REASONABLE LAPSE IN SELF-LOATHING

OH MY GOSH.  
OH MY --GOSH.  
GUESS WHAT.


I have finished a piece of writing.


Today, when I got home from school, I had about 16 pages of my script typed up, and none of the rest planned extensively.  


After finishing about 10 pages in an hour, I realized there was absolutely no way I was going to finish.  
In a fit of frustration, I exed out, accidentally hitting 'Don't save', and I lost it all.


I then laid on the bathroom floor in a pool of wallow, ruminating over the fact that I sucked, and the question of why I sucked, and my placement by Pottermore into Slytherin, and my endless suck.  


I then resolved that I would finish whatever semblance of a script I could come up with, with the help of Carlos.  We've made scripts up here before, after all.  


So that's what I did.  


Beginning at about 9:05p.m., I began an epic conversation with Carlos that brooded over my inadequacies had many playful and not-so-playful arguments, and eventually told an improvised and page-consuming story about an angry squirrel that, after eavesdropping on a conversation, travels back in time to kill Hitler.  It was intense.


And it was beautiful.  


And I wrote 105 pages of pseudo script in under 3 hours.


I've done it.  


With indispensable help from Carlos, we whupped my butt into finishing a piece of writing.  


And I can sleep tonight happy.


Goodnight.

Failed Profanity

SCHNERGERBERG.

     I wanted to use profanity as symbolized by the lovely characters above the number keys, but knowledge of the eminent dependence on them prevented me from forming a proper curse.

     So you know how I have done Flash Fiction challenges from Chuck Wendig's blog?

     This past week's was to be centered around death.  And I had the perfect idea.

     Unfortunately, when I accepted the challenge, my brother was home, so I immediately began to put it off.  

     I intended to do it today, with the belief that I'd have until noon EST on Friday, like usual.
     Nope.  New deadline 24 hours earlier.
     THE ONE TIME I HAVE A GOOD IDEA OFF THE BAT.
     I am angry.
     No more.  NO MORE PUTTING IMPORTANT THINGS OFF.
     Things can happen.
     I'm doing this week's tomorrow.  A journey. 
     Guess what I don't have a brilliant idea for at the moment?
     Well, pretty much everything.  And not just this moment.  But you get the point.

Focus Now

     GHGHRRGH.


     I need to organize my thoughts.


     But there's no time to do that now, as I have procrastinated away the day and it's much later than the post time will admit to you.


     Tomorrow, lovelies, I will give you something with more meaning, because I have some stuff to say.


     I just need to figure out how to say it, exactly.  Yes, this is very necessary.


     See you tomorrow.

Dialogue (BRODA Opening)

     I haven't blogged in a long time, and I felt I needed to.  


     Normally, I don't think it's advisable, or workable to blog merely because one feels they've been neglecting to blog, but when the notion occurred to me, a bloggable issue popped up right along with it.


Carlos: Ahem.


     Yeah, it was probably you, whatever.  Not entirely the issue here.


     Thus far, my blog has generally been about one of three things:  My writing, my people issues, or the people I converse with inside my head and occasionally in print so I can hear them better.  Now April brings Script Frenzy, in which I have decided to complete the play that brings them all together in a show about the humanized manifestation of my social retardation and her imaginary friend that helps her through her awkward first days at a new school with a raging witch of a 'best friend.'  


     Dialogue has always been one of the areas I believe I have little issues with.  Maybe because it consists largely of different facets of the recesses of my personality conversing with each other.  Point is, I've never before shared my true issues about real conversations with people, because that makes for terrible dialogue.


     I discovered this in earnest today, in the scene where the witch shoves Lila into the boy she's accidentally confessed to loving from a distance, and she is forced into an awkward conversation over a pile of intermingled books as they clean them up.  


     Real life?  I stay utterly quiet after a profuse, crimson-faced apology, we clean up while I stew over my black rage at Suzy, and I never again speak to the guy.  Terrible dialogue.


     But that's the point!  Lila is not me.  While being very awkward in similar ways, she is undoubtedly cooler than me, so Luke finds her interesting in some way, ensuring a future relationship of some kind.  The issue is how to portray someone who has ZERO social issues, such as Luke.  


     I should have foreseen this problem.


     How has it not arisen in the stories I've tried to write?  Because there's never been an awkward conversation, because I've tried to avoid some of the awkwardness that makes for terrible dialogue, but this is BASED COMPLETELY ON OVERCOMING SOCIAL AWKWARDNESS.  And also a large portion of the good intention behind Suzy's crap outer character, but I'm not yet having trouble with that, am I?


     Eh.  Hopefully I'll figure it out tomorrow.  Carlos?


