Reread (General Angst Post)

     It's so frustrating being stuck in limbo. I feel as if I'm rereading the last sentence of a chapter over and over, but I can't move on to the next. I know the line is important, and that I can't continue until I master it, but no matter how many times I read it, its meaning continues to escape me.
     Thus, I'm repeating the same tedious tasks over and over. Going to a school where I've ceased learning, a church where I've ceased growing, a home that I wish I could be watching from the outside-in.

     Is it bad to say that I feel my parents have nothing left to say to me? They call my name over and over, pull me out of whatever I'm doing, just to say hi. Again and again. That, or it's the same old lectures, the same old listing of their ever-growing fears for me. On the brink of my freedom, I feel more afraid of them than ever. I'm always on edge, because I don't want them to hurt me again. As much as I love them, I can't deny that they have both hurt me, and I'm still terrified that they could sweep in and snatch everything away from me again, that they'll rip the rest of the pages out of the book and keep me reading that same sentence over and over and over and over...

    Or maybe I'm just mad because they told me to go upstairs and do my homework, and by blogging my exaggerated emotions, I continue to procrastinate.
     ...I'm not very good at these angst posts.
   
     But, as ridiculous as my mind tells me that my feelings are, I can't deny that they are there, and the fact that they might be silly doesn't make them any less real or valid.

     ...Right?

I want a Vlog.

On Youtube.

About YA books.

     It would be a much less formal, more entertaining version of my book reviews, where I can really dish my opinions, emotionally rather than professionally, as I do on my book blog now.
   
     However, it would require a lot of diligence...and wigs...and props...and film editing capabilities that may or may not be beyond my skill level...

...and friends (to play other parts for me/film scenes for me/do my general bidding--maybe this is why I don't have friends).

     I think it would be reasonably funny, but more likely than not, it wouldn't take off, especially because every other person and their great-uncle has a vlog on Youtube, and not everyone knows books as well as, say--movies, celebrities, and whatever else people vlog about.

Still.

The idea entices me.

Maybe that's a project for this summer.

We'll see...

I'm on break...

...so I have a little time to blog, and I figured if I wanted to start promoting my personal blog again, I should stop using it to complain about people. Thus, here is my latest post.

     My creative thoughts are all scrambled again, which means I'm having a hard time focusing on anything, much less writing anything down. I'm running between several threads of ideas, none of which I can commit to--I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just my problem with commitment.

     First of all, my new story idea is really taking off...in my head, of course. I really like it, and I think I might want to make it my next novel project. Having said that, I'm not sure if I want to start now or if I want to save it for Camp NaNoWriMo. Still, that's at least six months away, and I don't know if I can keep this idea fresh for that long.

     Speaking of which, I have to edit/finish my Kennedy story, the draft of which I wrote for NaNoWriMo. I know I have to do some major restructuring of the characters' backstories, which I actually changed to accommodate for the story idea above (they were too similar). I also need to finish it, considering I hit 50k at the climax and didn't keep writing. However, the task is daunting, and without any writing software on my new laptop (Christmas gift--thank you, Mom and Dad!), it would be difficult. The most I can do right now is start printing out the draft and making notes and grammatical edits by hand. I'm also not sure whether I want to hold onto the manuscript and keep editing for a few years like I had been planning, or to go ahead and edit it enough to get the five free proof copies NaNoWriMo is offering this year to their winners. My parents want me to do it, but I'm not sure I want anyone to read it. I know my lack of research, lack of experience, and general naivety make the story sub-quality, and I really don't want to embarrass myself by having friends and family read it. Still, five proof copies is a lot, and they would be nice keepsakes. Who knows--if I were to become a famous author (doubtful), they could be worth something someday. I'm just not sure what I want to do.

     I won't take much time to say I'm still doing everything in my willpower to keep myself from writing any Hunger Games fan fiction. All I want to do is write a backstory for Finnick and Annie, but I know that it would be a long, time-consuming process that will result in nothing more than one in a million other posts about the subject on Fanfiction.net. Sure, maybe I could get my classmates to read it, what with everyone reading the Hunger Games, but I don't want to push it anyways. Still, I can't deny that it's rattling around in my brain.

    I've been trying to solve the problem to my Shakespeare story. I've decided that there really does need to be one more female protagonist to even out the characters, but I'm unfamiliar with any of Shakespeare's other plays, which means I'm sure my readers will be as well, and I want the main characters to be at least somewhat familiar to the audience. Bother. So, I've been "shopping" on Wikipedia for candidates, none of which particularly inspire me thus far. I'm also still trying to decide how the story should end, what should happen to whom, etc.

