or not.

I need to focus on writing. I always try to do too many things at once, and leave them before I get better: I will practice the piano before or after dinner. I can try to remember 1 German irregular verb a day. I just need to finish reading “Rewrite” first before I continue to read a philosophy book. Maybe prioritizing is the key after all.

Writing 800 words daily is working out well for me. When I push myself to write more after I hit 500 words, an important message comes out as a result of the push.  The process of writing 800 words a day feels like I try to dig out what’s buried at the bottom of my mind: when I get rid of the random thoughts at the top of my mind, a truth at the bottom is revealed. It takes effort to push myself, but it’s worth it. I decided to do what I feel I need to do with my writings, which is to rewrite it to make it better.

I saw the message S left so I called her, and we talked for about 70 minutes. I told her how my writing is going well for me and the process helps me to clear and focus my mind. She talked about her mom and her kid. We also talked about how the film “Ordinary People” relates to our experiences.