Shorehouse Brainstorming

Well, for the most part, I'd say I did what I set out to do at the shore... get some brainstorming started and maybe get the chance to do character sketches or write the words "chapter 1"... not quite there yet...

I unearthed so much stuff while brainstorming... a lot of interesting stuff, but not quite what I had in mind. Although it's part of the direction I wanted to go in.

I figured that "Suckerpunch" would inspire my writing in some way, but I didn't think it'd be limited to inspiring some character names. I've got a few characters in place that are somewhat similiar to others in the film.

I'd already explained Emilia's connection as the new girl, but upped the ante in changing her last name to De La Rosa instead of just Rose... Rose would be a little too American for this particular setting... unless of course one of my crazy, outlandish ideas make the cut.
Interesting how it keeps coming up when I'm PMSing, not that things are terrible in that department so far this month (fingers crossed)... I keep toying around with the idea that in her ultimately destructive relationship with her stepfather, Talia got knocked up and all kinds of falling out happened as a result. The easy route would be that the baby was sent away to America to be adopted... possibly something that her mother arranged and that she never forgave her for... played around with the idea that the baby died at the result of some recklessness by her stepfather...

I played around with ages just to get a grasp of how old the girls are, what they were when they first entered the business... technically, age limits are not an issue, but I kinda want to keep things clean so my conscience will have less to regret later on...
Emilia is easily the youngest, I figured that there'd be a 5 year gap between her and the next youngest girl... therefore its a big deal that she's the first girl invited to join the group in 5 years... I figure Talia's in her early 30's and playing around with the ages a bit, there's always the off-chance that Emilia could be this long-lost daughter that Talia had when she was a teenager... I could easily go that route and I have with some other side-project that is more or less for my own experimentation and benefits...

Considering a few other possible ideas of where to go with her character, I don't think I'd want Emilia to have that touchy role... I mean, sure, it happens, but what I do want to be that person who writes about a girl who enters a business that her mom was in against choice... that's just all kinds of complicated I don't want to mess around with.

I'm still considering the idea that future love interest JP is related to someone that is close to Talia... whether its a family friend of her mom's in America... whether he's some distant relation to the Montiels (the family that runs the business... but that's kinda out considering that Alejandro is the nephew of one of the co-owners)... whether he's Emilia's cousin or brother... either way, I've still got a lot to figure out

Aside from familial relations and such, I have JP figured out pretty well... he's American (have yet to figure out what brings him to South America in the first place)... he came from a proper family that's well-put together (may/may not be super rich, I don't think he's THAT rich)... he's enchanted by her immediately, but when he learns about the life she leads, he keeps telling her that she's better than that and tries to make her fall in love with him... to which she'd probably say that she doesn't need to be rescued

I don't want it to be too cliche where he's over the top or she comes off as weak.

Alejandro, I know one thing about... he and Talia are in a relationship based around sex... that makes it so that there's nothing personal going on between them... her terms, more or less, because there's no room for emotions in her line of work
One possibility for a conversation between the two points of the love triangle... which would prove very interesting... JP asking Alejandro about their relationship, if he's waiting for her to leave the business so they can be together... she's so into it and about it that the only reason she'd leave is because her body started to go (therefore she could be until halfway through her 40's because she's in that good of shape)... to which he adds "would you still love her if she didn't have her looks"... their relationship being purely physical, that's the main flaw... and I don't know what his answer to that would be... he still does care for her in his way, but I'm thinking that he's into it as an executive priviledge and its kinda hard for him to be a one-woman man... something tells me he could never settle.

I went so far as to draft a schedule for the girls... who'd go on every night... even started assigning songs (but more on that another time)...

Here's the trick:
this establishment is like a bar, but it only serves drinks and appetizer-like meals, nothing fancy... the girls are the source of entertainment obviously....
on most nights, half the girls dance and the other half are waitresses...
on VIP nights, the VIP girls waitress first and go on stage after everyone's taken care of... its part of their getting bids at the end of the night to go home with the lucky man
Talia is the only girl who doesn't waitress at all, but she gets weekends off... priviledge from being there as long as she has... her downtime is spent working on/perfecting routines as well as trying out new things...
VIP nights are generally MWF... Talia is featured excluvisely on Wednesdays, when she decides to show up... if she doesn't, she's always with Alejandro... if she's not there that night, anyone dance for bids

The clencher is that Emilia is hired as a waitress, responding to an ad, but she asks later to audition as a dancer... she doesn't know about the risque part of the business and as long as its up to Talia, its going to stay that way... she finds her very naive, doesn't want her to be changed too much by what else is out there... protective of her as if she's the sister she never had... there's a very special relationship here I plan to go into more detail about, probably more than any of the other girls...

