So remember that brain cancer story I wanted to write? I pumped out a preliminary scene last night because I had a lot of energy that needed an outlet. It's rough, as in I haven't added in much setting description nor decided on the narrative tone I want to take. Actually it's mostly just dialogue. I got to know the characters a bit better. My little "theme" one-liner that I had in the back of my head (and at the top of the .doc) was "She was haunted by the ghost of the person she used to be." I thought about using that as the first line, but then I didn't.
She woke up an hour later, a sizable ounce of her brain gone. The entire tumor had been removed, they told her, but she would still need a few more months of chemo and would she mind posing with the surgeons? Such a rare operation needed to be documented properly.
Joachim shuffled in after the doctors had gone. He still carried the paperback he had walked in with last night. The bookmark had inched its way along while she was under the knife.
“You were on page 137,” she greeted.
He smiled. He rubbed his eyes and sank onto the corner of her bed. “Yes, honey.” He rubbed his eyes again. “How do you feel?”
“Nothing, mostly. I don’t feel any different.” She shifted. “What page are you on now?”
“316. The doctors said that the area of brain they operated on dealt mostly with memory. They’re going to have to test you out, to make sure you’re still ok. I was talking to a nurse, and she said the tests are mostly word memorization and basic history, like Independence Day and 911.” She stifled a yawn. “But, ah, that won’t be for a few more hours. Give the brain time to recover.” He traced his hand over her cheekbone. “I’m so glad you’re ok.”
“I think I remember everything important,” she said. “How was your night? Did the book get any better?”
“No. No, it stayed about the same. I read when I could, tried to sleep, drank some coffee.”
“You do seem a little red in the eyes.”
A pause. “I was going to call your office, tell them the news. Any special messages?”
She hummed and tapped a finger. “Wish Angela an early happy birthday.”
He kissed her cheek. “I’ll do that now.”
The end. A horribly empty piece of writing. I have major issues with setting. I don't usually write any setting details until the next go-through, because otherwise I get super distracted and I don't finish writing what I had in mind. It's horrible and I get a lot of smack about it in workshop. I have to think about setting with a different part of my mind, and once I'm out of the writing track I am SO out of it. Like ugh. Also I think I have a thing for guys who ramble; it's so adorable to me.
Speaking of adorable, and soccer, since it is Euro 2008 season. I love love love love love it when soccer players head-butt a ball and fall on their asses. Like, when the goalie throws/kicks it across the field and some dude tries to knock it down and he gets a hit in but then just flails from overbalancing and plomps on his behind? POSSIBLY THE MOST ADORABLE THING EVER?
Friday, June 27, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
HELLO
It is so laborious to blog/keep an online journal. Ugh. I should be in bed trying to sleep but instead I am awake and writing run-on sentences and possibly in a weird mood. I have concocted a bold print "To Do" list and tacked it to my wall. I need to save money for a trip with some girlfriends later in the summer. This will be difficult because I do not have many hours at the library this time around.
My other two major projects that need to be finished ASAP are my bookshelf comic-painting and my Council documentation. The first is almost there, just two panels left. I overestimate my artistic skills because I am surrounded by beautiful art in so many aspects of my life. I see images in my head that I want to recreate but I don't have the skill to live up the expectations my mind forms. I also give up too easily, I have learned and been told. But I am satisfied with the project so far (well ok this latest panel sucks). The idea behind it was to create a story using poem snippets as the text. It came to me one night when I was trolling my poetry books. I have picked lines from Byron, Tennyson, Eliot, Collins, Shearin, and Pound. It gives me an excuse to paint, which gives me an excuse to make pretty colors.
The Council documentation won't be talked about much, because it's too personal to be discussed with any embarrassment. I have just plowed through my sophomore year journals, and things are going well. The basic idea behind this project is to rifle through my high school lit journals and type out all the Council-related material (just think of it as a universe of characters). I don't know how I ever passed my fiction class, or any literary class for that matter. All I typed was adverbs and lacking descriptions. The Council is the greatest proof of the fallacy of living too much in one's head. After I have typed up everything, I have grand plans to create a basic time line of events, but I've had that aspiration for almost six years now.
Lastly, there are two ideas for stories I have wringing through my head. One is a quasi-high school drama with a character who pays too much attention to the wrong things and loses the big picture. I have had this idea for a while, as in maybe half a year. It started out as a mild journal word doodle, playing around with tone and author's license (I can't exactly call it poetic license). It will give me an excuse to use my human anatomy book more.
