Wednesday 28 September 2005

Pic of the day: A classic case of a tied-up heart, I guess. From the anime Suzuka, as is good and proper.

The heart-untying story?

It is still slightly more than a month left until NaNoWriMo. In one way it seems far far off, but at the same time my head has been spinning with novel ideas since summer. The main contender was largely inspired by a song: "Start line" by COACH*, a Japanese girl band. One verse of the song was performed along with the intro sequence to the anime Suzuka (also called Suzukaze in this connection). Somehow while listening to the song, I suddenly got this idea, which is not really related to the song, much less to the anime. I suspect that it was one particular phrase there which caused it. Here is the closest I have come to a translation, mostly combining other people's efforts.

As I saw your face looking up at the blue sky,
the spiral of time came to a halt.
I'm always so stubborn, hiding my feelings.
It's so painful, loving you, it becomes unbearable.
I can't be strong like that, the truth is
the distance between us two is turning me into a coward.
But I want you to touch my heart.
Even if we take a detour, if we get there in the end:
The start line,
the heart-untying story...
I'll say goodbye to my tears
and we'll step into the future.
The kindness I found inside my heart,
I want to hold on to it;
so please
just stay the way you are.

What has happened since is that the single CD has arrived from Japan. That is how long ago it is that I ordered it. And I am still planning to write the same story, if I get the opportunity. It is the story about the college girl who falls in rivalry and soon after in love with a classmate. But he already has an invisible girlfriend who is all he could hope for and more. Having tangible girls trying to butt in is inconvenient at best. She on her side, even when she finds out his secret, does not believe it (who would?) and goes ever further to get him back to her real world.

It is not autobiographic, at least in any way that would make sense to the reader. But it makes sense to me, as strange as it all sounds. So far, so good. But is it a heart-untying story? I am not sure. And life is too short to write stories that are not heart-untying. It is what I try to do again and again, whether in fact or fiction, to make myself and others more free. To see the invisible or the overlooked.