Carlos:  How about a late start to BEDA since you failed to update the uninterested public on your poorly constructed writing career for so long?  How about you blog the rest of the days in April?


     BRODA?


Carlos:  Sounds about right.


     You realize I'll fail at this miserably, right?


Carlos:  Eh.  You've been doing better.  Make this one of your things to accomplish.


     Deal.

Hunger Games Hype

     A while ago, I think it was last summer, I saw a series in Entertainment Weekly that sparked my interest, because they were already picking out their picks for the actors, such as Josh Hutcherson for "Peeta" and Robert Downey Jr. for "Haymitch".  This meant nothing to me, but, intrigued as I was, I asked my mother for the series, and since she's glad to spoil me with books (she's so awesome), I received a hardcover boxed set.  


     Upon receiving it, I lay on my bed with the first one and began to read.


     And then, as you probably know, it caused me physical pain to stop.  I finished the series in five days max.  That's what makes me believe it was summer, because there was no school or sleep to hinder my reading.


     Tomorrow, you might have heard, the movie opens.  Last Sunday I began to read the first book again, since I haven't read it since last summer and I wanted to be refreshed before the opening here at midnight, which I am attending with my mother, even though it's a school night.  


     Do you need a clearer representation of my feelings on this movie business?  I'll give it to you in the form of a conversation I had with Carlos in study hall today after I finished the book for a second time.  


3/22/12  12:10p.m. Studyhall


Jemma:  Carlos, what if I die before tonight?


Carlos:  You are ridiculous.


Nay:  It's a valid fear.  Anything--


Carlos:  --Could happen, yeah, whatever.  Anyway the real question now is what to do with yourself until then, right?


Jemma:  Yes.


Carlos:  We agreed on fanfiction, right?


Jemma:  It's horribly inadequate, though.  Everything I create--


Carlos:  Don't start that.  Improve.


Jemma:  I'm excited.


Carlos:  Don't get yourself worked up again.


Jemma:  BUT CARLOS I'M EXCITED.


Carlos:  Don't write in capital letters; people will think you have multiple personalities.


Jemma:  I'm a writer... That's kinda how I am.


Carlos:  But this is--


Jemma:  CARLOS I'M EXCITED.


Carlos:  It's still almost 12 hours until the movie starts, so I suggest that you calm the hell down, or you're going to hemorrhage before you get to see it.


Jemma:  I don't want to hemorrhage before I see it.


Nay: So you're saying it's a possibility she'll die before she sees the movie?


Carlos:  You... For God's sake, calm down!


Jemma:  BUT CARLOS I'MF HNGH ENRPH MWCIORW UIWPERNJ HILUAHTPIW QNHTIUO HPF UJNEIURFJEIWJFIAOWJOPRIWEUIOPWQTIUEUOTPIWJFRGHHFDSFHHHGHHGHSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS


     ...And then I exploded.


     The only shame is I'm missing all the hype from my YouTube and Tumblr friends so Mom will let me go tonight.  
     That's the only shame.  Aside, you know, from there still being 8 hours before it starts as of this moment.

Woah

     I find myself in an odd position tonight, readers.
     I recently re-dedicated myself to my writing in a way that I'm pretty sure will stick around this time.  I feel like something in the fibers of my DNA has permanently shifted over to 'writer', as a result of some reality checks via Maureen Johnson, who has the same name as the drama queen from RENT, even though she is not the drama queen from RENT.
     You know how I can tell this?
     Because I am getting things done in study hall, I have written three days in a row, and right now I am procrastinating but I am kicking myself in the butt to HURRY UP AND GET THIS DONE BECAUSE YOU HAVE A BOOK TO WRITE, AND YOU ONLY HAVE UNTIL 9:30 TO WORK ON IT BECAUSE THAT'S WHEN YOU NEED TO START GETTING READY FOR BED IN ORDER TO NOT SUCK AT LIFE AND HAPPINESS TOMORROW.
     ...
     Who the heck AM I??


Carlos:  Yeah, that's actually me yelling that at you.


     Oh.  Of course it is.  But I'm not repressing it!  THAT is my point!
     So.  Monumental DNA fiber shift.  Kind of a big deal.
     I'm going to go work now.

FFC: The Unlikable Protagonist: Igneus Cress

“I have to get home.  It’s Tuesday; Uncle K will have felt obligated replenish the wards around the house.

“Wards?”

“Yeah, he keeps the entrances to the house guarded with cherry Jell-O to ward off leprechauns.”

“Seriously.”

“Yes.”

“Which mental illness is this a manifestation of?”

“Um… common sense?  He has this theory that the both the red and the artificialness will counteract two of their key components, which are the colour green and their attachments to the natural world.  Even though they’re not really attached to the natural world, because they can’t really be attached to any world, since they’re insubstantial.  When they attach themselves to our world, it has to be voluntary, and they mostly do that to steal our stuff.”

