Blog post.... paper.... blog post.... paper......
I need to write a paper for tomorrow. I don't paticularly feel like doing it. Not becuase it's difficult - I'm just being lazy XD "The Outsiders" and how it qualifies as adolescent literature. Complicated topic, I know. However will I write it in a single night?
Short post is short >.> I'll try to do something longer tomorrow. Like a word list =D
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
One Idea Down
I posted a few days ago with a rather long list of story ideas. I can now cross one of them off. Seafoam and Ash has been given an update, though I'm torn on how I feel about it. I think I liked the mystery of the first version better - not that I dislike the expansion, but I think it lost some of the poetic feel of the first.
Lots of stuff happened tonight, but I can't talk about it here. Maybe some other time.
Lots of stuff happened tonight, but I can't talk about it here. Maybe some other time.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Directional
Alabaster was a city of the stars. A brass telescope on every balcony, every rooftop, constantly pointed to the sky. The city slept easy during the day, but breathed new life at night and the smell of of chocolatl and spice wafted from several of the vendors.
In the middle of the city, a compass rose was lain into the plaza, a great marble thing with thirty-two points. The cardinal directions were lain in gold-flecked black marble and the ordinals in solid white. The rest alternated between a dark emeral green and a soft red with veins of rust. The people lived their lives in accordance with the whims of the directions and stars.
Those with a predominately Eastern streak for example, tended to be farmers, sensible, practical, and early risers. They rarely ventured out after dark long. Their Western counterparts rose as the sun began to say it's goodbyes in the early afternoon. They were idealists, even among a city of dreamers. To the North, a wild streak, impulsivity, and dificult to rein back in. The Northern people were adventurers and explorers. Southern-dominated people were cultured and orderly, practitioners of the fine arts, fine food, fine living. Traditional and easy-going, they enjoyed life to the fullest extent. Those are simply the cardinals of course, the rarest personalities. Most were some combination thereof - Southeast or NorthNorthwest, varied and nuanced.
I have come to the conclusion that this preoccupation with directions springs from the city's history as a mapmaking town; in centuries past Alabaster was the finest purveyor of maps, atlases, and globes. Even today beautifully designed pieces of parchment are showcased under glass and stored away in family vaults, accurate to the tinest cove. A great printing press still exists near the compass rose plaza, old and rusted, but still in working order.
I took a lot of inspiration from a book called East by Edith Pattou, a wonderful book I highly reccommend. One of the characters is from a family of mapmakers - the family has a superstition that the direction a child is born facing will determine their personality. I thought the idea would be neat if expanded to an entire city.
In the middle of the city, a compass rose was lain into the plaza, a great marble thing with thirty-two points. The cardinal directions were lain in gold-flecked black marble and the ordinals in solid white. The rest alternated between a dark emeral green and a soft red with veins of rust. The people lived their lives in accordance with the whims of the directions and stars.
Those with a predominately Eastern streak for example, tended to be farmers, sensible, practical, and early risers. They rarely ventured out after dark long. Their Western counterparts rose as the sun began to say it's goodbyes in the early afternoon. They were idealists, even among a city of dreamers. To the North, a wild streak, impulsivity, and dificult to rein back in. The Northern people were adventurers and explorers. Southern-dominated people were cultured and orderly, practitioners of the fine arts, fine food, fine living. Traditional and easy-going, they enjoyed life to the fullest extent. Those are simply the cardinals of course, the rarest personalities. Most were some combination thereof - Southeast or NorthNorthwest, varied and nuanced.
I have come to the conclusion that this preoccupation with directions springs from the city's history as a mapmaking town; in centuries past Alabaster was the finest purveyor of maps, atlases, and globes. Even today beautifully designed pieces of parchment are showcased under glass and stored away in family vaults, accurate to the tinest cove. A great printing press still exists near the compass rose plaza, old and rusted, but still in working order.
I took a lot of inspiration from a book called East by Edith Pattou, a wonderful book I highly reccommend. One of the characters is from a family of mapmakers - the family has a superstition that the direction a child is born facing will determine their personality. I thought the idea would be neat if expanded to an entire city.
