The theme of my week anyway.
It's so weird. Usually, I will be completely wound up or associated in one story and I'd go with that for a long time.
With very little traffic coming to mind with the story I'm working to get published, I'm starting to think I might be better off trying with something else first, especially if the signal's a lot stronger. I had been stuck in neutral halfway through Chapter 4 for a number of reasons. One of them, I think was the same thing that got me going. I thought Gary Oldman would be the right person to play him. But that's not the image I get in mind.
For Jonas's guardian, Peter Bronson, he's a tall, thickset, middle-aged man with a salt & pepper beard and whiskers with a very generous disposition. Gary Oldman isn't the exact build with the character I have in mind. Kinda strange rereading part of the screenplay I was writing for the same story. Jonas felt more like the character I wrote than the latest draft I'd been writing. I can't for the life of me figure out why that is.
Oh great, now I'm thinking of going there.
I rewatched a movie today that I'd seen a couple times. That resulted in me writing a short rant about what I thought about this one person. He's always a lot of fun to write about, even if most of it is spent complicating and overthinking things.
Keeping things positive is the only way to go with him. It's a lot easier on me when he's the kind of person who makes me carthartic and relaxed, as if I could just chill with him for literally hours every day.
I'll just leave it at that.
I have some doubt that I will be able to finish this chapter and press forward. At least not for a while... and I guess that means my publishing aspirations will have to be put on hold for a bit.
And that's okay.
Right now, I have two projects that I've gotten pretty excited about.
Over the weekend, I'd written a little bit considering or reconsidering an idea I had a little while back.
Just yesterday, though, I jotted down a couple of notes because I rewatched "Wedding Crashers"... Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams did that together and later on, they did "Midnight in Paris." There's a little give and take there. In both cases, Owen Wilson really isn't as bad as I used to think. I mean, he just screamed frat boy to me, someone I could never take seriously.
It took dreaming about him for my attitude to change. That got me buying "Midnight in Paris," despite never having seen it, on a whim and it became one of my new favorite movies. He is so intelluctal in that one that it's crazy. One would think that'd be beyond his capacity, but no, I doubt anyone else could play that character the way he did. He was so on point that I was surprised. Definitely desired that Golden Globe nod (eventually went to future Oscar winner Jean Dujardin of "The Artist"... coincidentally, the only two Oscar nominated movies I saw... I read "The Help" and plan on watching the movie at some point too).
With Rachel McAdams, I dunno, my dreamscape was strange in that she was the one I was in the relationship with. BUT there was a piece missing, had been for a while.
I don't quite know where this new state of mind started taking shape... I'd come across a few R-rated movies that had sex scenes, none more insane than "Black Swan" which was like the crux, the apex of this entire thing. I started to experiment in my work, writing a few sex scenes to see how I liked the feel of it. In some cases, it just seemed necessary and there was no other way to go about it.
My characters were channeling this unusual phenomenon of offering themselves... okay, strike that. I keep making this same mistake. That was only one story I wrote, or rather a couple of scenes for a really short story that was nothing more than breaching forgiven with someone. Okay, maybe there was two. Feeling sorry for this guy who was in a bad place and that eventually led to antics in the bedroom... well, sex in odd places, actually. One was set on a couch and the other story, I don't know if anyone could get away with this in real life, in the room this guy was staying at a rehabilition clinic. Him being a recovering drug addict and all that.
Very strange. In these cases, she just randomly jumped into the situation, not thinking of the consequences, just being in the moment. I'm hesitant to try to finish off that story with the couch because, you know, what's the #1 thing that occurs after randomly having sex with someone? I don't think I'm comfortable with addressing that issue, though I doubt there's any other way to go about it.
A lot of these stories I'd been writing... I can write about people in relationship, it getting to the point where my character feels up for having sex with her boyfriend or her friend, whatever the case may be.
I wrote about some scenes with another character entirely where it came to a head... but the result was either a product of rape or some mysterious circumstances... like immaculate conception would be an example, but not... well, you know what I mean.
Point I'm trying to make: in my writing, I want to focus on the relationship at hand, it getting super serious, sometimes racy, but never freaky (it's nothing short of intercourse... no oral sex or anything weird like that. I am nowhere near ready to even address that kind of stuff).
Kinda strange how I'm a virgin and writing some of this stuff. No wonder I'm not up for sharing what I'm writing with my family when they ask.
But I have found it kinda liberating to write this stuff because for whatever reason, it is in my head :shrug: Everyone gets to that point eventually either between the mere desire of it or the curiosity. For me, its mostly curiosity.
What really got racy, though... and I don't consider this freaky. It's completely normal among particular partners in the bedroom. But from what I can interpret from my dream, Rachel McAdams and I were in an intimate relationship. I jotted down some notes to kinda nail down how we relate to one another. I decided that we either lived in the same dorm room or the same floor in the dormitory building, she is my shoulder to cry on after a night with a guy that asked me out goes south. (I considered for a moment that maybe it was because he came onto her, drugged her or whatever comes of that... but I decided that it made no sense. For the storyline to work, my character had to be a virgin when she and her started having this relationship).
And also, Owen Wilson would go on to be, in my dream, "my first time with a man." The desire in the dream was so insane. I'd never felt anything like that before in real life, but apparently there is something in my subconscious that secretly pines for this type of closeness with another person. The desire was to do the deed with him and... omg, I can barely even go into description or just naming parts of the anatomy, but in my dream, it got extremely racy where that's what I was on the edge of my seat about (not literally, metaphorically).
Anyway, I wrote down the details I got from the dream, bits and pieces about my relationship with both people. Owen Wilson more or less was someone I'd known a while, possibly one of my best friends and he secretly had been wanting to get with me for years. In his movies, I know him usually as the frat boy type, not the kind who cares about women or their feelings... but in the dream, he was perfect.
No way am I trying to say that I think that either of these people are what they are in real life as they are in my dreamscape. I'm only writing what I saw and felt about what I saw. I mean, they're both actors by trade. Pretending to be other people is what they do and if both of them in this particular world happen to be that thing to me, so be it. I'll experiment away and by the end of it, if I like what I end up with, I'll just limit things to first names and done with it. Only me and a handful of people will know the idea came from a twisted dream about them.
The "give" of "Wedding Crashers" was that Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams eventually end up together and are very romantically involved. Whereas in "Midnight in Paris," they were engaged, but by the end of the story, they end up breaking up... kind of downer in that respect (kinda odd how that all worked out too, lol).
The "take"... in "Wedding Crashers," she has brown hair. I dreamt about Rachel McAdams with blonde hair, so obviously, I'm a little more gravitated towards her as a blonde than otherwise.
I've been open to the idea that maybe I could be bi... anything's still possible at this point. But at present, I'm starting to think that if I go that route, there are only a handful of women I'd fully consider for that. They have to be a special type and breed that I just gravitate more than the rest. My type seems to be round faces with large blue/green eyes. Amanda Seyfried, one or two I've kinda thought of her in that way. Mila Kunis kinda goes without saying because, hell, she was the other half in "Black Swan." She was so good in that (and I mean her acting too) that she deserved at least to be acknowledged by the Academy for a nomination. She got completely snubbed on that (Natalie Portman was not and totally deserved the award for that).
The most I'd figured out about the overall idea relate to how I relate to both parties.
With Rachel, she's very maternal, kinda protective, like she feels like she has to take care of me and all that. I mean, considering my only encounter with a man left me to not trust the other sex for a very long time, that only makes sense, right?
I'm taking a little bit of poetic license from my own experience. A guy asked me out via Facebook, we chatted online a few times and he asked me to his apartment. It felt like the most awkward, most uncomfortable hour of my life. I wanted to be open to a few things, but not kissing on "the first date," if you could call it that. A lot of people might read about this and think I'm being completely overdramatic about it. That's why in the story, I think I might have to kick things up a notch for it to be more believable. Like he came onto me, started to get a little too close, a little too physical.. maybe tried a few things until I finally got the hell out of there. That might be enough to open things up to the next thing.
I'm sure it's happened a number of times. Girls finding more comfort with their own kind because one man did her wrong... that sort of thing. Anyone who wants to call me out on what sounds like "choosing to be gay," go right ahead and harp on me about it if that's what it sounds like to you. I'm just saying there's the possibility of it.
One of the key ingredients I need to hash out is figuring how to get this relationship off the ground. Is it because she's interested in me? Is it because I start to think she's the one I'm meant to be with? Once I figure out how to get us together, the rest is smooth-sailing.
