Insecurity

An open letter to all men:

Hello. I'm reaching out to you because, well, you're all sort of stupid when it comes to girls. (To the homosexual men out there, pretend this is about the more effeminate guys.)

You see, we're not your 'guy friends.' We don't like your shows of masculinity. We much prefer romance and flirting and laughter. Most of all, we like to know that you have emotions the same as we do. Maybe they'll never be on the same scale, but we want to know you at least FEEL.

Specifically, we want to know if you're vulnerable. Now, this is the part where you'll get uncomfortable because you're taught by society that you aren't supposed to be weak in any way. You're made fun of if you show weakness. But when you're alone with a girl who cares about you, and you care about her, there's no need for all that. We're really not going to emasculate you for being sincere. If anything, we'll be so shocked and awed by it that we'll be able to do nothing but jump on you and mack on you like crazy.

Think about that for a minute.

Now I'm going to tell you what you REALLY do when you feel insecure. You lash out at us. You bring us down to your level. You make us feel as insecure as you. So instead of feeling compassion for you, we get angry. Instead of wanting to ease your insecurity, we want to rip off your ball sac.

You see the problem here.

So, please, PLEASE stop being stupid. Stop thinking we're stupid guys with testosterone problems. Once you stop that, we'll stop being bitches.

Sincerely,
All Women

O Hai.

I'm gonna be straight with you, Blogger. I forgot about you. It's just, life gets so busy and all the thoughts I wish I could express in blog form get washed back to the dregs of my mind where I will likely never find them again.

Oh? What's that? I should blog about what's been keeping me so busy? Well, if you want. I at least owe you that.

First is school. Considering I'm only taking two classes, I'm a lot busier than I thought I would be. Novel Writing and Short Fiction Writing, one after the other, is taking a toll on me. While I'm working on an on-going story, I'm also coming up with new plots every week and trying to squeeze them all into 400 words. I'm a novelist, folks. I don't write stories in a page or less. I'm getting better at it, though. :)

The next two things taking over my life all started in December. I skipped a class to go to LA so I could be in a Dave Days music video with Zoie. Filming was supposed to take 3 hours. LIES. We were there from 1 PM to 11 PM. It was worth it, though! I got to know so many awesome youtubers in a way that VidCon didn't really allow. At VidCon, if anyone was even slightly famous, they were being pulled in every direction with little to no time for meeting and getting to know people. At the video shoot, we had HOURS to talk, joke, laugh and eat the pizzas Dave bought us. ;)

During that time, I started talking to this guy named Sammah. I knew ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about him. And yet, by the time we were all leaving, he and I were twinsies and he had my number. Yeah. Smooth, right? I didn't even know I was flirting with him. I didn't even know he was into me until the next day when we had lunch and a movie with Zoie and I ASKED Zoie if she thought he liked me.

It all went uphill from there. And my gas tank got used to pumping out far too much gas on the weekends.

Simultaneously, there was this little thing called the CoFA Shoot going on in Atlanta. Now, I know very few of you have listened to my wheedling on Youtube, but you seriously need to go read City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. I love the series and the way Clare writes. I can't explain it, but no matter what I'm reading by her, I'm immediately sucked into it.

So. CoFA Shoot. CoFA = City of Fallen Angels, AKA the fourth and upcoming book in the Mortal Instrument series (City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass). It all took place over one of the weekends I was up in Riverside. I had my phone tuned into anything and everything CoFA Shoot related. And, of course, by the end of the first day, I had found all the actors' twitters. (Well, all the ones that HAD twitter at that time.) The first one I found was on accident. I just saw Cassie talking to someone on twitter called TegantheTerror and I thought I'd check it out. Lo and behold, it was the girl playing Clary Fray. (For those who don't know, Clary is the main character.) I followed her immediately (on TWITTER, guys. Seriously, I'm not that creepy. Nor do I live on the east coast anymore.). Who could've predicted that Tegan would need assistants?

It was a couple weeks after the CoFA Shoot madness that I saw the tweet that changed my life. That sounds way too melodramatic, but I'm being totally honest here. Tegan posted that she wanted an assistant. I wanted to be that assistant. Like, you have NO idea how badly I wanted to be that assistant. She told us to email her if we were interested. I wrote the email on my phone, in Zoie's bed, at about 10 AM, immediately after waking up and reading all the tweets I'd missed while I'd been sleeping. I must have read and reworded that email at least sixteen times before Zoie and I were satisfied with it.