The second idea is very recent, fueled by my paranoia and the mood of some fiction I've been reading online (at Strange Horizons). See, the other day I had a horrible headache. Heat headache. It was disgusting. Oh, I think I wrote something about it, hold on. The pain was ferocious. It flowed in a thin river across her forehead and echoed into a deep waterfall at the base of her skull. There were puddles of intensity pulsating past her ears and she felt her entire existence would forever be stuck in this heightened state. It woke me up at five in the morning, and I had to go downstairs to find pills and interact with people. Afterwards, I passed out in my bed and slept for another five hours or so. The problem was, I had that phantom headache lingering with me the entire day, like if I was to turn my head the wrong way, the pain from that morning would come and crash down my walls of peace.
Anyway, a few days after that, I woke up dizzy as dizzy could be. It was Thursday, and I was supposed to work. I managed to take a shower somehow, after swaying my way through brushing my teeth and walking down the stairs. Then I started to get nauseous. Usually I walk to work, but I couldn't even walk to the kitchen without stumbling and falling to the side so I called out. The majority of my day was spent sitting down, staying very still, and drinking small sips of water and coke. Somewhere along the day everything got better. Now that phantom headache/dizziness is really infringing my thoughts, so I thought (obviously) brain cancer!
I do not have brain cancer. I thought about a character who had brain cancer and had a hunk of it removed. She wakes with vague clues to what she can only half remember but it's important to her because it used to be a part of her, and sets off on a journey to find whatever it was she lost. I say no more about it.
Well, I can be rather long-winded at times, can't I? One last thought: I recently started playing Etrian Odyssey again (I have an off-on relationship with that game). I am quite convinced it will take me ten years to finish and that it is an amazing game. Not as amazing as Pimp Professor Layton (oh my god so pimp), but up there. Goodnight.
My other two major projects that need to be finished ASAP are my bookshelf comic-painting and my Council documentation. The first is almost there, just two panels left. I overestimate my artistic skills because I am surrounded by beautiful art in so many aspects of my life. I see images in my head that I want to recreate but I don't have the skill to live up the expectations my mind forms. I also give up too easily, I have learned and been told. But I am satisfied with the project so far (well ok this latest panel sucks). The idea behind it was to create a story using poem snippets as the text. It came to me one night when I was trolling my poetry books. I have picked lines from Byron, Tennyson, Eliot, Collins, Shearin, and Pound. It gives me an excuse to paint, which gives me an excuse to make pretty colors.
The Council documentation won't be talked about much, because it's too personal to be discussed with any embarrassment. I have just plowed through my sophomore year journals, and things are going well. The basic idea behind this project is to rifle through my high school lit journals and type out all the Council-related material (just think of it as a universe of characters). I don't know how I ever passed my fiction class, or any literary class for that matter. All I typed was adverbs and lacking descriptions. The Council is the greatest proof of the fallacy of living too much in one's head. After I have typed up everything, I have grand plans to create a basic time line of events, but I've had that aspiration for almost six years now.
Lastly, there are two ideas for stories I have wringing through my head. One is a quasi-high school drama with a character who pays too much attention to the wrong things and loses the big picture. I have had this idea for a while, as in maybe half a year. It started out as a mild journal word doodle, playing around with tone and author's license (I can't exactly call it poetic license). It will give me an excuse to use my human anatomy book more.
The second idea is very recent, fueled by my paranoia and the mood of some fiction I've been reading online (at Strange Horizons). See, the other day I had a horrible headache. Heat headache. It was disgusting. Oh, I think I wrote something about it, hold on. The pain was ferocious. It flowed in a thin river across her forehead and echoed into a deep waterfall at the base of her skull. There were puddles of intensity pulsating past her ears and she felt her entire existence would forever be stuck in this heightened state. It woke me up at five in the morning, and I had to go downstairs to find pills and interact with people. Afterwards, I passed out in my bed and slept for another five hours or so. The problem was, I had that phantom headache lingering with me the entire day, like if I was to turn my head the wrong way, the pain from that morning would come and crash down my walls of peace.
Anyway, a few days after that, I woke up dizzy as dizzy could be. It was Thursday, and I was supposed to work. I managed to take a shower somehow, after swaying my way through brushing my teeth and walking down the stairs. Then I started to get nauseous. Usually I walk to work, but I couldn't even walk to the kitchen without stumbling and falling to the side so I called out. The majority of my day was spent sitting down, staying very still, and drinking small sips of water and coke. Somewhere along the day everything got better. Now that phantom headache/dizziness is really infringing my thoughts, so I thought (obviously) brain cancer!