Periwinkle Tea
It's only about 1AM but it feels so much later and I don't know why.
I get nights like that sometimes, especially when I've spent so much of it reading and everything I've ben reading on dA tonight has been soft or sad or subtle or bittersweet or any combination of those things and I'm typing this with my entire left hand and only two fingers of my right because the thumb and forefinger still have residue from the bag of potato chips I can't stop nibbling on.
I'm out of tea and this makes me sad because I don't really want to make more this late but maybe I will anyway because I'd like to trade in my potato chips for chocolate sticks. I think I'd like something warm for the next few hours.
My tea mug is periwinkle blue.
There must be a perfect ratio of tea to sugar because everyone else seems able to find it but me. I kept putting in spoonfuls of sugar but it never got any sweeter until it got to the range where I knew I really didn't need that much in my system but it's not my fault that tea doesn't taste right without any sweetener or that I'm terrible at ratios.
I didn't know the inside of my mouth was so cold until I put a steam heated spoon in for a taste. My mug is half empty now and the warmth is tingling my tongue, but the cold reaches all the way down my throat and lingers just at the back like a drafty cave. It's a strange feeling to be so cold and so warm at the same time.
I just realized I left my chocolate sticks in the pantry, but I just got my toes warm again.
True story. My night in 300 words.
Total accident by the way - I put it into Word for a wordcount and it was exactly 300. That means leave it alone <3
I get nights like that sometimes, especially when I've spent so much of it reading and everything I've ben reading on dA tonight has been soft or sad or subtle or bittersweet or any combination of those things and I'm typing this with my entire left hand and only two fingers of my right because the thumb and forefinger still have residue from the bag of potato chips I can't stop nibbling on.
I'm out of tea and this makes me sad because I don't really want to make more this late but maybe I will anyway because I'd like to trade in my potato chips for chocolate sticks. I think I'd like something warm for the next few hours.
My tea mug is periwinkle blue.
There must be a perfect ratio of tea to sugar because everyone else seems able to find it but me. I kept putting in spoonfuls of sugar but it never got any sweeter until it got to the range where I knew I really didn't need that much in my system but it's not my fault that tea doesn't taste right without any sweetener or that I'm terrible at ratios.
I didn't know the inside of my mouth was so cold until I put a steam heated spoon in for a taste. My mug is half empty now and the warmth is tingling my tongue, but the cold reaches all the way down my throat and lingers just at the back like a drafty cave. It's a strange feeling to be so cold and so warm at the same time.
I just realized I left my chocolate sticks in the pantry, but I just got my toes warm again.
True story. My night in 300 words.
Total accident by the way - I put it into Word for a wordcount and it was exactly 300. That means leave it alone <3
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Story Ideas
I'm going to try and start using Twitter for real this time. Linked if you're interested I guess, though I don't expect anyone is XD Mostly I'm interested in trying to keep up with literature things.
I said I wanted to try to get all my story ideas in one place and I meant it. /determined.
1. An internet personality quiz with the ability to fundamentally change who you are. (MorrÃguTests)
I'm amazed some days that I get anything done.
I said I wanted to try to get all my story ideas in one place and I meant it. /determined.
1. An internet personality quiz with the ability to fundamentally change who you are. (MorrÃguTests)
This is how the quiz will start:
"Welcome to the MorrÃguTests Personality Quiz. This quiz is designed to accurately measure your good and bad qualities, strenghts and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. ALL results will be 100% accurate. Attempting to lie, cheat, or otherwise manipulate this quiz is highly discouraged.
YOU MAY ONLY TAKE THIS QUIZ ONCE."
I've been rolling this one for a while, but I can't get it to do what I want. Best to let it work itself out, however long that takes. If I ever do manage to get it off the ground though, I'd like to make a trilogy of sorts - have the same company release two more quizzes concerning when/how you will die, and a relationship quiz.
"Welcome to the MorrÃguTests Personality Quiz. This quiz is designed to accurately measure your good and bad qualities, strenghts and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. ALL results will be 100% accurate. Attempting to lie, cheat, or otherwise manipulate this quiz is highly discouraged.
YOU MAY ONLY TAKE THIS QUIZ ONCE."