A week later, I got the response. I was in! I was one of nine girls Tegan 'hired' for the job of being her assistant. We dropped down to eight girls pretty quickly, but that was okay. It took maybe three hours to realize that almost every girl Tegan had gathered reminded me of best friends I have. Obviously, that was a pretty freakin' good sign.

We formed The Troupe of Terrors and began terrorizing in the name of Tegan and her awesomeness.

Before the Terrors, my parents would have to call me to get me on Skype. Now, I check in every day on my computer and sometimes on my phone. I don't wanna miss ANYTHING the Terrors put out there for discussion and we have SO many awesome projects going on! Tegan wrote a movie that they're starting production on in May; Liz, Lorena and I started up a secret Terror/Mortal Instruments project that will debut sometime in early April; we're all managing a Facebook fanpage and starting up a website for Tegan; we even have our own Youtube channel (called Terror TV, if you're interested) where we vlog to each other without schedule or expectation.

If all that wasn't enough, I've still got my day job. I usually work three days a week, nine hours in each day, and sometimes I take on extra days if Mandy has a job or if I need more money. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE those kids, but DAMN if they aren't tiring! Bear's beginning to talk, which means he's also getting one of those boy attitudes. He's entering that 'terrible 2s' stage, in other words. Not looking forward to it. Lily, however, is almost 4 and her moods are totally predictable. Hungry, tired or separated from her dbag dad for too long = temper tantrums over everything and nothing. This morning was actually a record for me. I had both Lily and Bear pissed off at me within an hour of being at work. Goal accomplished...?

I keep taking on side projects, too. Sigh. Not only am I editing my own stuff, I'm editing my classmates' work (for both classes, so about 10 other people) AND Tegan's work. Granted, I wholly enjoy reading Tegan's novel because it's so enrapturing. Problem is, I read it like a reader and not like a writer which means I have to go back through and reread a few times to find something to critique. And to think, I thought I was done with reading like a reader. I guess Lisa Shapiro (novel writing prof) still has some work to do on me. :P

I think that's...it. And no, I'm not going to detail the other side projects. They involve being a youtuber and dating a partnered youtuber. Among other things. Oh God, and I wanted to start up my personal channel again.

I think I'm gonna die. Remember me as I was: a Slytherin with a penchant for being a dick online and a good friend to have IRL when plots of revenge were afoot.

*dies*

Avoiding NaNoWriMo.

Because I can't write anything inspired right now, I figure I may as well write some drabble that no one will read. :D

I might as well explain my novel, yeah? I mean, I'm spending a month writing the shit out of it (and researching as I go, which is a whole 'nother story), so I feel I should at least try and explain WHY I'm writing it.

First of all, it's been a while since I read Hunger Games and I honestly didn't have Suzanne Collins in mind when I began writing the story of Daphne the Epic Bitchy Main Character. Not that I think Katniss is a bitch. She's sort of clueless, actually. But Daphne Watercress is despicable because she's the exact opposite of clueless and she uses every bit of information she gathers to manipulate people and get her way.

I've never written a character I didn't like. Not even my villains or antagonists were all that bad in my head because I understood them psychologically. So writing Daphne is a really strange experience. There's literally nothing I like about her. Except her best friend, Walker. Poor, poor Walker. Everyone loves him. I made him universally lovable on purpose so that when his heart breaks, the reader's heart breaks, too. And when he gets nommed on by a snake, the reader's right there with him writhing in the dirt while Daphne does her best to suck out the poison and fails. And when he gets sad about leaving his family behind, the reader's sad, too, even though they don't ever meet his family in the story.

It's a tragedy, really. I really wish Walker could be the one to change Daphne, and in the end he sort of is. But it's actually Logan--fabulously flawed Logan--who makes her realize how terrible she is. He's the one that silently pushes her to apologize for the first time in her life. How does he push her? By being just as HORRID as she is. Once she gets stuck with someone so much like her, she finally sees how big a bitch she is. It takes her a long time, but it does eventually happen. And when she tries to make things right, it's too late. Because, let's be realistic. I hate realistic endings, though (but I can't help but adore Sarah Dessen - damn her), so I designed it to be a little more governmentally twisted and somewhat hopeful. Sort of just like Mockingjay.

I apologize to Suzanne Collins for accidentally stealing your claim on bittersweet hope. Sort of.

