I Come Bearing Drabble

A Sunglasses In Time

On a waxy and orange morning, Raine sat up a stream. It was Valentine's Day and she was all alone. Her kidney ached in sorrow for the secret love that she could never share. How could she expect Sonny to love someone with a shiny eyeball?

Joyously, she began to recite a poem she had composed. "Ah, my love is like a fiery papered cell phone, all on a summer's day. I wish my Sonny would jump me, in his own poopy way..."

"Do you?" Sonny sat down beside Raine and put his hand on Raine's wenis. "I think that could be arranged."

Raine gasped sandly. "But what about my shiny eyeball?"

"I like it," Sonny said sexily. "I think it's careful."

They came together and their kiss was like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood.

"I love you," Raine said protectively.

"I love you too," Sonny replied and jumped her.

They bought a platypus, moved in together, and lived throatily ever after.

The Shiny Terror Of The Snow

It snowed a foot overnight. When they woke up, Sonny and Raine went out to play. First, they made snow angels. Then they had a snowball fight and Sonny hit Raine in her wenis with a big thick iceball. It hurt a lot, but Sonny kissed it throatily and then it was all better.

Then they decided to make a snow man.

"We'll make a really waxy snow man!" Sonny said.

"Why don't we make a snow woman instead?" Raine said. "That would be more luminescent and politically correct."

"I know," Sonny said. "We can make a snow platypus. That way, we don't have to worry about gender politics."

So they rolled the snow up protectively and made an orange snow platypus. Sonny put on a whale for the eyeball. The platypus was almost as big as Raine.

"It looks fiery," Sonny said joyously. "But it seems like it's missing something."

"Here," Raine said and held up a careful cell phone. "I found this up a stream." She put the cell phone onto the platypus's head.

It was perfect. For about a minute. Then the platypus, even though it was just made of snow, started to move and growl like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood.

Raine screamed sexily and ran but the snow platypus chased her until she tripped over a tree root. Then the snow platypus jumped her sandly.

"Nobody does that to my little Poopy Sunglasses," Sonny screamed. He grabbed an icicle and stabbed the snow platypus through the kidney. It fell down and Sonny kicked it apart until it was just a bunch of snow again.

"You saved me!" Raine said and they shared an embrace in the snow before going in for hot chocolate.

The cell phone lay in the yard until a papered child picked it up and took it home.


1000 Whale Platypuss

Raine paced sandly back and forth. Luminescent dread filled her heart. Sonny should have been home at least an hour ago and it wasn't like him to be late. Oh, my shiny love, Raine thought. Where could you be?

Just then, the phone rang. It was the police. Sonny had been taken hostage by Thick Wenis, a supervillain who had the city in a state of careful terror. Raine fainted dead away, like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood.

When she came to, there was a bump on her eyeball and the luminescent dread had returned. "Sonny, my waxy honey bunny," she cried out sexily. "What is Thick Wenis doing to you?" Probably torturing him, laughing protectively as he jumped him in the kidney.

In the midst of all the terror and tears, Raine remembered a story her grandmother had told her. If you fold 1000 whale platypuss, then whatever you wish for will come true.

Raine ordered in a supply of whale and set to work, folding platypuss until her eyeball was sore and she could hardly see. It took a week. She was just finishing up the very last platypus when Sonny walked in the front door.

"Sonny!" Raine screamed and threw herself into Sonny's arms. "It worked! I folded 1000 whale platypuss and it brought you back to me." She was so happy, she felt like she was dancing up a stream. She kissed Sonny joyously on the kidney.

"Actually," Sonny said, pulling away throatily, "I was rescued by the Fiery Sunglasses. She's a new superhero in town." Sonny sighed. "And she's really orange."

The luminescent dread came back. "But you're poopy to be back here with me, right?"

Sonny checked his watch. "Sure. But I've got to go meet the Fiery Sunglasses for coffee now to, you know, say thanks for saving my life. Stay papered, baby." He left and the door banged behind him.

Raine choked back a sob and started folding another platypus. Then she went out and got drunk instead.

Bitch, Please

You know those moments when you REALLY want to say something epic and badass, but you can't think of WHAT until five minutes after the fact? Yeah. Those suck. ESPECIALLY when you're dressed up in green and silver.