Then with Owen Wilson, it's like... I guess in recent times, there's a missing ingredient from the formula that worked for a while. In simplest terms: "the sex isn't as good as it used to be." Either because she's never around or there are other things going on in my own head. In spending time with him and him coming out and saying he feels this way about her would help a great deal, she comes to realize she can't be sexually satisfied unless it's with a man.
Pretty deep and racy stuff, but it should prove interesting. Not surprisingly, the only scene I wrote so far was the sex scene that would have eventually happened in my dream if my own mind didn't blank out/turn away from it, lol. Deep down, I was highly anticipating it, though.
Onto the other idea, before I get completely sidetracked.
There are a number of things that have grinded my gears as of late. In the workplace, there have been a couple cases of that. One never really came to anything because it was a summer job. I figured that at some point, I was going to write a murder mystery story where I end up suspecting the one person I didn't get along with of murder because she has the temperment for it. And instead, it turns out to be the guy I really liked, got really close to. (In reality, I was close with him, considering him a good friend. Then one day, he and this other guy got fired because they were selling or doing drugs on premise... never saw him again).
That never came to anything, so it's still sitting up in my head.
A few years back, to channel this depression I was going through, I wrote a story about vampires. Not quite "Twilight," but that version of vampires... i.e. "not monsters."
I write about this girl who is depressed, feels like she's not getting anywhere. She stops on the side of the road on the way to work. A vampire named Ulysses, who is kind of a cross between Brad Pitt's Louis in "Interview with a Vampire" and David Bowie in "Labyrinth," who had been watching her actions for a while comes by to talk her out of whatever train of thought she's on. He ends up taking her to where he lives, which is like a mansion inhabited by several vampires. Some are discrete, but a lot aren't.
There, she also meets Jamison, who is kinda like a thorn in Ulysses's side... inspired by Ian Solmenhander's interpretation of Damon Salvatore from "The Vampire Diaries."
This story more or less came about because a) I was very depressed, but not necessarily contemplating any drastic measures, and b) I was watching a whole lot of "The Vampire Diaries."
Between "American Idol" and just too many things to keep track of, I stopped watching... around the time that Damon was becoming my favorite character :-P he's such a bad boy that he's good
Anyway, the story went through a few chapters. First, the mansion scene which ends with her being slipped a pill... the end result is that she wakes up in her own bed, and apparently she hadn't missed work that day... nobody acknowledges her absence or anything of that nature
Another day, after a really hard week, she's on break outside. She gets whisked away by Jamison, who wants to get her out of sight (apparently vampires here are very attracted or drawn to people with dark, depressing thoughts... go figure). He offers to change her himself (something that Ulysses is against, as he wouldn't choose this life for himself... kinda like Edward's POV from "Twlight"), but at the last minute, decides against it or Ulysses stops him. I forget which.
This was around the time I felt like I was being extra scrutinized and I wished that I could just be invisible or just be invincible to being taken aside or spoken to about shaping up.
It wasn't that I was overally terrible. I didn't handle things well a lot of the time. Most of it, I think was the fact I procrasinate and insist on doing a lot myself rather than reaching out for help... something I never quite lived down.
So anyway... the story came and went. Vampries in my world can be spectors in that they can come and go as they please... almost like ghosts, but they have physical shape. So I kinda was aiming for her to become a vampire so she could disappear whenever she pleased without feeling the need to worry about being scrutinized... kind of a hard thing to explain and keeping it in her favor.
But anyway... it kinda fell apart because... I was terminated before I could take the idea any further than I could... plus my inspiration came and went.
Every now and then, and this past weekend was another "then"... I dream about being back there or wanting back in or a couple of people that got under my skin (or rather, I might have gotten more under theirs. They must have thought I was so inept that they had to babysit me)... and one of them in particular, it's kinda hard to forget.
She wasn't mean like the "queen bee of the night shift" at the deli counter was... but it felt like getting yelled at by a boss when she gently told me off and said that I wasn't doing things as well as I could. She's the type of girl where she gets along with everyone and you know, you kinda want to be liked by her or at least accepted... as if that alone makes you feel more important, like you're part of an exclusive club. With us, I doubt it was going to work out that way... our tastes were way too different. (I mean, she lives and breathes "Jersey Shore"...).
In the dream, I remembered two things: that I was trying to "buy" my way back in by doing one set of samples that was usually the most demanding, but I was good at it... as if they would ask me back or let me back or give me a second chance.
Fact of the matter is that I felt like I got short changed. I was there for a little over a year and clearly that didn't give me enough experience to where I'm easily employable. The work world kinda sucks right now, still does...
In a completely sarcastic, sadistic way... I entertained the idea that if I ever decided to punch my own ticket, I'd drive a car right into their building or at least do it right there... hang a sign around my neck that reads "Because you fired me, nobody else wants to hire me." ...sounds like the ultimate revenge, especially if OSHA gets involved and the places gets shut down due to conspiracy.
Then I had the brilliant idea after having this dream... I felt pretty discontented about that place, the hell it was a lot of days and what hell I'd gone through trying to get employed again.
How about I put my sadistic idea into this story... but kick things up a knock?
I wrote down a number of bullet points for scenes that will lead up to this. I wrote a few bits of paragraphs about my "judgement day" as it were... but didn't get to the point where it got super serious. It's hard to be open and objective when I'm writing it longhand (I think faster when I type, more at ease).
But what I gather: she won't become a vampire until this last scene where she gets her revenge.
She crashes her car into the building, staging her suicide... and it's on a Saturday morning where it's a small crew and two of the people getting under my skin are there... the other is the supervisor who probably really thought I was an idiot. She never took me seriously.
It would be something if there was a conspiracy about this place... better yet if the one girl was in charge of the heroine, watching her back, getting her back in line while a couple of people were scheming to get her out of there... for whatever reason.
Naturally, they'll see if she has a pulse... being a vampire she won't... she'll be taken inside. They do this to kinda avoid attention and all that, covering it up, but she'd already sent the photos online... (Jamison is going to be her accomplice in all this, but she does all the work & heavy lifting). She kills the one girl and perhaps with the other, she goes after her after hearing some incriminating information while eavesdropping on a phone call.
There's one other character that's kinda central to this. She's hyperaware of stuff. I originally thought of her to be a vampire slayer type, but she is just hyperaware of vampires, not really wanting the heroine to go that path.
Eventually, the place gets taken down because of notoreity and negativity (driving their employees to suicide is a little drastic, but hey, this story is for me and my self-persevation & satisfication)... most likely why this story won't see the light of day unless I'm the only one seeing it :-P everyone I know would probably know where the inspiration comes from and judge me harshly for the things I say.
I'd like for one to use my writing to take my frustrations, but for the end result to be something I can be proud of, rather than ashamed.
Kinda interesting how this became a story about being depressed, wanting to escape from an unpleasant reality... it's going to become something more like a story of revenge and redemption... should prove interesting
I'm thinking that maybe they want her out because her assocation with the overall manager... not liked by a lot of people for whatever, I don't know why, she was always perfectly nice to me... I'll see what else I come up with.
Unlike my Owen/Rachel storyline, this is still in the beginning stages, so I haven't worked out the details yet.
What I do know... only one name will stay the same and that's going to be hyperaware Heidi... not really a nickname or anything... we weren't super close in real life, but she was the most grounded person there. Kinda looked up to her, she was very sweet and generous. She knows how crappy the place was and urged people to get out while they could (I heard within a month or two of my leaving that she left for somewhere else after being there for 3 hellish years).
If anything, this will be kept under wraps because I'll be advised to do so by my folks. Don't want to be caught badmouthing my previous place of business... but I can't help that sometimes, some things about that whole institution really pissed me off
Just saying :shrug:
I didn't get a lot accomplished today on either front, but hopefully tomorrow something will strike my fancy and I'll get writing.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Where my writing tends to reside
phew... I'm just like a bundle of nerves right now... between so many things that it's crazy.
You know things are really bad when you've got a few things stressing you out at the same time...
Apparently :-? there has been "suspicious activity" on my gmail account to where I had to go through some crap just to get in and I had to, yet again, come up with a new password.
I have used the same password my whole life and it seems like every account I have, I either have to change it completely or modify it... I know it's probably the work of some hackers, so this next sentence is void:
How the hell do these people keep guessing my password? It is a MADE-UP WORD... my very first book series, it was a big part of that... how in the world is this possible?