I've been rolling this one for a while, but I can't get it to do what I want. Best to let it work itself out, however long that takes. If I ever do manage to get it off the ground though, I'd like to make a trilogy of sorts - have the same company release two more quizzes concerning when/how you will die, and a relationship quiz.
2. There are a few one-liners and prompts given to me by various people and random ideas from nights when I couldn't sleep floating around:
- A sentient door.
- The life and times of a Professional Muse.
- The delay between lightning and thunder.
- Glass Delusion
- That ballet shoe poem I talked about a few days back.
- Matadors. Matadors are cool.
- Re-use the characters from Seafoam and Ash.
- Biology
- Botany
- Business
- Chemistry
- Communications
- Decision (Game) Theory
- Genetics
- Geology
- Linguistics
- Mechanics
- Physics
- Robotics
- Transportation
- I wanted to hold the thunder in glass jars and write long letters on faded parchment; instead I applied to retail stores to fuel my obsessions for the easily consumed and quickly forgotten.
- It's not that he was complaining or anything, but if she pressed her mouth any harder to his, he was going to suffocate.
- The black umbrella was classy, but soulless – I much preferred the red one we shared.
- I've got a wealth of memories stored away but none of them ever compare to the real thing and people are so still in photographs, even people like you, people that naturally transmit their personality to film like it's second nature, a talent you could develop if you just keep practicing. You smile like nothing matters but the moment and that's what I love most about you.
- He didn't leave a note – there were no words. Only a permit receipt for a .22 pistol.
- There are one thousand, eight hundred and sixty steps from the street level to the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building. It took only one to get back to street level.
- I mailed you a box of seafoam so you could hear the ocean, but it leaked out the sides like the blood from your mouth as the ambulance carried you away from me.
- The snow crunched under their feet, soft and powdery. "I honestly believe," he scraped snow off the tree branches into the empty mug he was carrying. There was a gentle undercurrent of wistfulness to his voice that she'd never heard before. "That I can make the world a better place."
- I drove among the golden plains teeming with buffalo and pulled over to examine the wheat, to discover if it was as soft as it looked. I drove through the rain of the Pacific Northwest and inhaled the scent of pine, stopping only long enough to try the midnight diners and chat with the waitresses. I drove parallel to the sidewalk jungle of New York City, jumping in and out of pools of light and I passed by the entirety of humanity and still you weren't there.
I'm amazed some days that I get anything done.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Drowning in Reverse
I am exhausted TT_TT It's not fair to be exhausted when I only had one class today.
Granted, the class was Anthropology, but still. Which I didn't really pay very close attention to anyway as I had a story to write. And which I will now share here because I don't have much else to write about.
Drowning in Reverse
x. I still have your phone.
ix. The boardwalk carnival was shut down a few months later, roped off and boarded up like a condemnation of joy. The ferris wheel still rose high above the skyline, towering in silent reminder.
viii. The funeral was on a beautiful, balmy, sunny day and somehow that made it all the worse. The wind would pick up a little and ruffle your goldspun hair and I could hope, just for a moment, that you were still here.
vii. It was a cold, white room. I don't know why hospitals are so cold. Or maybe it was just me - maybe it was just me trying to siphon out all of my warmth and channel it into you.
vi. I didn't see the crowd that gathered on the beach - I barely registered the flash of red and blue lights - I only saw you, skin pale as the stretcher they were loading you on to, blue shirt stained black like a death sigil.
v. Someone was drowning. You cast an arm out pointing - there was someone out there in the dark water drifting further and further from shore.
You asked me to hold your phone.
iv. We wandered away from the carnival boardwalk, away from the neon and the chatter and the screams of delight, exchanged for the crunch of sand and rush of waves. The moon cast a metallic sheen over the whole world and made you look older than your seventeen years.
iii. I wiped the powdered sugar off your nose; you always ate the funnel cake before anything else. I grabbed your hand as we passed by the swings.
It felt like flying.
ii. I heard your beat up old Mustang before I saw it. The squeak of brakes in front of the house was a dead giveaway; my father's breaks always sounded like the voice of the most obnoxious girl in math class. Yours sounded like the whine of a puppy.
i. My phone buzzed on the kitchen table -
CARNIVAL 2NITE? <3
I feel pretty good about this one, though it is rough around the edges. Not bad for my first try at writing a story backwards though.