I do not have brain cancer. I thought about a character who had brain cancer and had a hunk of it removed. She wakes with vague clues to what she can only half remember but it's important to her because it used to be a part of her, and sets off on a journey to find whatever it was she lost. I say no more about it.
Well, I can be rather long-winded at times, can't I? One last thought: I recently started playing Etrian Odyssey again (I have an off-on relationship with that game). I am quite convinced it will take me ten years to finish and that it is an amazing game. Not as amazing as Pimp Professor Layton (oh my god so pimp), but up there. Goodnight.
Monday, May 19, 2008
YOU HAS FORGET?
There is a competition and a drawing of matches. He gets the short and takes his place atop the shaky wooden bridge. He knows what he now faces and his eyes water until red and dry. It comes with a burp of air pressure and is nothing like what's expected. The air shimmers and rolls over the arena. This is the finality. He sees it lean toward him, all mottle-skinned and asp-like, and his fears leave him in the final second. He is swallowed in purity. It leaves him convulsing and screaming, raw animal yelps and deep sucking pants. The finality departs and the sun sets.
--
More examples of how I don't include many details and description in my writing. I live too much in my head to successfully transfer the imagery to pen and paper, and a lot of times I can't express what I experience in my mind because I'm untrained at conveying emotion. Or I haven't tried enough. I like writing tiny things for myself, which imply entire worlds. Most of my writing is a stepping stone that allows me to experience the events in my head. I am my characters because there's no way they could exist otherwise because I'm all that there is. My universe is myself and my interactions with other universes.
Her anger comes on too strong and she doesn't let up. The cupboards are rattling at the stiletto of her pace. She rumbles back and forth across the lofty kitchen. The cats are curled in their window perching, flicking ears at every footfall.
--
Well I thought about continuing that, because I've got another page or two in my journal, but it is mostly bad. Some of the phrases in the first paragraph are cute, so I'll share that. It's a fascinating trip to read back through my journal, because I find tiny gems. Tiny as in maybe a sentence or two. I like writing one-liners (see above, stepping stones).
"A great pleasure that is, being renowned for what one does for a living." -- This was a dialogue line that squeaked into my head one morning, probably in January. It had something to do with an older writer man, mostly cynical and dry witted. He was probably talking to a younger person when he said this. Maybe a reporter, or aspiring writer. Something along that feeling. Well, this is about the end.
--
More examples of how I don't include many details and description in my writing. I live too much in my head to successfully transfer the imagery to pen and paper, and a lot of times I can't express what I experience in my mind because I'm untrained at conveying emotion. Or I haven't tried enough. I like writing tiny things for myself, which imply entire worlds. Most of my writing is a stepping stone that allows me to experience the events in my head. I am my characters because there's no way they could exist otherwise because I'm all that there is. My universe is myself and my interactions with other universes.
Her anger comes on too strong and she doesn't let up. The cupboards are rattling at the stiletto of her pace. She rumbles back and forth across the lofty kitchen. The cats are curled in their window perching, flicking ears at every footfall.
--
Well I thought about continuing that, because I've got another page or two in my journal, but it is mostly bad. Some of the phrases in the first paragraph are cute, so I'll share that. It's a fascinating trip to read back through my journal, because I find tiny gems. Tiny as in maybe a sentence or two. I like writing one-liners (see above, stepping stones).
"A great pleasure that is, being renowned for what one does for a living." -- This was a dialogue line that squeaked into my head one morning, probably in January. It had something to do with an older writer man, mostly cynical and dry witted. He was probably talking to a younger person when he said this. Maybe a reporter, or aspiring writer. Something along that feeling. Well, this is about the end.
Friday, May 9, 2008
CRUISE CONTROL
She slept and next remembered perching on a cloud, staring down blindly at the city below. She felt the presence of another beside her but her senses did not encompass it and so there was a blank spot in her mind. She saw the city waking, and at the same time was in the city, riding through morning traffic in a duality only possible in dreams. Images of cars melded with the tiny cumulus clouds that dotted the early sky. She reached out to one of the car/clouds and saw a tiny vial of liquid in the grasp of her fingers. The presence that wasn't beside her pushed her arm down and away from the tiny puff of air; "We do not touch the children."