So, basically, I didn't tell you anything about my story. Here's the main story line:
It hasn't rained for 30 years and the citizens of America have been split up over the country into tribes.
Daphne's mom gets married to the future leader of the tribe which gets Daphne pissed.
Daphne plans to run away with Walker once she discovers there's a city nearby.
The two of them embark on a long ass walk through desert, mountain and national park to get to Sacramento.
Walker gets holed up in the hospital and Daphne ditches him to go be a charity case foster kid to some middle class family after meeting Logan.
Walker gets out of the hospital and stalks Daphne until she's forced to talk to him.
Logan overhears them talking and "invites" them back to his place where a cornucopia of secrets is revealed.
Some shit happens and Walker decides to go on his own back to the tribe. Daphne goes with him and she brings Aunt Eadie back, but leaves Walker there.
More shit happens.
Three years pass and the government falls.
Daphne breaks up with Logan and returns to her tribe to try and convince them to move to the city. They chase her out of the camp.
She conspires to kill her baby half brother, but when she goes into the camp to do it, she's thrown into 'jail' and finds Logan already tied up there.
Walker helps them escape, gathers up his family and goes back to the city with Daphne and Logan.
All is well. Sort of.

That's the HIGHLY WATERED DOWN version. Go read my posts on Nicole's wall if you want the whole shebang. But it's only a little more informative than what I just gave you.

I don't think that really answered the "why" part of "why I'm writing this novel."
1. It's a challenge to write a character I despise.
2. It's a challenge to have every bad thing happen to the only good character in the whole story.
3. It's NaNoWriMo and when you only have 30 days to write 50,000 words, you fuckin' write whatever comes your way.
4. This is completely different from anything else I've ever written and I appreciate how unique it is (despite Hunger Games).
5. To be straight to the point, Urinetown inspired me to research Malthus and he fascinated me, the crazy old coot.

So there it is. It's called The After, but I really want to find a better name. It'll be stand alone, of course. And The After really works, but it just sounds so boring. =/

Oh well. I'll figure out the title when I finish it.

Happy NaNoWriMoing! :)

Trying Poetry...Again.

So, I don't read poetry, I don't write poetry, I don't really care about poetry. Ironically, the first piece I ever had published was a poem.

Something's been bothering me for over a month now and I couldn't figure out how to deal with it. Then, at 12:30 am yesterday, as I was trying to fall asleep in my boss's living room to the sound of a little boy crying, the first line of a poem popped into my head. (For the record, this poem is NOT about the crying little boy.) From there, everything else just fell into place in my head. I wrote it out as a prose poem last night before bed and revisited it today. I like it as prose poetry, but I liked it even better as poetry, so I broke it up, enjambed it to my liking, added concrete imagery and ended up with this:

Left Unsaid

Sometimes, I really
Can’t stand you.
Like when you relate everything
Back to sex.
Or how you never ask about
My opinions or thoughts.
My favorite position
On what issue?

Then I see you in person
And you’re attractive
With your ashy blonde hair and
Your whiter than eggshells smile.
You’ve got this scent,
Light as celery and
Prominent as peppermint.
You tease to make me laugh,
So I flirt
Because it’s easy.
I like to see you objectify me.
I like to twist you through my fingers
Until you can’t escape.
I like to think of you as my conquest.
Not yours.

You say I make you nervous,
That you can’t think straight around me.
You ask me
All the time
If I’ve forgotten you.
It’s how you start every
Conversation that ends pointlessly.
You say you really like me.
Which part of me?
You never said until
You got in my bed.

The immature part of me says
I should be happy
Because I won the
Battle of sexes.
The grown woman in me
Stays silent because
She feels nothing.
And neither do I.

No success or disappointment,
And no attachment to you.
Just emptiness and complete
Disinterest.
What goes left unsaid
Is why I bothered with you at all?
I have no answer.


As you can see, it needs some work. I got rid of the biggest cliches, but I've been trained to hunt down and eradicate every cliche in a piece of literature or poetry, so even things like the word "bothered" bothers me. And the ending stanza was a last minute addition that is VERY WEAK. Especially the last line. Gross.

Oh well. I'm gonna try and get my professors to help me with it (since I'm not in a poetry class where I could workshop it) and get it cleaned up in time to hand it into the Acorn Review (of which I'm an editor). I'd turn it in as is, but I'd rather have it down to minimal errors before the editing staff rips it to shreds in front of me. :P

Comments and constructive criticism is welcome! So is telling me I should stick to fiction writing - I know I'm no poet. :P

Finals Week?! Whaaaa?

It's amazing how lacking in drive I am right now. Finals start next week and I'm seriously considering skipping my anthropology test.

I've always been a fairly inconsistent student, but when you add a hatred for the school, the fifteen minute drive it takes to get to the school and the idiocy of the professors there waiting for me, it makes it really hard for me to find the will to get out of bed or to even hop in my car and go to class.