     In addition to these ideas, I'm supposed to be writing a short story for my school's, and ultimately for ACSI's, creative writing contest. But, to be honest, I'm completely uninspired. Last year I sent in what I considered a good, solid short story (confirmed by my teacher), and the ACSI judges utterly destroyed it. Apparently, they're looking for a little Karen Kingsbury, which I refuse to become, even for the sake of pleasing them. At first, I wanted to be sure to do something controversial, just for the fun of it, but I don't even see the point in that anymore. Then, I was thinking of just submitting the editorial that I wasn't allowed to publish in the school magazine (for said controversies), but the insipid guidelines for the contest stipulate, at its core, a five paragraph essay, which my editorial is not, nor will it be enhanced by such. I might submit it anyway, as well as use it for the school (and ultimately ACSI) speech competition (which we students, for some godforsaken reason, are all forced to participate in), but I'm not sure if my teachers will allow that. We'll have to see. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to going back to school.

     Last but not least, I've got about a dozen review that I should write, though some of the books I haven't read since the summer. I think my friend and I have decided to take a more popcorn-style approach to the book blog, which will, hopefully, result in more reviews over time. Still, it would be wise to stock up before school gets back in, just in case. However, writing a minimum of 300 words about how you feel about a book, in a certain format, is not as easy as it sounds.

So, as you can see, my brain is a little tangled right now. I'm sure it will sort itself out once school starts up--nothing is a better stimulus for creativity than procrastination.

Frumpy.

     I don't mean as in how you present your physical self. You dress quite nicely, better than me by any standards. I've never seen you looking unpresentable. What I mean by "frumpy" is your deplorable attitude--it's a frump of the mind, you see, and a much harder frump to fix.
     Each day you come wading in through your grief. Once again, you didn't get enough sleep. Once again, you've fallen prey to some deadly form of a head cold. Once again, you're feeling "overwhelmed." You adorn yourself with the most pious exhaustion, a martyr to the realm of upstanding high school students.I tell you now, tired eyes are only becoming when paired with a genuine smile.
     Everyone you meet must know of your sorrows. You pass each peer, each teacher, jiggling your upturned had for donations of sympathy, constant affirmation, and hand outs in exchange for your trade: your craft of weaving intricate, tangled tales of pity and woe. "I'm not used to this," "I don't want to put that burden on my parents," "It's all because my sister..." You have yet to grow out of your egocentricity. Every avenue of conversation leads back to that upturned hat.
     Your own desires come first, and you don't hesitate to make them known. You are slow to come, bitter to stay, and quick to leave. The only time you seem to come alive is when you must make a vice around what you want, a Venus Flytrap snapping with its death grip only when necessary. Control gives you strength, the power to bend others to your will. To take it away is to pull the springs from a wind up toy.
     Yes, you are indeed presentable from the outside. If we were, however, able to pull back the thick, velvet curtain of what appears and catch even a glance of what actually is, we would see you sliding into your desk each day, a toddler aroused too soon after its nap, still  wrapped in wrinkled pijamas, chewing on its baby blanket, whiny and garbled. In a word, frumpy.

My Story

     I will now try to explain as clearly as possible the setting and plot of the story that I've been working on for the last few years--the one I hope will become my first novel one day. Of course, not all the details are set in stone, but this is the general idea. Enjoy. :)
    
     The story is set in the not-to-distant future, a mild dystopia (because I'm not going to the extremes of robot overlords and brain scanners, etc.), where a hereditary disease has mutated that nearly wipes out a generation. In response, the government attempts to wipe out the gene. Forty years later, the gene is almost extinct, but the government is insistent of snuffing out every trace. Those who have the disease must become wards of the state, usually lab rats in the search for a cure.
     Kennedy Belle has the disease, and as her closest friend, Spencer has taken it upon himself to protect her. But, he might not have long. Kenn is fading fast, and the government is closing in on their trail. In addition, Spencer has to look out for his brother Cole and his troubled friend Amalia. Can Kennedy Belle's doctor find a cure, or will he have to say goodbye? Will hope come from an unexpected source, or is it too late?

     Yes, I'm aware that the end of that sounded like the cheesy back cover of some Prama book, but if I take you through every painstaking detail, you won't read this. So, there you go! Hope you liked it.

    

My love for my story has rekindled!