One word just isn't enough anymore. You need letters, sometimes number, sometimes symbols...
I kinda operate on two different tracks. When it comes to one of those tracks, I use a different password for everything relating to that. But with everything to do my regular, everyday stuff, I'd used the same password for my whole life. Except that my AOL account, all of ours, got hacked... so we had to change the password to something... not nearly as cool as what I had before, but you know...
every now and then, it might just be a good measure to change my password every 6 months... hopefully that'll throw some people off... at least there won't be enough "suspicious activity" to speak of because it doesn't get hacked into as often.
Not sure why that would be... I have nothing for anyone to really use... so it's like every time I sign in, I'm gonna be paranoid that I'll have to reset my password again. PAIN in the butt...
I'm waiting two very important phone calls... one of the two, I might not necessarily get... but if I do... it would be the greatest thing since the mere act of initiating this long-distance friendship with the person calling... I guess I could disclose some details here.
Prince is kind of a big part of the title of this entry :-P
As it is with so many things in my life, I get into things pretty slowly and only when I feel "the waters are safe" or whatever it is... the timing being right... I go head first into things. I tend to do that a lot ;)
My writing as of late has kinda been cautious like that... I never know if an idea is going to work out because they'd come and gone so quickly. Only when I have enough information is it when I start writing.
Quickly, before I forget... the main phone call I'm expecting... response actually... something about a possible end to this seemingly endless period of nothingness... that is according to my family. But how I do really explain, unless I have some way of taking initiative, that writing is my life and its what I'm going to do with myself? Not making any money off it now because I'm doing all this blogging for my own benefit :shrug:
I'm more nervous about that and rightfully so... I have no way of predicting what's on the other side for me. She could easily say "haven't made my decision yet" or "we've chosen someone else" or "we'd been trying to contact you to tell you got it"... apparently our phones are kinda messy at the moment. It rang a number of times on Friday... like 5 times but with nothing on the other side... so there might be something wrong with one of our phones... again... we went through this issue before and Verizon had to come here to fix the issue (or was it our cable/internet provider?)
I thought writing could help get my mind off things, but talking about it, I'm getting to be kind of a wreck. The unknown can be a scary thing sometimes... and for me, that sometimes comes up quite a bit :-P
I think what has me the most nervous is the possibility of getting it and contempelating when I can start... do I say tomorrow, Wednesday... or next week? Will I be able to negotiate a starting date? Or will they need someone ASAP?
I'm definitely going to need an extra 24-48 hours to prepare... and now I'm down to 5+ minutes to go.
Anyway, discussing that other call I might be expecting will help take my mind off things if only for a little bit.
I can't quite explain why I waited so long... I mean with Robert Downey Jr. recently, I was a fan of his already... going back to 2009 when I found out who he is after seeing "Tropic Thunder"... I didn't want to really go out of my way to check into his other movies aside from the ones that weren't released yet. Plus I kinda wanted to remember him as he was at present, not going back to the 80's.
Watching "Less than Zero" kinda changed everything :-? for better and worse, but mostly for better... I'm being more brutually honest with myself as a result of all this, but that kinda makes me miserable when I do it too often.
His checkered history, which intensified rather than slackened after doing that movie, was something I couldn't leave alone. I had to make sure that nothing got uber serious... and I'm talking more serious than getting arrested, put in rehab or spending time in the same prison as Charles Manson (different yard, though, never saw him)... get what I mean?
Why does it seem like a lot of the people I let into my life... both actors and musicians... they're all kinda weirdos?
I mean, I think of myself as a weirdo a little bit... so I guess that makes total sense that I'd feel a connection with some of them... and yeah, of course people like Prince and Lady Gaga... two examples... make Robert appear normal... and actually he really is... he just plays a lot of weird roles... a few... noted more for his weird roles, at least before "Iron-Man" came along...
any minute now.... BOY am I nervous :-P
talking about Robert used to take the edge off, just a little ;) he's good for stuff like that.
all in all, he makes me feel happy... which is a big thing for me right now... or rather has been for the past year or so
Prince seemed like a really long, dragged out process... "Purple Rain"... seeing maybe 10 minutes of it, the only that really stuck in my subconscious for a number of years... turned me onto the idea that he was unlike anyone I'd known before... a Neo-Mozart if you will 8-) I'd had that in my subconscious for quite some time and every now and then, I wanted to rent the movie to see it all the way through but I never got around to it... there was never a good time
Him doing the SuperBowl HalfTime seemed like the perfect excuse... saw him perform a bit... not to mention this dream I had where I was in line to get tickets to see him... the morning of no less... that's kind of a sign if you ask me...
so I did... watched whatever music videos I could find, joined a messageboard to see what people were saying about him because if anything else, they were the people that would know him in the way I wanted to get to know him. That was a good 6 months.. 9 months... before everything kinda went south and nearly everyone had turned against him... something about him blocking YouTube videos or anything relating to him cuz he thought he was copyright infringement, never really got the full story... but I'd gotten all I could from that place and kinda stopped going every day... it was like a regiment, lol
I started a blog about him maybe 2 months into it... April of '07... because just answering threads or starting them wasn't enough for me... I wanted feedback right away and wasn't getting it... plus I didn't think everyone wanted to read through my massive messages just to see what I was talking about.
If anything, blogging was good for all the stuff I had stored up in my head about him. And if at all possible, I tried to keep things positive.
amidst all the negativity that started coming from there, I did get some good stuff out of it. People were kind enough to send me some of his music, including some stuff that was to be kept hush-hush (its a well-known fact that some untrustworthy people at Paisley Park and his other studio were sneaking out tapes of his music and sending it to their friends... and a little something called the Internet made matters a bit worse... but that'd been going on for years, so it's not necessarily why he started cracking down as he did)
I made a couple friends, but only keep in touch with one of them.
He replied to an entry I posted after seeing all of Purple Rain the first time... and also emailed me, saying how much he appreciated and "got" the stuff I wrote about him... so it started building... now it's almost like we'd... well we had known each other for years... 5 years next month, in fact. The fact our friendship is based on more than just our love of Prince's music... that's saying a lot
I can feel it, any second now... I'd hate to be in the middle of a sentence and BAM, lol
One big thing that has been in discussion for as many years as it's been a topic. The whole matter of whether or not Prince's touring band The Revolution will ever get back together... all under the same roof with him at the forefront of the pack. One way or another, between a number of things in the mid-80's, there was a falling out and he disbanded the group, starting from scratch. Since then, a number of things has delayed the reunion... including a little something called pride, his to be specific...
last year around this time, their drummer Bobby Z had a really bad heart attack, but fought back from it. They put together this reunion to raise heart health awareness and of course money for charity... seemed like the perfect occasion.
Just last night, my friend went to that concert... and if something extra special happens, he'll call to let me know ;) that would be something, wouldn't it? I mean with him, it'd been a life-long goal... been listening to him since he was at least 3 :-P his sister turned him on to him... so we're talking roughly 20+ odd years...
okay, it's been 15 minutes already... just put me out of my misery
I do have my phone out of its case so when it lights up, I'll know. but it's not as if I'm staring blankly at it, waiting for it to ring... willing it to ring with some telepathetic powers I so do not have :-P
My blog did originally start as a Prince blog. I started accumulating music and I dunno... I just had to write about it, my thoughts and feelings, my likes and dislikes (likes outnumber dislikes about 85/15)... then stuff started accumulating. And you know, I could one day write a book about all this... and I have had the intention of doing so. Just a number of things called reality and lack of interest have delayed me. Plus it's a huge commitment with a lot of information.
More or less, it's going to be a book (my friend will co-author some of it) about Prince's music, doing justice to it, explaining it and hopefully through it, more people will see how accessible he can be and also that his career didn't stop in the 80's like so many other people
There are so many misconceptions with him that it's crazy. There's the obvious question of whether he's straight or gay... a man who's been with that many women and married twice... c'mon, it's not that difficult. Plus part of the reason it took a while longer for him to get back in a good place with Lisa & Wendy was because they were gay (and apparently they were in a relationship at some point as well) and he is anti-gay marriage as well...
There are other things that aren't as easy to supplement. Back in the day, his music was pretty controversial cuz it touched on really sensitive topics like sex, religion and politics (mostly sex), so people didn't really know what to make of him.