-
This is an important part of the Beth/clouds story, but I haven't yet figured out why. I do know, however, that I'm leaning more towards YA for this story (or at least, my idea of YA). It's become clear to me now that Anthony is involved with this whole mess somehow more than just being her brother, and I'm working towards making the mother less outright villainous. Which is hard, because it's easy to keep her a bitch. I'm fairly certain Anthony isn't her biological son though. Baby steps.
I love the idea of creating a seamless mythology of creatures/ideas/etc. I sorta did that with the clouds and the shadows, but I'm holding back on publishing anything until things straighten out. It's just so much fun. You should give it a try.
With the sudden onset of summer I'll be reading a shit ton more, and that's exciting. I still have a bundle of Banks books to read from my last BN run, and I've got a cool book about modern German culture that I'm sloughing through. Also recently I checked out this cool book Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence, because free time = I get obsessed with post/transhumanism all over again. I wait for the day there's a philosophy class about this, because it's happening now and it's going to change everything. I'm excited.
End of the semester stress has shortened my temper drastically, and tiny things are pissing me off a lot more recently. I don't like losing my temper, at least around other people, so it hasn't caused any issues. Besides, I'm totally ADD when it comes to grudges and hating people. Someone told me once (possibly middle school), "it takes too much effort to hate," and I guess that's my personal motto. I'm glad that I came out the other side of puberty a nice person. Humanity is wonderful and if I ever start sinking I just remind myself how fucking awesome it is that I'm alive and able to accomplish so much. Optimistic sap, mwhahaha. I'm excited to live and I'm excited to die (eventually haha). I don't plan on giving in.
-
This is an important part of the Beth/clouds story, but I haven't yet figured out why. I do know, however, that I'm leaning more towards YA for this story (or at least, my idea of YA). It's become clear to me now that Anthony is involved with this whole mess somehow more than just being her brother, and I'm working towards making the mother less outright villainous. Which is hard, because it's easy to keep her a bitch. I'm fairly certain Anthony isn't her biological son though. Baby steps.
I love the idea of creating a seamless mythology of creatures/ideas/etc. I sorta did that with the clouds and the shadows, but I'm holding back on publishing anything until things straighten out. It's just so much fun. You should give it a try.
With the sudden onset of summer I'll be reading a shit ton more, and that's exciting. I still have a bundle of Banks books to read from my last BN run, and I've got a cool book about modern German culture that I'm sloughing through. Also recently I checked out this cool book Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence, because free time = I get obsessed with post/transhumanism all over again. I wait for the day there's a philosophy class about this, because it's happening now and it's going to change everything. I'm excited.
End of the semester stress has shortened my temper drastically, and tiny things are pissing me off a lot more recently. I don't like losing my temper, at least around other people, so it hasn't caused any issues. Besides, I'm totally ADD when it comes to grudges and hating people. Someone told me once (possibly middle school), "it takes too much effort to hate," and I guess that's my personal motto. I'm glad that I came out the other side of puberty a nice person. Humanity is wonderful and if I ever start sinking I just remind myself how fucking awesome it is that I'm alive and able to accomplish so much. Optimistic sap, mwhahaha. I'm excited to live and I'm excited to die (eventually haha). I don't plan on giving in.
Monday, May 5, 2008
MOOT POINT
I have just made cupcakes. They are delicious. I added some honey to the cake mix because at the party there will be no icing. I am of the opinion there needs be none. Tomorrow's party is the last meeting of the Tea Empire, our "Mad Hatter" tea party, where we will wear crazy hats, eat delicious food, and drink a shit ton of tea. I'm so excited.
I don't know what I plan to accomplish with this blog, but I grow weary with LJ sometimes, namely because I don't bitch at all over there, and my bitchiness needs an outlet. And by bitchiness I mean talking about myself. Maybe I will post more of my story stuff. Maybe not. This could end up being a nice outlet for all of the writerly instincts I may develop over the summer. I will try not to be too silly. I can guarantee nothing.
I don't know what I plan to accomplish with this blog, but I grow weary with LJ sometimes, namely because I don't bitch at all over there, and my bitchiness needs an outlet. And by bitchiness I mean talking about myself. Maybe I will post more of my story stuff. Maybe not. This could end up being a nice outlet for all of the writerly instincts I may develop over the summer. I will try not to be too silly. I can guarantee nothing.
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