Regy stared.  As usual, when confronted with that stare, Nay’s defense mechanism kicked in even as the crushing disappointment washed against the walls of her chest cavity.

“What?” she demanded, her jaw hardening.

“You and your uncle believe in leprechauns?”

“Why shouldn’t we?”

He laughed incredulously, noticing too late the heat coming to her cheeks and the lasers promised from the depths of her eyes.  “Well… They’re part of mythology. Born of stories.  They’re not… actually real.”

“How do you know?”

He was looking at her funny, questioning with a look if she was serious.  Another narrow mind, closed by stupidity to the endless possibilities that the human mind couldn’t fathom. 

“Okay, why do you think they exist?” he asked, crossing his arms and looking at her with condescending appraisal. 

That look brought more boiling blood to her cheeks, and she opened her mouth to speak in the loud, strong voice that had lost her the many potential friends she’d had before this one.  She’d not silence her beliefs to obtain one companion if he would be exactly the same as the rest of the superficial snot heads that made up the majority of her peers. 

“I’d like to see you prove they don’t.  That’s the thing with magical creatures; you can’t do it.  They’re insubstantial, only attached to this world voluntarily when they want to interact with it, choosing when to leave physical evidence of their existence.  And most of the time, they really don’t, because then we stupid freaking humans would be looking for them all the time to take advantage of the magic they’ve not been able to help being born with.  They’d never find them, of course, because of the very reason they’d want to.  It’s just easier not having to evade the greedy eyes of people and instead taking advantage of our ignorance to live as freely as they dare, sometimes taking our things.”

“Well that’s convenient,” Regy mused quietly.

“Quite,” Nay said, even louder.  “Because they are not so idiotic as humans to destroy the world they’re forced to share.”

“Why are you being so psycho about this?”

“Psycho?” she screeched at him.  “This is psycho to you?  The thought that something might exist beyond the reaches of your impotent optical organs and limited reaches of your puny human brain?  Well forgive me for having a mind open to a side of our world less loathsome than the one we’re stuck living in, and believing in the possibility of what we long for as children, but convince ourselves does not exist when we fail to see evidence of it as we grow up.  And if that’s too complicated for you to understand, then your gray matter will stay exactly that: Gray.  No colour, no life, no hope for anything but a monotonous stream of earthly pleasures.  Good day to you, imbecile.”

Nay turned on her rubber encased heel and marched the rest of the block to her old, large Victorian on the corner, and walked up the steps, smiling wanly at the congealed red coating on the oblong door handle and door mat.  She closed her hand around it, not wanting to need to wash her sweatshirt, and went in, finding her father standing at the sink, staring out the window with that stupid, far off look in his face.  When she came in, his consciousness retreated back into his brain, and awareness came again to his face, making him look, to Nay, even stupider.

“Do you know what I’ve been thinking?”  He asked her.

“Yes and no.  You’ve been thinking of everything, because you’re a philosopher.  You’ve thought of everything that could humanly be thought of, and come to no conclusions because the reaches of your mind are just as limited as the rest of ours.  Where’s Uncle K?”

He cocked his head at her, deciding not to question the black rage in the lines of her small, pale face.  “In my study.”

Nay dropped her backpack in the entry and, not bothering to take off her boots, walked down the hall to the high ceilinged room in which her father had no technology of any kind, and yet a large, overstuffed armchair in which her Uncle now sat, his detached eyes wandering upward.  When she came in, he looked vaguely in her direction and an infantile grin passed over his wrinkled face. 

“Iggy!”  he cried, unreasonably delighted.  “You’re finally back from outer space!”

That he could see her here that sad look upon her face made her smile, though he probably wasn’t actually seeing her, but tuned in to her brain waves of similar sanity status.

“Did I ever tell you about the time that I fought off a pack of wild leprechauns that had swarmed over the entire city?  Everyone forgot about it, of course, but I remember!  I still remember, and I’m going to tell you about it, whether you decide to distinguish yourself from the furniture or not.  Maybe you’re not even here.  But you might be, so I’m just going to start talking. Who knows?  Maybe you’ll be in optimum position to hear the story from wherever you actually are.”

Nay scraped her rough sleeve over her damp face.  “Yeah, anything’s possible,” she said.  

Exactly 999 words of the 1000 I was allowed.  I should probably cut some so people can stand to read the whole thing, but it's too late to decide what to keep and what not.  I almost didn't even do this one, but Nay fit this challenge so perfectly I couldn't stand going to bed until I got this up.  

For more of her frustrated ramblings, here is her blog.