For a number of reasons, people think he's a freak or just so eccentric that they kinda dismiss him about. He's almost as hard to bring in discussion as are those subjects he writes about. I know in my family, there are a number of people who don't get him, think he's weird.
To a degree, that is true, but I think I'd done enough decoding where, you know, as hard as it is to comprehend, I don't really see him that way. He's a bit out there sometimes, but things seem less threatening and more approachable after you learn more about it.
I'd gone through that period myself, in the very beginning, when I wanted to stick to the music that wasn't as controversial. I didn't want to really listen to anything where he was openly discussing sexuality or his language was more than a little explicit. Some of the people on that site thought I was crazy that I'm naive about all this stuff, yet I want to listen to him.
I learned pretty early on... if not 24/48 hours after, that I had to find my own way through his massive amount of work rather than listening to everyone else saying I'll never be able to manage it.
As a testament to how far I'd come, "Darling Nikki" has become a guilty pleasure of mine... and that song was such a hot topic when the album came out that the parental advisory stickers became part of regulation... also it was a song that I was very terrified to hear for the first time when I saw the movie. I knew how controversial it was and I was literally bracing myself.
After a number of viewings, :sigh: ... I guess I desensitized myself to it... or just the whole thing I was saying earlier... if you investigate into something long enough, it's not nearly as terrifying as you thought it was going to be.
now it's been 30 minutes...
I guess by now, one would kinda get the answer to my question...
there was a period of time, like the past 2-3 years or so... between the real world and the fact I'd overdone things, I stopped listening to him and really had no desire to. Plus on my blog I'd run out of things to talk about that I hadn't already gone into
So when I found less things to discuss regarding time, I turned to other sources of discussion... in 2010, I became such a movie junkie (well, then I had a car so I could head to the theater whenever I pleased without having to really ask to go, lol) that I started reviewing the movies I saw.
Then with last year.. you can kinda decipher who I loved writing about then too ;) good times, but I'll try to cut down on that. It's not nearly as the same when I wouldn't come near stuff with a 20 foot pole. I guess now, I kinda know my limits :-?
I guess that kinda goes to explain why I hadn't spend nearly as much time writing on this blog or anything else for that matter. Maybe I should just make it a weekly regiment, rather than something I do whenever inspiration hits.
Between a number of things, I'd slowly started to start blogging about Prince again. And it kinda... well, not kinda... this is true... writing about other people provides me interest for me than my own stories, the stuff that I really ought to pay attention to if I want to make a living as a writer
Although I could technically self-publish that book on Prince, whenever I get around to working on it or getting close to finishing it, and get a small fortune of that... and I doubt I'll make much more than maybe $500, lol
self-publishing is the only way I'll be able to go on that cuz there's no way any publishing house will be interested in such a vast subject. I doubt I'd be able to sell myself as well as I could
40 minutes...
okay, I think what I'll do... I think I'd more or less explained myself.
I am stressing out so much that I'm barely breathing and I'm feeling very tight around my chest and waist... so I think I'll lay down for a while just to cool off a bit.
If all goes well, I'll get the call not a minute later and perhaps this whole thing can finally be over.
You know things are really bad when you've got a few things stressing you out at the same time...
Apparently :-? there has been "suspicious activity" on my gmail account to where I had to go through some crap just to get in and I had to, yet again, come up with a new password.
I have used the same password my whole life and it seems like every account I have, I either have to change it completely or modify it... I know it's probably the work of some hackers, so this next sentence is void:
How the hell do these people keep guessing my password? It is a MADE-UP WORD... my very first book series, it was a big part of that... how in the world is this possible?
One word just isn't enough anymore. You need letters, sometimes number, sometimes symbols...
I kinda operate on two different tracks. When it comes to one of those tracks, I use a different password for everything relating to that. But with everything to do my regular, everyday stuff, I'd used the same password for my whole life. Except that my AOL account, all of ours, got hacked... so we had to change the password to something... not nearly as cool as what I had before, but you know...
every now and then, it might just be a good measure to change my password every 6 months... hopefully that'll throw some people off... at least there won't be enough "suspicious activity" to speak of because it doesn't get hacked into as often.
Not sure why that would be... I have nothing for anyone to really use... so it's like every time I sign in, I'm gonna be paranoid that I'll have to reset my password again. PAIN in the butt...
I'm waiting two very important phone calls... one of the two, I might not necessarily get... but if I do... it would be the greatest thing since the mere act of initiating this long-distance friendship with the person calling... I guess I could disclose some details here.
Prince is kind of a big part of the title of this entry :-P
As it is with so many things in my life, I get into things pretty slowly and only when I feel "the waters are safe" or whatever it is... the timing being right... I go head first into things. I tend to do that a lot ;)
My writing as of late has kinda been cautious like that... I never know if an idea is going to work out because they'd come and gone so quickly. Only when I have enough information is it when I start writing.
Quickly, before I forget... the main phone call I'm expecting... response actually... something about a possible end to this seemingly endless period of nothingness... that is according to my family. But how I do really explain, unless I have some way of taking initiative, that writing is my life and its what I'm going to do with myself? Not making any money off it now because I'm doing all this blogging for my own benefit :shrug:
I'm more nervous about that and rightfully so... I have no way of predicting what's on the other side for me. She could easily say "haven't made my decision yet" or "we've chosen someone else" or "we'd been trying to contact you to tell you got it"... apparently our phones are kinda messy at the moment. It rang a number of times on Friday... like 5 times but with nothing on the other side... so there might be something wrong with one of our phones... again... we went through this issue before and Verizon had to come here to fix the issue (or was it our cable/internet provider?)
I thought writing could help get my mind off things, but talking about it, I'm getting to be kind of a wreck. The unknown can be a scary thing sometimes... and for me, that sometimes comes up quite a bit :-P
I think what has me the most nervous is the possibility of getting it and contempelating when I can start... do I say tomorrow, Wednesday... or next week? Will I be able to negotiate a starting date? Or will they need someone ASAP?
I'm definitely going to need an extra 24-48 hours to prepare... and now I'm down to 5+ minutes to go.
Anyway, discussing that other call I might be expecting will help take my mind off things if only for a little bit.
I can't quite explain why I waited so long... I mean with Robert Downey Jr. recently, I was a fan of his already... going back to 2009 when I found out who he is after seeing "Tropic Thunder"... I didn't want to really go out of my way to check into his other movies aside from the ones that weren't released yet. Plus I kinda wanted to remember him as he was at present, not going back to the 80's.
Watching "Less than Zero" kinda changed everything :-? for better and worse, but mostly for better... I'm being more brutually honest with myself as a result of all this, but that kinda makes me miserable when I do it too often.
His checkered history, which intensified rather than slackened after doing that movie, was something I couldn't leave alone. I had to make sure that nothing got uber serious... and I'm talking more serious than getting arrested, put in rehab or spending time in the same prison as Charles Manson (different yard, though, never saw him)... get what I mean?
Why does it seem like a lot of the people I let into my life... both actors and musicians... they're all kinda weirdos?
I mean, I think of myself as a weirdo a little bit... so I guess that makes total sense that I'd feel a connection with some of them... and yeah, of course people like Prince and Lady Gaga... two examples... make Robert appear normal... and actually he really is... he just plays a lot of weird roles... a few... noted more for his weird roles, at least before "Iron-Man" came along...
any minute now.... BOY am I nervous :-P
talking about Robert used to take the edge off, just a little ;) he's good for stuff like that.
all in all, he makes me feel happy... which is a big thing for me right now... or rather has been for the past year or so
Prince seemed like a really long, dragged out process... "Purple Rain"... seeing maybe 10 minutes of it, the only that really stuck in my subconscious for a number of years... turned me onto the idea that he was unlike anyone I'd known before... a Neo-Mozart if you will 8-) I'd had that in my subconscious for quite some time and every now and then, I wanted to rent the movie to see it all the way through but I never got around to it... there was never a good time
Him doing the SuperBowl HalfTime seemed like the perfect excuse... saw him perform a bit... not to mention this dream I had where I was in line to get tickets to see him... the morning of no less... that's kind of a sign if you ask me...
so I did... watched whatever music videos I could find, joined a messageboard to see what people were saying about him because if anything else, they were the people that would know him in the way I wanted to get to know him. That was a good 6 months.. 9 months... before everything kinda went south and nearly everyone had turned against him... something about him blocking YouTube videos or anything relating to him cuz he thought he was copyright infringement, never really got the full story... but I'd gotten all I could from that place and kinda stopped going every day... it was like a regiment, lol
I started a blog about him maybe 2 months into it... April of '07... because just answering threads or starting them wasn't enough for me... I wanted feedback right away and wasn't getting it... plus I didn't think everyone wanted to read through my massive messages just to see what I was talking about.
