Death is Eternal #332
Sunday. January 22, 2023. 2,540 words.
Another week, another Death is Eternal! Not much happened this week, but I have a few reflections to share with you. So buckle up and get ready because I feel this will be a gigantic Death is Eternal! I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. Actually, I know for a fact that it has the potential to be gigantic. The thing is, will I not get tired halfway through and stop writing? Well, only one way to know…
Contents
Khioniya Kuzminichna Guseva (intro)
Khioniya Kuzminichna Guseva
Twitter Poll
Getting Tired of Writing
The Writer’s Studio
Journaling
Last Week (from January 16 to 22, 2023)
This Week (from January 23 to 29, 2023)
Death is Eternal Review #171: Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Death is Eternal Review #172: Millennium: The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz
The End
1. Khioniya Kuzminichna Guseva (intro)
Project my hiStory was me going to Wikipedia and seeing what happened in history that day. The only rule was that it had to have occurred in a year finishing with the same number as the year I was in. For instance, if I were in 2022, the fact must have happened in 1902, 1682, 572… I liked the project because 1. it allowed me to learn something new, and 2. I could write without having to worry about not having an idea. If I had the time, I’d probably go back to it. Anyway, forgive me for presenting you with a first draft, and I hope you enjoy the reading of Khioniya Kuzminichna Guseva!
2. Khioniya Kuzminichna Guseva
I can’t imagine my life without it. They’ve been with me since I was 13, but it looks longer. It seems like forever since the first time they gave me.
At first, I didn’t understand. I wasn’t ill. Medicine was for the ills, so it made no sense. But if they told me I had to take it, what choice do I have? They knew better than me; they were adults.
Since then, twice a day, every day, I have taken my medicines.
When I was younger, I skipped the pills sometimes. As I said, I didn’t feel ill. But I was wrong. In the beginning, skipping was no problem. Then, after a couple of months, I couldn’t imagine my life without medicine. Whenever I tried to rebel, to test what would happen, I started to shake, to lose my strength; I even passed out once. I stopped skipping after that. Now, twice a day, every day, I religiously take my pills.
I’ve accepted that I’m ill, accepted that the adults knew better and needed the medicines.
I also accepted Illiodor. He showed me the world. But, more importantly, he showed me the truth about myself.
The last time I didn’t take my pills was because he asked. He wanted to show me something. I was terrified; I knew I would be sick. But Illiodor assured me he would be by my side, helping. So I trusted him; I did what he asked.
For the first time, I understood my illness. Illiodor helped me see what was wrong with me.
It was brief, but before passing out as I did all those years ago, I saw hell. It was still Russia, but it was hell. People were demons; Illiodor was an angel, my angel.
When I woke up, he was by my side. Holding my hand, as he promised. The world was back to normal; no more hell, only understanding.
I wasn’t ill; I was misguided, and Illiodor promised to guide me; he said I wouldn’t need the pills anymore with time.
After the first year, I saw him for the first time. And even with the pills, I saw a demon.
I told Illiodor, and he worried. He said that if I saw a demon, even with the pills and the training, it was because it wasn’t a simple demon. It was the Antichrist itself.
At that moment, I understood what I had to do.
It took me a year, but I finally had a shot at him.
It was night; of course, it was night. He was wandering alone.
Lurking in a dark corner, I could see his true face and, more importantly, his true intentions.
Since I first saw his picture in the newspaper, I have had a knife with me. I knew what I had to do; I knew my mission.
I ran and yelled.
The moment he turned, I stuck the knife in his abdomen. I could feel his blood; I knew he was going to die. I couldn’t believe it; I had done it. I accomplished my mission; I’ve achieved my goal.
“I have killed the Antichrist!”
Except I didn’t.
The End
3. Twitter Poll
Serif: 28.6%
Sans-serif: 42.9%
Semi-serif: 28.6%
That poll left me sad. I thought things might go this way, but deep down, I was hoping they didn’t. I love fonts with serifs, and I can’t understand how people would prefer sans-serif fonts. Maybe I’m biased because I love to read long-form stuff, and serif helps the reading process. Or perhaps I’m just too old for today’s world. Well, it’s not like the two options exclude one another. Maybe I like to read long-form because I’m old. It makes sense. Anyway, serif FTW! Always!
4. Getting Tired of Writing
Last week I mentioned that The Writer’s Studio (TWS) helped me realize that I care more about innovating how to tell the story than telling the story. Well, this week, I came to another conclusion: I get tired of my writing. And that’s in the way of me writing the best story I can.
The thing is, I’m the complete opposite of a perfectionist. I always knew perfection was impossible and, more importantly—maybe even more worrisomely—I’d never reached it. So no one ever needed to tell me, “Done is better than perfect.” That was always very clear to me. Perhaps a little too clear.
You see, one of the reasons I have so many first drafts is that once I’m done writing, I already want to go to the next story. Once I type “The End,” that story is finished for me, and I don’t want to go over and edit, re-write and re-edit and re-re-write… I want the next thing, the next story. And that’s a problem because, as TWS constantly shows me, a draft is never finished. That goes against everything I always believed; to me, a draft is close to being finished the moment I… well, finish it.
And that has been really, really hard for me. Forcing myself to look and re-look, read and re-read what I wrote isn’t natural for me. More often than not, I can never go past a third or fourth draft because I neither see the reason to do it nor feel like I can improve what I wrote without external feedback. Hopefully, I’ll learn this skill and, more importantly, will learn how to stop feeling tired of the current story. Hopefully!
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