I'll fail anthropology even if I don't go to the final, but I might as well go and try to get myself a high F. Guitar's gonna murder me since I'm terrible with strumming patterns and switching chords. Creative Writing is the only class I feel I'll pass with flying colors. I wasn't always in attendance, but I worked my ass off on the assignments and it paid off. I'm now published and soon to be published again.

This tells me what I should do next semester: Stick with the English program.

I'm going to start private guitar lessons this summer (hopefully, if it doesn't cost too much with the added bonus of paying rent), so taking a class in the fall would be a waste of time and money (even though I adore Benedetti). Anth I'll just take again with a better teacher. Might as well.

English, however, will fill my schedule (hopefully). I know I want to take Novel Writing and the editing class (Acorn Review). I need one (maybe two) more three unit classes to be made full time and still have a little leeway if I decide to drop a class.

I have all of summer to figure it out.

But first, I need to start studying for finals.

Horror Stories

In grade school, there was this kid Eric. He was friends with everyone, but for some reason the popular kids thought he was awkward (when what’s really awkward is that the popular kids managed to be popular in a school with only 40 students). I don’t know where Eric is now, but I know he was in high school for 5 years. Anyway, I remember one year for English, we all had to write horror stories. Every story based on the students in class had a common theme: Eric’s death.
I wonder how he felt about that. I wonder if hearing his own death scene in ten different versions scarred him in an irreversible way. I wonder if I’m to blame for some of his bad childhood memories. I wonder if he even remembers that assignment.

New Leaves

On the subject of Teresa, there are some bright, magnanimous memories, and there are also some really terrible ones. For a little over a year, she was my best friend. Lucy and I weren't the closest of friends junior year and we remedied a good portion of that senior year, but it was Teresa that I bonded most with. Coco was there, too, but Reesa and I were together more often and Coco was busy with her romantic interests.

It's kind of funny how it all worked out. Reesa always saved time for her friends when she was dating Nick. I wasn't the biggest fan of him (and he turned into a giant d-bag once they were really, officially over), but he wasn't the most interesting person, so it was easy for her to divide up her time between him and friends and family.

At my "good riddance" party the day before I left for my 5 day roadtrip across the continental US, Coco cried when she said goodbye to me. I only cried when I said goodbye to Teresa, even though she was going the same way 19 days after me.

That was when everything changed. I didn't even know what was happening until it was all over.

I made all sorts of new friends and new best friends, and I did my best to keep my old friends, too. Maybe I changed. I don't really know. Maybe I was just adapting. Maybe that's what Teresa did, too.

Looking through the old "love" book we used to write in, I could see that we had interesting and at least semi-thoughtful conversations. Sometimes it was just funny stuff, or random stuff, but most of the time, it was stuff that really mattered to us.

At some point during our first year in college, those conversations stopped. When I wanted or needed to say something that mattered, she had to talk about boys. Or sex. Or how what's-his-face said such and such to her and how that made her want to drop her pants.

When I got back to this coast during the summer, I found out how often she'd lied to me to keep me from hating her or being disappointed in her. And honestly, if she'd just been up front about it, I would've been angry, but at least I would still have had some respect for her character.

Coco, Nelle and I confronted her about her behavior last summer, too. She promised to be different, and with her boyfriend on the east coast, she was different. She was herself. Or, well, one version of herself. I can't pretend I don't know how people edit their social selves to keep it separate from their alone selves. But either way, she was back to "normal" and we were all pretty happy about it. But in the back of our minds we knew, the moment she went back there, she'd just fall back into that new persona and probably get worse.

We were right.

At first, I only got a few texts from her, sometimes of pictures of her and Ty, or her new haircut, and the like. Then there was nothing. For about five months, there was complete silence. One day, I got a text from her saying she had a box in my grandparents' storage and could I please be her owl and let my grandparents know she wanted it back. I gave her my grandparents' number and told her to figure it out herself. After that, I didn't hear anything else from her until the day I announced on facebook that I was going back to PA for spring break. We talked a little about it, she brought up the storage thing again ('cause she just never got around to doing anything about it), and that was the end of it.

I was shocked, therefore, when I looked on facebook yesterday and discovered that she'd tagged me in a note titled "This is probably wayyy long overdue..." She addressed about 8 of us directly, and in the letter to me she said she knew what I thought had happened to our friendship.

It's not exactly hard to figure out. She dropped her dignity with her pants and I didn't bother to keep in contact. I would've just heard the same sex stories over and over again. Why bother?

Apparently, though, she's turning over a new leaf. Again.

I still love her, even if I have to think back to all the good times we had senior year to acknowledge it, but I can't help but wonder: How long will it last THIS time...?