If anything, blogging was good for all the stuff I had stored up in my head about him. And if at all possible, I tried to keep things positive.
amidst all the negativity that started coming from there, I did get some good stuff out of it. People were kind enough to send me some of his music, including some stuff that was to be kept hush-hush (its a well-known fact that some untrustworthy people at Paisley Park and his other studio were sneaking out tapes of his music and sending it to their friends... and a little something called the Internet made matters a bit worse... but that'd been going on for years, so it's not necessarily why he started cracking down as he did)
I made a couple friends, but only keep in touch with one of them.
He replied to an entry I posted after seeing all of Purple Rain the first time... and also emailed me, saying how much he appreciated and "got" the stuff I wrote about him... so it started building... now it's almost like we'd... well we had known each other for years... 5 years next month, in fact. The fact our friendship is based on more than just our love of Prince's music... that's saying a lot
I can feel it, any second now... I'd hate to be in the middle of a sentence and BAM, lol
One big thing that has been in discussion for as many years as it's been a topic. The whole matter of whether or not Prince's touring band The Revolution will ever get back together... all under the same roof with him at the forefront of the pack. One way or another, between a number of things in the mid-80's, there was a falling out and he disbanded the group, starting from scratch. Since then, a number of things has delayed the reunion... including a little something called pride, his to be specific...
last year around this time, their drummer Bobby Z had a really bad heart attack, but fought back from it. They put together this reunion to raise heart health awareness and of course money for charity... seemed like the perfect occasion.
Just last night, my friend went to that concert... and if something extra special happens, he'll call to let me know ;) that would be something, wouldn't it? I mean with him, it'd been a life-long goal... been listening to him since he was at least 3 :-P his sister turned him on to him... so we're talking roughly 20+ odd years...
okay, it's been 15 minutes already... just put me out of my misery
I do have my phone out of its case so when it lights up, I'll know. but it's not as if I'm staring blankly at it, waiting for it to ring... willing it to ring with some telepathetic powers I so do not have :-P
My blog did originally start as a Prince blog. I started accumulating music and I dunno... I just had to write about it, my thoughts and feelings, my likes and dislikes (likes outnumber dislikes about 85/15)... then stuff started accumulating. And you know, I could one day write a book about all this... and I have had the intention of doing so. Just a number of things called reality and lack of interest have delayed me. Plus it's a huge commitment with a lot of information.
More or less, it's going to be a book (my friend will co-author some of it) about Prince's music, doing justice to it, explaining it and hopefully through it, more people will see how accessible he can be and also that his career didn't stop in the 80's like so many other people
There are so many misconceptions with him that it's crazy. There's the obvious question of whether he's straight or gay... a man who's been with that many women and married twice... c'mon, it's not that difficult. Plus part of the reason it took a while longer for him to get back in a good place with Lisa & Wendy was because they were gay (and apparently they were in a relationship at some point as well) and he is anti-gay marriage as well...
There are other things that aren't as easy to supplement. Back in the day, his music was pretty controversial cuz it touched on really sensitive topics like sex, religion and politics (mostly sex), so people didn't really know what to make of him.
For a number of reasons, people think he's a freak or just so eccentric that they kinda dismiss him about. He's almost as hard to bring in discussion as are those subjects he writes about. I know in my family, there are a number of people who don't get him, think he's weird.
To a degree, that is true, but I think I'd done enough decoding where, you know, as hard as it is to comprehend, I don't really see him that way. He's a bit out there sometimes, but things seem less threatening and more approachable after you learn more about it.
I'd gone through that period myself, in the very beginning, when I wanted to stick to the music that wasn't as controversial. I didn't want to really listen to anything where he was openly discussing sexuality or his language was more than a little explicit. Some of the people on that site thought I was crazy that I'm naive about all this stuff, yet I want to listen to him.
I learned pretty early on... if not 24/48 hours after, that I had to find my own way through his massive amount of work rather than listening to everyone else saying I'll never be able to manage it.
As a testament to how far I'd come, "Darling Nikki" has become a guilty pleasure of mine... and that song was such a hot topic when the album came out that the parental advisory stickers became part of regulation... also it was a song that I was very terrified to hear for the first time when I saw the movie. I knew how controversial it was and I was literally bracing myself.
After a number of viewings, :sigh: ... I guess I desensitized myself to it... or just the whole thing I was saying earlier... if you investigate into something long enough, it's not nearly as terrifying as you thought it was going to be.
now it's been 30 minutes...
I guess by now, one would kinda get the answer to my question...
there was a period of time, like the past 2-3 years or so... between the real world and the fact I'd overdone things, I stopped listening to him and really had no desire to. Plus on my blog I'd run out of things to talk about that I hadn't already gone into
So when I found less things to discuss regarding time, I turned to other sources of discussion... in 2010, I became such a movie junkie (well, then I had a car so I could head to the theater whenever I pleased without having to really ask to go, lol) that I started reviewing the movies I saw.
Then with last year.. you can kinda decipher who I loved writing about then too ;) good times, but I'll try to cut down on that. It's not nearly as the same when I wouldn't come near stuff with a 20 foot pole. I guess now, I kinda know my limits :-?
I guess that kinda goes to explain why I hadn't spend nearly as much time writing on this blog or anything else for that matter. Maybe I should just make it a weekly regiment, rather than something I do whenever inspiration hits.
Between a number of things, I'd slowly started to start blogging about Prince again. And it kinda... well, not kinda... this is true... writing about other people provides me interest for me than my own stories, the stuff that I really ought to pay attention to if I want to make a living as a writer
Although I could technically self-publish that book on Prince, whenever I get around to working on it or getting close to finishing it, and get a small fortune of that... and I doubt I'll make much more than maybe $500, lol
self-publishing is the only way I'll be able to go on that cuz there's no way any publishing house will be interested in such a vast subject. I doubt I'd be able to sell myself as well as I could
40 minutes...
okay, I think what I'll do... I think I'd more or less explained myself.
I am stressing out so much that I'm barely breathing and I'm feeling very tight around my chest and waist... so I think I'll lay down for a while just to cool off a bit.
If all goes well, I'll get the call not a minute later and perhaps this whole thing can finally be over.
Friday, February 10, 2012
My story idea of Wish Fulfillment: Rebel Diana/Nobody 'Till You
I have so many pet peeves in the writing world that it's crazy. Even if I narrowed it down to the pet peeves I have about my OWN writing, that doesn't really narrow down much of anything. Most of my pet peeves are just things that I have no control over, but continue to annoy me nonetheless.
I like to get to know some of my CD's by playing them along with my choice of video games. Sometimes, it just so happens that the CD in question becomes the soundtrack to a part of that video game. With Jak & Daxter, I could probably work up a couple of CD's to cover the entire game. But for the moment, when I play through, I always have to play two CD's because they just fit the scenery and actions perfectly.
Often times, the combination makes me a better game player, if not temporarily.
There was maybe once or twice when Ashlee Simpson's "Autobiography" was my companion for the first two sections of the game-- Sandover village and the Forbidden Jungle. Now I'd gotten too fast for my own good, so the next installment comes later than I'd like.
Covering the realms from Misty Island to crossing the Fire Canyon, I use "Speak" by Lindsay Lohan. Say what you want about her, but I thought the album rocked when I was in my senior year of high school. I'll go into more detail a little later, the reason I'm starting this entry in the first place, but yeah, a guy had a little something to do with it.
I made up two mixes of songs that were the most often played by me or alluded to certain parts of the school. 10th grade & 11th grade.
With 10th grade, I had a number of Dream Street songs, three by Michelle Branch ("Here with me" being the break-up song... marking the end of me fantasizing I had a chance with one of my guy friends), a couple by Vanessa Mae (if only for filler, lol... the last 4 had no real place, I just liked them a lot), two by Plus One... and that was basically it. There was a repeated theme with my "crush d'ans," but they only held up for so long.
11th grade was something else... if anything, it became a work of art. It started with the first song I heard coming into my Physics class. My teacher had a radio in his desk and he was a big Guster fan. I got the one album for two songs ("Fa fa fa" and "4, 3, 2, 1") and sold it a couple years later cuz I didn't really like the whole thing. The same went with Stacie Orrico. I liked "More to life" and instead, I ended up selling the album because we didn't quite gel together.
