Ron322

Leg day on Saturday morning kicked my ass. After training once a week in the last 3 weeks, I’ve managed to see where my strengths are still in tact, where some strength has diminished and where the compensations lie. Of all the major muscles, pecs and quads are my weakest. My lats and hamstrings have proven to still be the strongest of everything that needs to catch up. My triceps and shoulders were doing more work than my pecs could (doing isolated exercises for these separate muscle groups definitely exposed this to me). I know that once my quads catch up, my squat will improve. As my pecs get their foundations rebuilt, things can come back to balance. All else will just require repetition and consistency.

I went into some extended writing on FireFrei’s final chapter and thankfully, it’s been fruitful. I did have to stop at a certain point, though. In recalling my main characters, what they’ve contributed, what they went through in this volume and the aftermath, writing out what’s happened to them since is one of the interesting yet challenging parts of writing. I want people to see where they all are after climactic conflicts that lead to the end of it — their state of mind, what they say (or lack thereof) and what do they do.

What I didn’t anticipate myself into doing, however, is writing my way into a character that has an existential crisis to where the conversation of possible suicide attempt. This is not a typo — there will be a character that may or may not commit suicide. It isn’t for shock value or in a gratuitous intent in my writing. I just…found myself writing my way into that scenario — and that is a very dark part of writing I have never explored.

I normally go by the principle of never writing about something I know nothing about or something I’ve never personally imagined. This is genuinely an instant where I write my way into scenarios I never prepared for. When I say this story writes itself at times, this is possibly the biggest example of it. If I had no guts, I’d rewrite or just scrap that out — however the storyteller in me insists on me tackling it. If it’s come into the story, give it a reason to be there. Sit with the character that’s contemplating it and work from there. It definitely won’t be where the chapter ends but it’ll definitely be a moment for sure.

One thing is for certain — you won’t see it coming. There isn’t a hint of it throughout FireButt or FireFrei where this character has struggled with mental issues that lead them down this state of mind. The only clue I’ll give away is this — they’re in both novels and is within Emmanuel’s circle. Don’t get me wrong — I’ve known people that have tackled self-harm, suicidal attempts but to find myself freehand writing into a situation where one of my own creations wants to end their life? It’s very unexpected but when you’re a writer, sometimes the good stuff ends up having some difficult things to tackle along the way.

Some writers struggle with having too many characters in their story and thus having trouble on how to bring things together in a cohesive and conclusive manner while others get stumped at a plot impasse. I’ll take the latter over the former. On every platform, I’ve never had my drawing, music and writing listed as separate things because of my firm belief that whether in images, words or in sound, art is in action; writing just happens to be my 1st language of the 3.

For some of you, this side of me is something you’ll be experiencing for the first time while for those that have known me for a very long time, this is simply a return to form. In the words of Renoir Dessandre from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, “True art is both a window and mirror”.