Persistence

Monday, the first day of Week 2 in Natsuki’s bizarre adventure with the Web Novel Club. When Natsuki arrived in the club room after school, she looked like a shell-shocked veteran who had seen too many things overseas and had been dumped back into civilian life just like that.

Natsuki slumped into her desk, then brought her laptop out of her bag in the most melancholic fashion possible.

Masako and Yumiko, standing at the front of the class, gave her sympathetic looks. “Did you realize this weekend you haven’t actually started writing your story yet?” Masako asked.

Natsuki glumly nodded.

“Plotting’s good, though,” Yumiko said. “It’s good to know what’s coming next. And it’s good to have details for the world around you. When my main character hero shows up in the Cat Kingdom, it’s good to let the audience know some things. What’s the geography and climate there? The Cat Kingdom in my story is located in the plains. It’s ruled by the Cat King, but he’s old and increasingly influenced by his Cat Vizier. And catgirls and humans are romantically compatible. Things like that.”

“But you don’t-" Masako stared at Yumiko for a moment as she processed that last bit. She decided to ignore it. "But you don't want to get too caught up in that,” Masako warned. “And that’s our fault, too, because we didn’t realize we let you fall into the trap of worldbuilding until Yumiko and I talked over the phone yesterday.”

“What trap?” Natsuki asked, still feeling down (and it was definitely only about her lack of writing the story. She was definitely not jealous about not getting any calls from Masako over the weekend).

“Worldbuilding for worldbuilding’s sake is fun and fine,” Masako explained. “It’s a nice hobby. But when you’re worldbuilding for the purpose of writing a story, it’s easy to get too caught up in fleshing out your world rather than writing the story.”

Natsuki slouched in her seat. “So…what do I do now?”

Masako pointed at the whiteboard, where last weeks’ four major elements still remained, though it now had to compete with thousands of notes on Timequakes and properly splitting rivers. Amid all the little details about Time Wars and Hyperstrikes, Masako tapped on IDEA with a marker.

“You know your Time Cop is going to Egypt to stop the Space Dragon Syndicate from stealing the Book of the Dead. But it’s up to you how to make that idea tangible. Do you want a chapter where he arrives in Egypt, another one where he beats up a merchant that has a suspicious 26th century necklace to figure out when and where the Syndicate will strike? Or do you want to keep all that as a few paragraphs of background info and have just one chapter on Time Cop defeating the Syndicate?”

Natsuki felt like her brain was going to overheat. She looked down at the blank word document on her computer. “Uh…”

“You don’t have to write in chronological order!” Yumiko suggested. “If you’re having trouble starting a chapter, just write the most vivid scene in your head first.”

Natsuki wiped her face. The most vivid scene…

That would be Time Cop taking out a few guards, then interrupting the Syndicate boss when he reached into the tomb of King Tut to steal the Book of the Dead. Natsuki could picture it like a movie in her head - the way Time Cop judos the guards, then fights off mummies when the boss uses the Book to revive them.

“I got it,” Natsuki realized. "I got it!"

She raised her fingers above the laptop’s keyboard section thing - it was time to write!

As Masako and Yumiko looked on, smiling wide with excitement, they saw Natsuki type a few things, then stare intently at her laptop. For about five minutes.

“...how’s it going, chief?” Masako asked.

That brought Natsuki out of her trance. “Oh…uh…it’s going.” She rubbed the back of her head. “I looked up Egyptian pyramids, since I wanted to set the fight in the biggest pyramid…but then I started reading about Egyptian history…so I still haven’t written anything yet.”

“...relatable,” Masako and Yumiko said in unison with a sigh.

“There are a few other traps with writing,” Masako explained as she walked over to Natsuki. “This one’s what I call the rabbit hole. Because we’re writing online, it’s incredibly easy to just get side-tracked. Any website is available, right there at your fingertips. And even when you’re trying to do legitimate research, it’s easy to get sucked into some place beyond that, too.”

Yumiko shook her head. “The Information Super Highway giveth and taketh.”

“Not getting distracted is a skill, just like anything else,” Masako encouraged. “For now, just try to focus on the writing. You can fill in the finer details later.”

Natsuki nodded, and reluctantly exited out of the website, bringing the blank word document back to the surface. She raised her fingers above the keys.

Turn the intangible into tangible.

“How do I start?” Natsuki asked Masako.

Masako shrugged. “Just write.”

“Just write?”

“Sometimes, you just have to do it. Just try your best. Nothing’s perfect on the first try. Even the second or third.”

Natsuki nodded. She gulped and approached the laptop with timid hands. Her fingers moved clumsily as she typed a few words out. She immediately blinked and looked up at Masako, who still stood next to her.

“Um…” Natsuki said, knowing from online communities that there would be an express train to Sapporo at 4 PM and lowkey jobs out there for runaways, no questions asked.

Masako chuckled. “Oh, sorry. I understand.”

Natsuki felt embarrassed, but Masako really did seem to understand. She left Natsuki to her work.