So after the Guster song, I'd have this song "11 out of 10" by Play and "Worthless" by Greg Raposo. Nothing too special unless you were in my place... Pre-calculus was the bane of my existence that first marking period, but playing those two songs helped a bit.
Then I think I had a couple of my favorite Clay Aiken tracks from his first album (and I'm sorry to say it was his only good album... after that, it just went downhill) that reminded me of another guy that came into my life. This actor with a velvety tenor voice that I still haven't forgotten to this day how crazy I was about him. I guess the connection came because a) he was graduating that year and he'd be sorely missed and b) Clay Aiken has a fine tenor voice that reminds me a bit of him... that's probably the reason a couple Josh Groban tracks got in there too...
"Stairway to Heaven" got in there because I heard him sing it once and that really made the song come alive for me... loved it ever since.
Then it gets kinda sparse with the meanings behind why I picked the next couple songs. Jesse McCartney covering a song from "Peter Pan" was something I played a million times, so why not... we did the song "Masquerade" in concert choir and the opener was a solo version of "All I ask of you"... Simple Plan's "Perfect" came in because a) I loved the song and b) I felt such a camerarderie with it... like it fit how I felt at the time...
As for where this all fits in the game... I started playing it when I got to the Snowy Mountain realm of the 3rd world... and somehow, the rest fit into place. I'd get up to "Stairway to Heaven" by the time I finish... and I'd navigate the deadly Spider Caves realm. If all goes well, I'm in the Lava Tube by the time the 2nd Guster song starts playing.
My thing for music goes back more years than I can remember... but one thing's for sure... combining music with video games makes it go all the more faster, makes it more fun...
I'm also very visual when it comes to music. It used to be that I could listen to a song and images of something or someone would come to mind... so when I write, I like to have music close by to inspire me or help prolong some scenes.
Playing the game again today... going through Misty Island and Sentinal Beach... to "Speak"...
it kinda inspired me... just a little bit... to revisit the idea that more or less came from the album.
First of all, the first time I heard it kinda felt like an electric shock, a little more harsh than I thought it was going to be. But I was expecting bubblegum pop. In a way, I guess it still kinda is. It's just that when a certain guy started coming to mind, the two were like a match made in heaven. Or so it seemed.
It started with a couple of songs from the album kinda hitting the right spots and areas.
"First" is about wanting to be a guy's first priority... and when it came to him, I kinda felt that way. Well, not kinda, I definitely felt that way. He had his own circle of friends, a lot of them were girls and he'd be super close with the bunch of them. I wanted to get in on that popularity, but I didn't know how. I got so uber jealous and wanted badly to be able to speak my mind.
"Speak" kinda came from that too, the title track... wanting desperately to not be afraid to say anything to him... as it often is with guys, I'm very scatterbrained, not quite knowing what to say to them a lot of the time.
"Nobody 'till you" sounded perfect for describing the feeling of what it was like to be around him. The few times we got to talking, he made me feel like I was the only one in the room. You know how it is... getting a little extra time with a special guy in your life, you feel special because he took the time out for you.
All the other songs kinda helped in one way or another.
The story more or less became a feat of wish fulfillment that I was never completely able to bring to a head.
Meaning that it started out really good, but it got so lost in the middle... muddled in fact.
A lot of people say how the first 50 pages are the hardest to write of a story/book/novel, whatever you want to call.
Maybe it's because in a bunch of my works, if not all of them, 50 pages is actually HALF of the entire story...
#$%& me, this story is just a little more than 50 pages...
first 50 pages, my ass...
and if I rounded up, my word count is just less than 24,000... this is no book, it's more like a novella that probably nobody would buy into, nevermind a publisher
No, length really isn't the biggest issue at hand.
Neither is the first 50 pages... the beginning for that matter.
I mean, yeah, the beginning is a little wooden. A lot of exposition or background information. I doubt anyone's going to buy into it. I mean, I started this when I was maybe 18. I was still very emotionally immature at the time. Like getting the attention of who I perceived to be the most popular guy in my concert choir class was the most important thing in the world to me.
The beginning could do with some reworking because, even in 3rd person, it's very melodramatic.
The way I used to write was in this method: wish fulfillment. What I couldn't make happen in real life, I made happen in my writing. Each time I look back at this work in particular, I just want to crawl under a rock or hide or whatever to just put it out of my mind. It's just so embarassing.
Granted, I'm still very insecure with myself, but supposing I knew nothing about me and I was reading this for the first time... who wants to read about an insecure protagonist?
Diana is probably one of the weakest, if not the weakest personality I'd ever written and she was derived specifically from my own psyche. Because of a little something called multiple personality disorder, she developed another personality who saw all of this going on and wanted to take her place so she could fulfill what her other half was too afraid to... afraid to take any chances, afraid that people wouldn't like her overstepping her boundaries...
Leaving all that aside... going into the first three songs I dervied inspiration from...
"Symptoms of you" is just the regular symptoms and side-effects of crushing on someone
"Disconnected" could go on to mean a number of things for the situation. I'm starting to believe that there are times that Diana blocks out or senses another presence inside her mind... there's a lot of contradictions to the lyrics as there are for her confused psyche.
"Nobody 'till you" brings a lot of pieces together, her motivation throughout the story.
Wanting to come "First" makes the other personality all the more powerful and closer to taking control... but unlike what you see in the soap operas, the other personality screwing over the host personality, "Rebel Diana" wants to fulfill her host's wishes using her stronger persona.
Establishing the first couple of characters and the stronger personality taking over for Diana is one thing... I can live with a lot of those details quite happily with very little objection. It's just the first couple pages that need work, all the insecure I hate reading about, but that was and still is part of who I am.
Here's the hard part:
With the help of her stronger personality, Diana assimilates her way into Brian's life. For whatever reason, he finds himself a little more drawn to her, wanting to spend more time with her because of her newfound confidence. That much I can buy into.
But how far can I push it without making it sound too unrealistic? Is his current girlfriend really necessary in the story to add conflict? Originally, I had it that she eventually got jealous and broke up with him. But supposing I have him break up with her instead... would that be a little too much?
I mean, wouldn't that sound a little too much like something out of "The Little Mermaid"... you know that whole part where, after Ariel was starting to get Eric to fall in love with her, Ursula cheats in turning herself into a girl and putting Eric under a spell so he's persuaded to marry her instead.
How far can I possibly push the envelope before it completely bursts in my hands?
One way or another, Diana and Brian become a couple. Because he's so popular and she's more or less a nobody, people want to know who she is ("To know your name"). Jealousy flairs up a bit and Diana starts to alienate Brian from his friends, him spending almost all of his time with her instead.
Because of that, rumors start to fly around her about how in the world she wormed her way into his life... however he and his girlfriend break up, that has validity in this instance.
Everything starts to crop up when the Spring Fling dance comes around.
Diana's stronger personality starts to see the error of her ways ("Anything but me"). She comes to sort of realize that not only is Brian not nearly as happy in this relationship as he could be... takes into account how she'd more or less cut him off from everyone else... Diana didn't want to interrupt the status quo and that was kind of her one request before letting the other personality take over for her...
"Over" is the break-up song. I don't put it in the story, but towards the beginning, she secretly wishes to have a slow dance with Brian. She gets her wish, but kinda realizes that this isn't the way she wanted it to be.
This is something else I'm also trying to figure out how to handle it... when do the two personalities reverse position to how they were? Who breaks up with Brian? Is it Rebel Diana or her default personality?
Because one way or another, it has to lead to something that would make the following confrontation make sense. This conflict happens completely within the recesses of her own mind. Rebel Diana more or less explains what she did to achieve what she wanted to achieve for her and everything got out of hand.
I see a few reprises of the songs from the album. And I thought it'd be perfect if there was a complete role reversal here. During "Speak" the first time around, Diana's rebellious side tried to talk her into believing that she needs to say what's on her mind or she won't get anywhere near what she wants to achieve in life.
Then after everything that happens happened, Diana turns the table, almost mocking her other personality in saying "you said it wasn't going to be a big deal, that it'd be good for me. I was better off never listening to you in the first place."
One way or another... I'm not quite sure how it all works out... the two personalities kinda agree and Diana more or less becomes a combination of the two of them... a little stronger than before, a little braver, but not nearly as domineering or selfish in that "winner take all" way.