Granted, the class was Anthropology, but still. Which I didn't really pay very close attention to anyway as I had a story to write. And which I will now share here because I don't have much else to write about.
Drowning in Reverse
x. I still have your phone.
ix. The boardwalk carnival was shut down a few months later, roped off and boarded up like a condemnation of joy. The ferris wheel still rose high above the skyline, towering in silent reminder.
viii. The funeral was on a beautiful, balmy, sunny day and somehow that made it all the worse. The wind would pick up a little and ruffle your goldspun hair and I could hope, just for a moment, that you were still here.
vii. It was a cold, white room. I don't know why hospitals are so cold. Or maybe it was just me - maybe it was just me trying to siphon out all of my warmth and channel it into you.
vi. I didn't see the crowd that gathered on the beach - I barely registered the flash of red and blue lights - I only saw you, skin pale as the stretcher they were loading you on to, blue shirt stained black like a death sigil.
v. Someone was drowning. You cast an arm out pointing - there was someone out there in the dark water drifting further and further from shore.
You asked me to hold your phone.
iv. We wandered away from the carnival boardwalk, away from the neon and the chatter and the screams of delight, exchanged for the crunch of sand and rush of waves. The moon cast a metallic sheen over the whole world and made you look older than your seventeen years.
iii. I wiped the powdered sugar off your nose; you always ate the funnel cake before anything else. I grabbed your hand as we passed by the swings.
It felt like flying.
ii. I heard your beat up old Mustang before I saw it. The squeak of brakes in front of the house was a dead giveaway; my father's breaks always sounded like the voice of the most obnoxious girl in math class. Yours sounded like the whine of a puppy.
i. My phone buzzed on the kitchen table -
CARNIVAL 2NITE? <3
I feel pretty good about this one, though it is rough around the edges. Not bad for my first try at writing a story backwards though.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Litmus Test
Ignoring troublesome things for a little while, at least until the situation decides to rear its head again. Tonight was my library night <3
I always enjoy my writing group - I come out feeling relaxed and refreshed and ready to settle down and do some work. The fact that I have yet to do any work is just a nuance.
Really though, I need to finish some worksheets I have due for Anthropology tomorrow. Nothing strenuous or anything, I just don't want to do it XD But I feel that way about most schoolwork.
What I really need to do is get cracking on a short story for my Fiction class. There are plenty of pieces I could use from my gallery, but nothing really jumps out to me. And I've been feeling a tad drained as far as creativity goes lately; I don't paticularly want to write something new at this point in time. Granted, I do have a number of plot bunnies hutched away, but none I feel ready to work on. My creative process can be rather finnicky that way. I have a tendency to let things come as they will rather than trying to force what isn't there.
One of my favorite things to do when I'm trying to write and am blocked is turn on the T.V. or some other distraction; if the distraction is more important than the writing, then the writing isn't ready. Sort of a litmus test if you will.
One of these days I really do need to get a complete list of all my story ideas on a post :/
I always enjoy my writing group - I come out feeling relaxed and refreshed and ready to settle down and do some work. The fact that I have yet to do any work is just a nuance.
Really though, I need to finish some worksheets I have due for Anthropology tomorrow. Nothing strenuous or anything, I just don't want to do it XD But I feel that way about most schoolwork.
What I really need to do is get cracking on a short story for my Fiction class. There are plenty of pieces I could use from my gallery, but nothing really jumps out to me. And I've been feeling a tad drained as far as creativity goes lately; I don't paticularly want to write something new at this point in time. Granted, I do have a number of plot bunnies hutched away, but none I feel ready to work on. My creative process can be rather finnicky that way. I have a tendency to let things come as they will rather than trying to force what isn't there.
One of my favorite things to do when I'm trying to write and am blocked is turn on the T.V. or some other distraction; if the distraction is more important than the writing, then the writing isn't ready. Sort of a litmus test if you will.
One of these days I really do need to get a complete list of all my story ideas on a post :/
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