     Yes, my story. The story. The one I've been working on since the beginning of high school. For the longest time I didn't even think about it--probably not since last November. But just as the school year was about to begin, I began to revisit it. Now, another round of prewriting is in full swing. (I'll post the plot in another entry, because some of it goes into tedious details that will only distract from the point of this one.)  
     Since I've been working on this idea for so long, it's gone through several overhauls in setting, each time growing a little closer to where I need it to be in order to get my messages across. I refer to it as a "mild" dystopia, only because it has been my mission in this prewriting go-around to stay away from some of the major dystopian stereotypes. Besides, the dystopia isn't really the point of the story, just a context which I can use to tell it. Therefore I don't want my message diluted by cheesy robot overlords and brain scanners, or whatever other ludacris thing you can think of. Actually, one of my earlier settings included a goddess and her daughter ruling over the futuristic dystopia. It was an interesting juxtaposition, but it didn't fit in with the rest of my story, so I scrapped it.
     The characters have stayed basically the same, though now I am adding a few more minors just to flesh out the story's surroundings, and this time, I've added a lot of symbolism to several of the characters, particularly the three female leads and their relationship to the protagonist, Spencer. The only drawback of this is that I originally wanted the heroine-in-distress (how I refer to her, anyways) to be the focal point of the story in a very Lani Garver-type fashion (for those of you who haven't heard me say it a thousand times, my favorite book is What Happened to Lani Garver by Carol Plum-Ucci). However, I'm also realizing that that route would more or less be piggy-backing off of Plum-Ucci's setup and structure of her novel, and that I need to find my own way of telling the story. The plot still revolves around her, but the story becomes more and more about Spencer as it develops. Of course, you could argue the same thing for the plot of Lani. Maybe great minds think alike. (Or maybe it's copyright infringement. If anything, immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.)
     As for plot...Well, I've never really had one. One of my biggest flaws as a writer is that I focus so much on characterization that I normally neglect the plot. I've done a few plot graphs for the story before, but they all turned out forced and uniteresting. Lately, however, I've been trying to take the advice of several authors who have exhorted us aspiring wannabes to listen to the characters, to the story they're telling, not the one we're trying to make up for them. Just last week, I finally tuned in to their frequency. Through a freewriting excersise in my creative writing class (thank you, Mrs. Weekman!), I suddenly had half the plot scribbled onto some loose-leaf paper, and I built on that in the days that followed.
     My next great task in prewriting, though I've always had some vague concepts, is to nail down my themes and figure out how to infuse them into the story. Thankfully, I feel as if I have plenty to work with, and I have a few ideas, but I actually have to kneed them into the dough. I think of themes and messages as the yeast--the thing that makes bread bread, the thing that makes a great novel truly great. It's what separates the best of Young Adult Literature from the thousands of others that never make it farther than a teenager's bookshelf. I want to count mine among those few.
     All of that said, I'm in no rush to actually write this book. Seeing how far the story has come already, I can only imagine where I can take it as I grow older and wiser. Also, I won't bore you with the details of how hectic my senior year of high school is going to be, what with all of my AP classes and senior activites and general pandemonium--hopefully, I'll live long enough to actually write this book. Still, I know that every wave of revisions is another healthy step towards what I hope will be a substantial debut novel.

The three hour car ride to Boone was definitely "Theatre Illuminata"-themed.

     I was rereading Eyes Like Stars to review for the book blog, and my sister and I started talking about what I was going to say, and about how crazy the plot was, and how much “Drink Me” juice it must have taken to come up with something like that.
     Then we started talking about what So Silver Bright might be like. We concluded that something bad has to happen to Ariel, since nothing really bad has happened to him yet, while everything that could have possibly gone wrong has happened to Nate.
     Which, of course, brought us around to the love triangle. We’re both going to be rooting for Ariel even though we’re putting our money on Nate. We debated who was taller, because Eyes Like Stars says one thing, while Perchance to Dream implies another. I argued that Ariel has to be taller to compensate for Nate being buffer.
     And when the issue of Man Cards came up, I found myself having to defend Areil’s, what with my sister making fun of his butterflies and my mom in the front seat insisting that “Ariel” was a “girl’s name.”
     Somewhere along the way, we talked about who would be the dream cast for an Eyes Like Stars movie. I told my sister I thought Emma Stone might be a good Bertie, and that Ariana Grande just had to be Ophelia. We liked Ben Barnes for Nate, but we couldn’t think of any one who’d really fit Ariel, so we gave up with our half-finished casting.
     It was a fun trip. I hardly got any actual reading done, but it was probably the most fun I’ve had with my sister in a while. Lately, I've had a hard time connecting with her, and I think that car ride did us a lot of good. I guess I owe my thanks to Lisa Mantchev. Needless to say, I can't wait for So Silver Bright in September.