Now, getting the acceptance of the student body back... that's probably the most difficult part. As if hammering out the details of her relationship with Brian when they were together was hard enough.
But taking all of that aside, how in the WORLD am I going to make the final scene I have in mind happen?
We fast-forward to prom. Diana goes alone and ends up having a good time.
But then the dance floor parts, with Brian waiting for her to dance with him... giving her the slow dance she'd always wanted.
He gives her what sounds to me like BS... saying that he understood why she did what she did, forgives her and allows her the one thing she really wanted, just for once for someone to treat her like she was special, like she was the only one in the room.
Certainly, this is something I'd pose as a question on a series of message boards. But there are simply too many questions to ask and a lot of people probably wouldn't have the patience to weed through all of my explaining of my story.
There are so many flaws in this story that it makes me want to quit, erase it completely, but it would hurt just as much to do that as it does leaving it in limbo like this.
In all seriousness, who but me is going to buy into this story? And each time I look back at it, I wonder if I even buy into it anymore. The person having two personalities is one thing... but its another thing having this whole story painting her as the victim. How long can I hold onto that until I turn the reader against her? When she starts alienating him from everyone else, who would feel sorry for her then? She's no better than the people she'd fought against, the herd of sheep following him around.
And after all that, how can he forgive her? I see all of this coming together, but I don't know if it holds any water... if it makes any sense. Yet the entire time, I see this playing out like a movie... one song at a time, ending with one song playing to a slow dance at prom while the credits are scrolling on the other side of the screen.
They say that 1st person POV is very flawed and can only be used with certain protagonists. At the same time, with my heroine being as weak of character as she is, it feels like the story still suffers even when she's not the one telling it.
So much to do, not enough time and interest to do it in. But I hope that someday it'll work out where I can actually stand by what I've written.
The only positive I can derive for the moment: if it ever gets published, by the time that comes, everyone the story is about probably won't remember anything about the 2004-5 school year and wouldn't be able to figure out that I'd written my own reality.
I like to get to know some of my CD's by playing them along with my choice of video games. Sometimes, it just so happens that the CD in question becomes the soundtrack to a part of that video game. With Jak & Daxter, I could probably work up a couple of CD's to cover the entire game. But for the moment, when I play through, I always have to play two CD's because they just fit the scenery and actions perfectly.
Often times, the combination makes me a better game player, if not temporarily.
There was maybe once or twice when Ashlee Simpson's "Autobiography" was my companion for the first two sections of the game-- Sandover village and the Forbidden Jungle. Now I'd gotten too fast for my own good, so the next installment comes later than I'd like.
Covering the realms from Misty Island to crossing the Fire Canyon, I use "Speak" by Lindsay Lohan. Say what you want about her, but I thought the album rocked when I was in my senior year of high school. I'll go into more detail a little later, the reason I'm starting this entry in the first place, but yeah, a guy had a little something to do with it.
I made up two mixes of songs that were the most often played by me or alluded to certain parts of the school. 10th grade & 11th grade.
With 10th grade, I had a number of Dream Street songs, three by Michelle Branch ("Here with me" being the break-up song... marking the end of me fantasizing I had a chance with one of my guy friends), a couple by Vanessa Mae (if only for filler, lol... the last 4 had no real place, I just liked them a lot), two by Plus One... and that was basically it. There was a repeated theme with my "crush d'ans," but they only held up for so long.
11th grade was something else... if anything, it became a work of art. It started with the first song I heard coming into my Physics class. My teacher had a radio in his desk and he was a big Guster fan. I got the one album for two songs ("Fa fa fa" and "4, 3, 2, 1") and sold it a couple years later cuz I didn't really like the whole thing. The same went with Stacie Orrico. I liked "More to life" and instead, I ended up selling the album because we didn't quite gel together.
So after the Guster song, I'd have this song "11 out of 10" by Play and "Worthless" by Greg Raposo. Nothing too special unless you were in my place... Pre-calculus was the bane of my existence that first marking period, but playing those two songs helped a bit.
Then I think I had a couple of my favorite Clay Aiken tracks from his first album (and I'm sorry to say it was his only good album... after that, it just went downhill) that reminded me of another guy that came into my life. This actor with a velvety tenor voice that I still haven't forgotten to this day how crazy I was about him. I guess the connection came because a) he was graduating that year and he'd be sorely missed and b) Clay Aiken has a fine tenor voice that reminds me a bit of him... that's probably the reason a couple Josh Groban tracks got in there too...
"Stairway to Heaven" got in there because I heard him sing it once and that really made the song come alive for me... loved it ever since.
Then it gets kinda sparse with the meanings behind why I picked the next couple songs. Jesse McCartney covering a song from "Peter Pan" was something I played a million times, so why not... we did the song "Masquerade" in concert choir and the opener was a solo version of "All I ask of you"... Simple Plan's "Perfect" came in because a) I loved the song and b) I felt such a camerarderie with it... like it fit how I felt at the time...
As for where this all fits in the game... I started playing it when I got to the Snowy Mountain realm of the 3rd world... and somehow, the rest fit into place. I'd get up to "Stairway to Heaven" by the time I finish... and I'd navigate the deadly Spider Caves realm. If all goes well, I'm in the Lava Tube by the time the 2nd Guster song starts playing.
My thing for music goes back more years than I can remember... but one thing's for sure... combining music with video games makes it go all the more faster, makes it more fun...
I'm also very visual when it comes to music. It used to be that I could listen to a song and images of something or someone would come to mind... so when I write, I like to have music close by to inspire me or help prolong some scenes.
Playing the game again today... going through Misty Island and Sentinal Beach... to "Speak"...
it kinda inspired me... just a little bit... to revisit the idea that more or less came from the album.
First of all, the first time I heard it kinda felt like an electric shock, a little more harsh than I thought it was going to be. But I was expecting bubblegum pop. In a way, I guess it still kinda is. It's just that when a certain guy started coming to mind, the two were like a match made in heaven. Or so it seemed.
It started with a couple of songs from the album kinda hitting the right spots and areas.
"First" is about wanting to be a guy's first priority... and when it came to him, I kinda felt that way. Well, not kinda, I definitely felt that way. He had his own circle of friends, a lot of them were girls and he'd be super close with the bunch of them. I wanted to get in on that popularity, but I didn't know how. I got so uber jealous and wanted badly to be able to speak my mind.
"Speak" kinda came from that too, the title track... wanting desperately to not be afraid to say anything to him... as it often is with guys, I'm very scatterbrained, not quite knowing what to say to them a lot of the time.
"Nobody 'till you" sounded perfect for describing the feeling of what it was like to be around him. The few times we got to talking, he made me feel like I was the only one in the room. You know how it is... getting a little extra time with a special guy in your life, you feel special because he took the time out for you.
All the other songs kinda helped in one way or another.
The story more or less became a feat of wish fulfillment that I was never completely able to bring to a head.
Meaning that it started out really good, but it got so lost in the middle... muddled in fact.
A lot of people say how the first 50 pages are the hardest to write of a story/book/novel, whatever you want to call.
Maybe it's because in a bunch of my works, if not all of them, 50 pages is actually HALF of the entire story...
#$%& me, this story is just a little more than 50 pages...
first 50 pages, my ass...
and if I rounded up, my word count is just less than 24,000... this is no book, it's more like a novella that probably nobody would buy into, nevermind a publisher
No, length really isn't the biggest issue at hand.
Neither is the first 50 pages... the beginning for that matter.
I mean, yeah, the beginning is a little wooden. A lot of exposition or background information. I doubt anyone's going to buy into it. I mean, I started this when I was maybe 18. I was still very emotionally immature at the time. Like getting the attention of who I perceived to be the most popular guy in my concert choir class was the most important thing in the world to me.
The beginning could do with some reworking because, even in 3rd person, it's very melodramatic.
The way I used to write was in this method: wish fulfillment. What I couldn't make happen in real life, I made happen in my writing. Each time I look back at this work in particular, I just want to crawl under a rock or hide or whatever to just put it out of my mind. It's just so embarassing.
Granted, I'm still very insecure with myself, but supposing I knew nothing about me and I was reading this for the first time... who wants to read about an insecure protagonist?
Diana is probably one of the weakest, if not the weakest personality I'd ever written and she was derived specifically from my own psyche. Because of a little something called multiple personality disorder, she developed another personality who saw all of this going on and wanted to take her place so she could fulfill what her other half was too afraid to... afraid to take any chances, afraid that people wouldn't like her overstepping her boundaries...
