October 2024 Summary
October 2024 Summary
Your monthly check-in on Cheshir's World
Welcome Back to Cheshir’s World
If you would like to quickly catch up from the beginning of any series, I recommend that you check out the Novel Guide, which is always available at the navigation bar of the homepage of Cheshir’s World (desktop only).
Lately, I’ve been thinking of changing the name of Depuis Toujours. The story of DT isn’t the kind of story where the main character discovers self-confidence or insists on a sort of intrinsic truth about themself, so the sentiment of the current title does not really match. “Since forever/since always” is quite a romanticization of that missing sentiment. The song that it’s named after is also very romantic, which makes no sense in regards to the story of DT(although I always interpreted the lyrics as self-love/self-adoration despite the clear message). I may be clinging onto the French theme by keeping it, a theme that honestly is not that important for the average reader.
“The Freedom of a Question” is one replacement title that I’m currently thinking of (how to acronym? TFQ? FQ? TFoaQ?). The story is very exploratory and introspective, after all, and I feel like it’s more obvious as the title of a coming-of-age story. But, in the same vein, it’s way too serious, abstract, and implies much more heaviness than I think is due.
“Her First Dance Was His Last” is another one (HFDWHL? HFD?). It’s a nice hook and implies a more specific theme (debut, ballroom, entanglement). But even though it’s more on the nose, it leans into a more romantic/tragic theme, which is not too related to the story. And, it annoys me irrationally. It’s probably just my anti-romance bias sounding off.
I’m using this month of October to think on it and come up with more titles. Ah, I’ll have to remake the book cover and fix all the past entries and mentions, though. I’m already trying to brainstorm better covers for RHBC, and I’m quite fond of the ladybug on DT.
Maybe I’ll just make illustrations for them. Typography is hard, anyway.
October Uploads 2024
Click on the series title to be transported to its table of contents/directory.
Reincarnation Junkie
Our protagonist fights against a strange creature of the gorge, one unlike anything they’ve ever seen! Just as the children appear on the scene, the creature’s true form awakens…
This part was a lot of fun for me to write. I had this creature in my head for weeks, and I still don’t know how to draw it. I’m not sure if there are any references to be made here with this creature, which I have named only in the author’s notes and not the actual story (if you can recall from last month), but its appearance kind of reminds me of bixi. Its speech resembles a frog king that I wrote of once.
Ako is once again persuaded to consider taking this world seriously. They’re a bit like me, complying with advice when it’s easy, but outright ignoring it when it’s complicated. I think Ako is a person who lives on the edge without knowing it. I wouldn’t want to meet them in their past life, to be honest.
Depuis Toujours
After the wedding of Sir Dulìman and Lady Trémaux, hardly anything has changed. So, we get a little detour in the gardens, where Cian sets out for something much more important.
It was a little strange to be writing about spring right as summer ends, but in a way, it was also helpful. The scraps that I had for this part were not impressive, so I rewrote this chapter recently. Editing the next chapter is a bit rocky because the flow has been interrupted, but I’m liking the new implications. I feel like the direction of the story got stronger, even though it’s still mostly wandering at this point. Well, I’m excited to share a certain upcoming character, although it will be a few more chapters until then (I think).
Fun fact: I originally wasn’t going to write a wedding scene because I thought that Cian wouldn’t ever remember or care about it, so it wasn’t important to the story. I wanted to mention it in passing so that the reader would go “oh, yeah. That.” Then I remembered that, although DT is about Cian, it’s not entirely from Cian’s perspective. There are voyeurs in the room, and I can utilize them.
I hope you enjoy the scene with the bird. Did you know that deer will sometimes eat small birds? It might have been baby birds, but there’s hardly a difference except for the feathers. Maybe it’s like balut for deer. Good for them.
Returning Home By Chance
As Pedring leaves the school for the day, he is reminded of the original body’s habits and visits a certain place. There, he meets someone with a good relationship with the original body, spouting reason for speculation. Who was this person to the original body?
Here, the story takes a turn for something more uncomfortable for me. Can you guess what?
Recently, I’ve started to think about the inspiration behind Pedring’s wealth and class in the first world. In quick-transmigration novels, I often see a trope where the MC transmigrates into the body of a president or CEO or modern dandy. The authors tend to try and satirize the power and convenience of money and have their MCs perform many domineering missions, but to me it always appears more like the author desires those positions and is living vicariously, regardless of how ridiculous the events are. I took this observation as inspiration and wanted to imagine an alternative reaction to sudden wealth: discomfort and uselessness. Like horror in complicity (but not genre horror, I don’t think I know how to write that yet).
Short Stories
A dispassionate governor uses hypnosis to settle the quarrels between subjects in the hall of grievances. What happens next may or may not shock you.
I don’t remember why I wrote this, I just remember writing and thinking, “I seem to be satirizing myself here”. Oftentimes when I go out and see people arguing or making a fuss, I make up stories in my head about them forgiving each other and being friends, or just engaging in intense banter for fun. I convince myself that nothing’s wrong and everything’s fine and pleasant, even as strangers make comments to me about the fuss and get upset. I assign characters and ideas to real people to make everyone find a resolution.