So here's what went down:
We were sitting in the theater, waiting for Harry Potter to start. Everyone was talking. Someone got us to sing happy birthday for a girl in the audience. Many of us were making inappropriate jokes about wands and wood.
...Actually, that last one was just me.
Anyway, the previews started, and we were all laughing and joking about some of them, and nerding out about others. Like Sherlock Holmes 2 and Cowboys Vs. Aliens. And then came Warhorse. And we were all sort of confused as to why there was a preview for a stupid horse movie before Harry freaking Potter. The preview ended and there was a collective breath around the room...and then another preview started and everyone sighed. So, yeah, I giggled, and so did a few people around me.
And this bitch behind me went, "Are you ever gonna shut the fuck up?"
All I could do was stare at her. I couldn't even comprehend it. Like, yeah, you've probably been waiting outside for hours to get in here...SO HAVE WE. Also, it's past midnight, we're tired, practically exploding with excitement, and this night marks the end of our childhood. I'm so sorry you've got Voldemort's wand up your ass, but the rest of us are here to have a good time. CLEARLY you've never been to a midnight premiere before, because EVERYONE talks at midnight premieres! AND THE MOVIE HASN'T FREAKING STARTED YET SO SHUT UP AND SIT THE FUCK DOWN!
I turned around, all of this going through my mind, and I looked down at my bag a minute later and saw my wand. And suddenly I knew the best possible thing I could've done, but it was way too late to do it.
I really should've pointed my wand at her and said, "Silencio," and turned back around like nothing had happened.
I was really bummed I hadn't thought of it sooner, so I leaned over to Amy and told her my plan...and she was giggling LOUDLY for at LEAST a minute.

I hope that bitch knew we were laughing at her.

A Writerly Post: the First of Many

Having online writerly friends is seriously underrated. I hate doing that chapter by chapter thing for novel writing class. When I write, I don't think in chapters, I think in scenes. My ultimate goal is to make those scenes flow flawlessly. Chapters are supposed to break up those scenes. So, no, I don't write chapters. I write full-length novels and break them up afterward.

Now back to my original point: I love having an online friend who is like-minded and is also a writer. Liz (@skypethis_24601) doesn't mind when I send her 20 page drafts at midnight with critique questions like, "Should they make out here or later?" and, "When they're in the closet (literally and figuratively), would they just fight?" She answers the questions ("As a reader, I want them to make out, but alas, the fates would not be so kind to me.") and then sits on Skype with me while I write more scenes. And then she deals with Skype unformatting everything I write just so I can send her something I've JUST FINISHED and want feedback on. This typically happens way after midnight her time (and then stretches into past midnight my time).

Basically, I think I've fallen in love with instant BETA reading.

And now I feel guilty for not sending Tegan the full critique of the 6-10th chapters of her novel. >.< I think I'll do that while I'm skipping novel writing tonight.

Anyway, now that I've got my energy back and my life under control (for the most part), you'll be seeing more writing posts on here. I've got quite a few projects going on. I've put my NaNoWriMo novel on the back burner for now (I feel like this has happened before...hmmm...), and now I'm working on a new, untitled story (although the "working title" is 'Kailee and Crispin's Excellent Adventure.') along with a joint story (co-written with aforementioned BETA reader). And I've got all summer to work on them! :D

Guilt

Whenever I get an email from my pastor, I can feel the blood rushing out of my head. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. If I don't show up to church one Sunday, I know everyone's thinking, "Oh, Karaline's not here. Didn't see THAT coming." And what part of that would make me want to go back the next week? I love my church family and all, but they make me feel guilty for things I don't have to be guilty about.

It's just really discouraging. Why would I go someplace when I know I'll just feel bad about myself?

All that aside, I've also been busy or out of town or sick. And after five days of dealing with Dave and Mandy's battle of who can care less, I need as much time as I can get to recover. I don't get enough sleep during the week and I really don't feel the need to be up at 8 in the morning on a day off. This the 21st century, pastor. Give me a Saturday night service. I could make it to that. I could also make it to a Sunday night service. No problem.

My faith doesn't die when I miss church. I know it weakens, but I'm not dead. Not even close. I still hold my morals, my beliefs. Nothing can make those die. Especially when I see every day how awful life can get when God isn't involved.

I guess I just want to be trusted. And not judged. That would make it a lot easier to go back.

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! :)