As Masako and Yumiko conversed at the front, Natsuki swallowed and tried to write out her scene. It played so perfectly in her head, yet she typed so slow, the words never seemed to come out right, and everything just felt flat. All the while, she had to battle urges to look up pictures of pyramids and tropes about mummies.

As Natsuki worked hard, she could overheard little bits of conversations from the front of the classroom.

“If you’re bored, Yumiko, why don’t you write something-”

“I finished my writing for the day already, I stayed up really late last night-”

“So that’s why you had to copy my homework for geometry…”

"Copy? More like I had you walk you through all the problems you left blank!"

Natuski heard the sound of someone tapping their fingers on the podium like a drum.

“Hey, Yumiko, don’t disturb her-”

“I’m not disturbing her-”

“You’re clearly disturbing her!”

“Well, you’re disturbing me!”

A sudden crashing sound made Natsuki yelp and fall out of her seat. Now sprawled on the ground, she made eye contact with Masako and Yumiko, who were equally on ground level. They had their hands on each other’s collars and hair; they must have wrestled and then collapsed in a heap, taking the podium along with it.

Yumiko immediately stood, straightened out her ribbon, and ahem’d. “Terribly sorry, Natsuki. Your President should have set a better example for you-”

Masako smacked her on the head. Yumiko tee-hee’d and helped Masako get the podium back upright.

“I-It’s alright,” Natsuki said. As Yumiko maneuvered the podium back into its earlier position, Masako walked over and extended her hand out to Natsuki. She gladly took it; Masako hoisted her to her feet.

“I was just about done anyway,” Natsuki said, sliding a shoe across the floor.

Masako held a thumbs-up. “Excellent! Can I read it?”

Switch trains at Tokyo Station. Switch trains again at Hakodate.

The thing about showing somebody something is that it can never be undone. Letting Masako read her work would change Masako’s perception of her for all time. Masako will always retain that knowledge. She will always associate it with Natsuki.

How could anyone ever show anybody their writing? How could your skin not crawl at the thought of it? How could you not worry about looking stupid in front of somebody?

“...ooooiiii, Natsuki…” Masako gently called out as Natsuki spiraled right then and there.

Natuski looked away, towards the ground. “How do you guys not feel embarrassed about showing your writing to someone? I don’t mind over the internet, but to actually show someone in person, someone I know…”

Yumiko shrugged. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

Natsuki looked up at her. Yumiko almost stumbled backward when Natsuki’s blank gaze stared her down. “Vincent van Gogh had the same issue. He was afraid of sharing his work and most of it was sold after his lifetime. People back then saw him as a madman. And then he became a madman. He sliced off his ear, got sent to an asylum, and shot himself. But van Gogh could at least show his paintings to his friends! He lived with a fellow artist and did artwork together at one point! But I can’t even do that. So, tell me, what does that say about me?”

Yumiko decided to hide behind the podium.

Masako stepped up. She gripped Natsuki on both shoulders; since she was taller, she looked down on Natsuki with a mixture of fatherly firmness and fatherly love, which seemed kind of odd since she was a Japanese teenage girl, but it did the job. Natsuki took a deep breath and counted to ten inside her head.

“You’re not the only person in the world who ever dealt with things like this,” Masako said. “Are you afraid we’ll think your ideas are stupid?”

Natsuki nodded.

“And you’re afraid that therefore, we’ll think your stupid?”

Natsuki nodded again. “I know it’s not rational. I know my sense of danger is just hyperactive. But no matter what I do, I can’t shake the feeling.”

Maybe it was just the fatherly grip on her shoulders, but Natsuki took a deep breath. “But I want to overcome this feeling. I don’t want to be embarrassed about telling people I know that I’m writing a story. I don’t want to be embarrassed about letting people I know read my story. If the solution to writing is to just write, then I guess the solution to showing you is…I just have to show you.”

Natsuki gestured at her laptop. Masako grinned and took a seat to start reading, Yumiko bounding over to stand alongside her. Natsuki shifted her shoe over the ground again as she waited.

“Not bad,” Masako concluded about a minute later.

Natsuki blinked. “You already finished?”

Yumiko looked at the word count. “You only wrote about a hundred-fifty hundred words.”

Natsuki sputtered. “B-but I wrote for like twenty minutes!”

“Half an hour, actually,” Masako looked at the clock.

Natsuki ran a hand through her hair. “I write so slow and I couldn’t turn the image in my head into words on the screen. Every sentence I wrote felt like I was pulling teeth. I just couldn’t get the words to flow right.”

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Masako reminded her. “Writing’s a skill. You have to practice it. And you don’t get good right away. It takes a lot of training with it. But as long as you keep it up, you can get better.”

Yumiko nodded. “You’re already ahead of the game. You can punctuate and use dialogue tags correctly. I couldn’t even do that right when I started.”

As Masako and Yumiko listed the points they liked and words of encouragement, Natsuki looked at the two of them for a moment, then tugged at her collar and looked away.

“Aww, you guys…”