Recently, I witnessed a car crash. I don’t think anyone got seriously hurt, but my mind went blank then. I couldn’t make up any characters and scenarios, I couldn’t even remember what to do when that kind of thing happens. I could only remember the time, 16:23.
I wonder if the governor in this short story would ever have a moment like that. It doesn’t happen here, and I doubt that it’ll ever happen with the way the story ends, but I wonder.
In Other News
“What happened to the future?”
Remember when we heard the phrase, “the future is now”, and how exciting that felt? When rocket launches were festooned with praise and anticipation; flying cars were convenient fantasies; every major technological endeavor felt like more than a cash grab.
Well, I’m sure that some of that fog had cleared for me due to growing up, but it’s true that “the future” used to be so shiny and full of hope. Now, “the future” seems to have been abandoned, if not a little more bleak and exhausted.
Here is a (1hr45m) video that explores the why’s and how’s of this evolution, specifically revolving around the developments in the US: EPCOT & How Corporations Killed the Future. As usual, bring your own discretion if you watch it.
Fun, themed cinematography aside, this video helped me understand why I have an issue with using the word “better” in my casual speech, despite using it so much. After all, how could I know and assert that one thing or another would be “better” (in the future or as an alternative)? What if I’m projecting a baseless imagination of something that has little merit besides fantasy? Why do I think that something will be “better” if I have no expertise in the things I want to fix? What if I’m just like these men?
The last segment gives a lot of food for thought. Well, if you dive into the history of most indigenous beliefs, you’d find a similar answer to the one that the creator suggests. Be with people, build a world with life in mind, and observe the natural world for guidance.
Future Posts
Recently, I considered and prepared for submitting an application for a writer/researcher gig. Ultimately, I chose not to, since the gig was very pop-culture/film oriented, which I don’t have much interest or knowledge in. Still, the materials that I prepared for it made me inspired to look at my current favorites under an analytic lens. I haven’t written an assigned essay since high school, but I remember those being the most fun…ah, that might not be true. I liked doing a lot of things in school, but I felt like I shouldn’t have enjoyed them because of the way my peers reacted to them. I liked doing projects and reading textbooks. I wish I could’ve spent more time with teachers explaining things or having us write about what we thought as we learned. Tests were easy, and I liked it when the teachers gave us study guides or had long review lessons to wrap up each section. But I didn’t like having so many teachers at the same time—no, I didn’t like having so many different classes in one day. I felt like I wasn’t learning because there were so many things to do in a day, and I couldn’t indulge in learning. And also my peers—the homework copying, “I didn’t sleep last night”, general disinterest or super sonic studying—all of it made me feel like I wasn’t in an environment for learning. Or that I shouldn’t be learning. So, I don’t know where I’m at today.
Oh, but essays: yeah, I wrote a couple of outlines on my current favorites, “Donkey-Skin” and Houseki no Kuni. They were fun, and I might use November to write them out in full. I don’t think that they’ll be posted in November, but we’ll see.
Before We Part
It feels like this newsletter is longer than usual. Apparently, I have a lot of things to say. That doesn’t seem right, but I keep typing and adding to every little paragraph here. This isn’t like RJ, this is just me trying to find clarity.
I wrote a short story in middle school once, and the teacher told me that the thing I lacked most was clarity. That’s true. Clear communication is something I don’t naturally have. I like the feeling of no thoughts even when I’m thinking. Maybe a wordless thought is a better descriptor. Wordless, imageless thoughts. The pause between each sentence. But replicating that feeling isn’t very good for communicating. People rely on speech to understand each other; that’s why I’d rather be a dog or a smudge of dirt on the road. Dogs and dirt can understand what’s going on just fine, and there’s rarely any room for trickery when you’re without words. I don’t want to read minds, and I don’t want people to read my mind: I want to coexist without communication. No, that’s not the right thought, forget it.
I had a teacher in high school who had us journal several pages every day. I didn’t really care, but everyone else seemed to hate it, so I decided to hate the class, too. I don’t know if I actually thought it was bad, I just went along with what everyone else was saying because I didn’t know how else to communicate with others if it was not for agreeing with them. Well, I’m still like that. I ended up doing a trick that a lot of other people were doing, which was repeating the same phrase for all the pages of journaling that we needed. Then the teacher sent me to the guidance counselor for it. I thought it was stupid, because it was just words, but when I tried to write something else, I found my hand defaulting to the same phrase, still. I think it was the same up to the end of the year, and my teacher kept trying to pull me aside since the thing with the guidance counselor went nowhere. In the end, I was so embarrassed that I stopped writing in the journal and offered to make up for it by showing him some short stories I wrote instead. It doesn’t make sense, even now. That teacher was too easy on me, but he was easy on everyone. Funnily, everyone started saying that they liked him after graduation. I felt disillusioned, because they sang very differently when they were actually in his class.
Dear reader, I hope November goes well for you.