Leaving all that aside... going into the first three songs I dervied inspiration from...
"Symptoms of you" is just the regular symptoms and side-effects of crushing on someone
"Disconnected" could go on to mean a number of things for the situation. I'm starting to believe that there are times that Diana blocks out or senses another presence inside her mind... there's a lot of contradictions to the lyrics as there are for her confused psyche.
"Nobody 'till you" brings a lot of pieces together, her motivation throughout the story.
Wanting to come "First" makes the other personality all the more powerful and closer to taking control... but unlike what you see in the soap operas, the other personality screwing over the host personality, "Rebel Diana" wants to fulfill her host's wishes using her stronger persona.
Establishing the first couple of characters and the stronger personality taking over for Diana is one thing... I can live with a lot of those details quite happily with very little objection. It's just the first couple pages that need work, all the insecure I hate reading about, but that was and still is part of who I am.
Here's the hard part:
With the help of her stronger personality, Diana assimilates her way into Brian's life. For whatever reason, he finds himself a little more drawn to her, wanting to spend more time with her because of her newfound confidence. That much I can buy into.
But how far can I push it without making it sound too unrealistic? Is his current girlfriend really necessary in the story to add conflict? Originally, I had it that she eventually got jealous and broke up with him. But supposing I have him break up with her instead... would that be a little too much?
I mean, wouldn't that sound a little too much like something out of "The Little Mermaid"... you know that whole part where, after Ariel was starting to get Eric to fall in love with her, Ursula cheats in turning herself into a girl and putting Eric under a spell so he's persuaded to marry her instead.
How far can I possibly push the envelope before it completely bursts in my hands?
One way or another, Diana and Brian become a couple. Because he's so popular and she's more or less a nobody, people want to know who she is ("To know your name"). Jealousy flairs up a bit and Diana starts to alienate Brian from his friends, him spending almost all of his time with her instead.
Because of that, rumors start to fly around her about how in the world she wormed her way into his life... however he and his girlfriend break up, that has validity in this instance.
Everything starts to crop up when the Spring Fling dance comes around.
Diana's stronger personality starts to see the error of her ways ("Anything but me"). She comes to sort of realize that not only is Brian not nearly as happy in this relationship as he could be... takes into account how she'd more or less cut him off from everyone else... Diana didn't want to interrupt the status quo and that was kind of her one request before letting the other personality take over for her...
"Over" is the break-up song. I don't put it in the story, but towards the beginning, she secretly wishes to have a slow dance with Brian. She gets her wish, but kinda realizes that this isn't the way she wanted it to be.
This is something else I'm also trying to figure out how to handle it... when do the two personalities reverse position to how they were? Who breaks up with Brian? Is it Rebel Diana or her default personality?
Because one way or another, it has to lead to something that would make the following confrontation make sense. This conflict happens completely within the recesses of her own mind. Rebel Diana more or less explains what she did to achieve what she wanted to achieve for her and everything got out of hand.
I see a few reprises of the songs from the album. And I thought it'd be perfect if there was a complete role reversal here. During "Speak" the first time around, Diana's rebellious side tried to talk her into believing that she needs to say what's on her mind or she won't get anywhere near what she wants to achieve in life.
Then after everything that happens happened, Diana turns the table, almost mocking her other personality in saying "you said it wasn't going to be a big deal, that it'd be good for me. I was better off never listening to you in the first place."
One way or another... I'm not quite sure how it all works out... the two personalities kinda agree and Diana more or less becomes a combination of the two of them... a little stronger than before, a little braver, but not nearly as domineering or selfish in that "winner take all" way.
Now, getting the acceptance of the student body back... that's probably the most difficult part. As if hammering out the details of her relationship with Brian when they were together was hard enough.
But taking all of that aside, how in the WORLD am I going to make the final scene I have in mind happen?
We fast-forward to prom. Diana goes alone and ends up having a good time.
But then the dance floor parts, with Brian waiting for her to dance with him... giving her the slow dance she'd always wanted.
He gives her what sounds to me like BS... saying that he understood why she did what she did, forgives her and allows her the one thing she really wanted, just for once for someone to treat her like she was special, like she was the only one in the room.
Certainly, this is something I'd pose as a question on a series of message boards. But there are simply too many questions to ask and a lot of people probably wouldn't have the patience to weed through all of my explaining of my story.
There are so many flaws in this story that it makes me want to quit, erase it completely, but it would hurt just as much to do that as it does leaving it in limbo like this.
In all seriousness, who but me is going to buy into this story? And each time I look back at it, I wonder if I even buy into it anymore. The person having two personalities is one thing... but its another thing having this whole story painting her as the victim. How long can I hold onto that until I turn the reader against her? When she starts alienating him from everyone else, who would feel sorry for her then? She's no better than the people she'd fought against, the herd of sheep following him around.
And after all that, how can he forgive her? I see all of this coming together, but I don't know if it holds any water... if it makes any sense. Yet the entire time, I see this playing out like a movie... one song at a time, ending with one song playing to a slow dance at prom while the credits are scrolling on the other side of the screen.
They say that 1st person POV is very flawed and can only be used with certain protagonists. At the same time, with my heroine being as weak of character as she is, it feels like the story still suffers even when she's not the one telling it.
So much to do, not enough time and interest to do it in. But I hope that someday it'll work out where I can actually stand by what I've written.
The only positive I can derive for the moment: if it ever gets published, by the time that comes, everyone the story is about probably won't remember anything about the 2004-5 school year and wouldn't be able to figure out that I'd written my own reality.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Chapter 4: what I have so far and the fear of conquering the rest
The rest of my life-- my non-writing life-- has been on hold for a very long time.
I worry that I'm never going to get over my own social anxiety, that I'm now owning it more than doing anything constructive to fix it.
Dialogue seems to be my biggest issue right now with this chapter. And strangely enough, I am STILL stuck in the first part of it: meeting the first three new characters for this chapter.
And even though I have said that if I got the chance to Hollywood-ize my story, Gary Oldman would be who could fill the shows of this guardian for my protagonist. It's just when I... that's a good word... I was going to say that "burly" seems to come to mind for this character. I was about to say that I think of him as being this middle-aged, tall, thick-set man with a charcoal beard & mustache... but maybe I'm thinking more of salt and pepper instead of charcoal. Charcoal is black right? With spectales that make him look very scholarly, but I could easily continue with that theme in what I said about Jonas explaining the several shelves of books in the den.
I don't know why I've stuck with his specific age for as long as I have. Does a man being 55 years old really make a difference in his descripton? I suppose burly is a good description for him. Peter can't be any more than 200-240 pounds, but I keep imagining him being thickset.
Dialogue is extremely tough for me and the part of the reason I haven't been able to leave this first part... okay, maybe 90% of the reason why I haven't been able to fix it. Nothing seems to work out perfectly. I would rather my readers make up their mind rather than me telling them what to think of people. Once or twice, there has been dialogue from Peter and Jonas that alludes to far too much.
I worry that I'm never going to get over my own social anxiety, that I'm now owning it more than doing anything constructive to fix it.
Dialogue seems to be my biggest issue right now with this chapter. And strangely enough, I am STILL stuck in the first part of it: meeting the first three new characters for this chapter.
And even though I have said that if I got the chance to Hollywood-ize my story, Gary Oldman would be who could fill the shows of this guardian for my protagonist. It's just when I... that's a good word... I was going to say that "burly" seems to come to mind for this character. I was about to say that I think of him as being this middle-aged, tall, thick-set man with a charcoal beard & mustache... but maybe I'm thinking more of salt and pepper instead of charcoal. Charcoal is black right? With spectales that make him look very scholarly, but I could easily continue with that theme in what I said about Jonas explaining the several shelves of books in the den.
I don't know why I've stuck with his specific age for as long as I have. Does a man being 55 years old really make a difference in his descripton? I suppose burly is a good description for him. Peter can't be any more than 200-240 pounds, but I keep imagining him being thickset.
Dialogue is extremely tough for me and the part of the reason I haven't been able to leave this first part... okay, maybe 90% of the reason why I haven't been able to fix it. Nothing seems to work out perfectly. I would rather my readers make up their mind rather than me telling them what to think of people. Once or twice, there has been dialogue from Peter and Jonas that alludes to far too much.
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