Seven Days in May

Seven Days in May was my first writing project when I came to Japan, and one where I learned a lot about what it was going to take to put a book together. I dropped the project after realizing that you can't write a book without a plot, purpose or outline...who knew?

What I was really experimenting with in this project was some different styles of writing. A lot of it ended up being vaguely (or maybe not even that vaguely) autobiographical, which was fun for playing around but wasn't sufficient for an entire book, really. What I had in the end was some funny mini stories all based around a single character in a couple of situations.

The title refers to the timeline of the book, which is set during the same seven days in May in different years of one person's life. It was to be a book about changes, about the trauma and humour of growing up and all that post-graduate angst and confusion kind of stuff. One of the timelines was to be the last week of University, the other a week during a trip through China (where do I come up with these creative ideas?) and the other during a week during his life at work which culminates in him having a breakdown.

And that's where I learned another important thing; it's tough to write about things you haven't figured out for yourself! I was in a different head space when these snippets were written, but some of them are entertaining nonetheless, so here they are.

On Travel...
And after you graduate...?
The Subway
On School
Homelife...or something like it.