I knew straight off that Talia has to be backed by, at minimum, two other girls...
who I figured would be her two best friends, the ones she's closest with...

from that, I got Scarlet Rasmusan (her personality will shadow Jena Malone's character, Rocket... she's a redhead, very flirtatous and fun-loving, as a dancer very technical... the last name, I got from American Idol alum Carmen Rasmusan)
Vanessa Zappola (she's a full bodied blonde... very secure with herself and really embodies her sensuality... the name... Vanessa Hudgens who was in "Suckerpunch"... her character was named Blondie so I thought to make her blonde for this case... the last name is mostly made up, but there was a college gymnast named Vanessa Zamaripa that I grew fond of last season... I needed a last name that was a little closer to the Latin culture)

I'll call them Talia's wingmen... wing-girls... both have their different personalities but they get along as well as sisters... both have different POV's and have their own takes on Alejandro and their complicated relationship

That small number wasn't going to quite do it, so I came up with two more...
Ruby, who's Scarlet's twin sister... her hair is more strawberry blonde than red... she gets into the business a couple years after Scarlet... not quite sure what the differences are between them, they're close but have their different interests... Vanessa gets along with her just as easily...
Amber Garcia... who's a little more exotic looking and probably as good as belly-dancer as Talia... I can already tell she'll be a little bit of a bitch, but neither of these two will get a lot of "screen" time... either will have a couple lines here and there or just get mentioned in context, but never seen... still working on that (Amber was another "Suckerpunch" character and Garcia comes from Prince's ex, Mayte, who's a very accomplished belly-dancer that I need to do more video research on... she's bound to inspire some choreography in my mind for these numbers)

Another cool thing I came up with for an idea...
to keep dodging the authorities (since prostitution is illegal), the venue for the VIP nights change almost every time, they get passed by word of mouth and there're "password protected"... as in, you can only gain access to see the exclusive girls... part of it might be that you need to reveal who you got the password from...
I highly doubt that the cops are going to play any role in the story, but just in case, it's good to have.

It was ultimately Talia's idea for this kind of business to stimulate earnings for the Montiels, to make up for her stepfather losing a lot of money for them... after she pays off her debt, she decides to hire other dancers to (hopefully) take her place so she can move on... a few things happen where she decides she can't leave, there's no other place for her...
firstly cuz it takes a while for the girls to stick around for more than a month or two...
secondly cuz she meets Vanessa and gets really close with her and Scarlet and doesn't want to leave
thirdly... she has nowhere else to go... this is all she can do to support herself

I sympathize completely... I mean, I just realized that nothing has really stuck for me because I don't have the commitment for anything... like I'll give 50% because I'm afraid of losing time for myself or part of who I am... ultimately that's been killing any chance I have at a career in the real world... the only thing I can commit to is writing and over the past couple days, this is the most effort I put into anything constructive... I don't want to leave that...
ideas come to mind like I'd like to go on a writing retreat so I can continue to distance myself from civilization... to living in some remote place where I can be alone wtih my work... none are realistic, obviously and my folks would never go for any of it... even if I get some things published, I'll never be rich enough where I can easily retire and never work another day in my life towards anything but writing...

One of the following things will happen...
either myself the writer will cease to exist because my new career will beat it out of me...
or, quite simply, I'm backed into a corner where I have no choice... I live as a writer or... well, not live at all...

But the darkest alternative is miles away... no matter how stressful things get sometimes... I need to see this last idea through to the end... at least try to get the word out to see if anything comes of it...
Anything's worth a shot and it really would be something if success comes to me out of something to really challenges me... and kinda goes to prove that sex really does sell...

I want to be sure that what I end up writing for this, I do it with class so its not entirely about the risque aspects... it's about female empowerment and other rarely touched on issues...
I'm just hoping that I can get away with setting it in Rio without actually going there :-P certainly couldn't write a story like this and set it in America... and that Nelly Furtado makes me think about exotic dancers and exotic dancing (mostly the non-risque part of it... just really exotic looking Latianas dancing their butts off)

writing exercises for "Te Busque"

I just took a look at my stats for the first time ever... my blog actually tracks which counties have come across it...
now there's a difference between people that come across my blog than those who actually read it... reading it and actually getting where I'm coming from is my ultimate goal.
But for now, I'll continue doing what I do to see if anyone will take notice.

I started this blog to set up a writing platform so people will get interested in reading my work and all that... I'd put myself out there a couple times, commenting on the blogs I subscribe to and sometimes I get answers back, but they rarely go beyond one Tennis exchange (I say something, they respond to what I say and it ends there)

By trade, writing is a very selfish and self-involved business because your work is your own and its up to you whether a story gets told or not.

Not that Wikipedia is an oft recommended source of information or reference, I just double-checked to see that I can, in fact, refer to my character, Talia Montez as an "exotic dancer"... on my Google search, I'd seen a few definitions... the most common one is that when you see those two words together, people make it automatically interchangeable with striptease artist or "erotic dancer"...
I will be going there a bit, yes, but not to the absolute extreme.

Stress and lack of confidence usually come together to become the worst sort of writer's block. I'm afraid to go into anything because if I get started and get told that I need to focus my attention on something else (fixing my unemployment status), I won't be able to come back completely whole & focused.
The only thing worse than those two things when it comes to writer's block is simply: not having the interest to write anything because there's no inspiration.

A lot of things in my life go this way: I investigate for a while, let time do what it will, before I truly get invested in something... that's how it was with Prince... for a short while, RDJr was like that... then "Less than Zero" was a game changer and I felt I had no choice but to throw myself into research for the first day or so after.

With my writing, because I had started a couple stories that I never finished, I take care not to go into something unless I have enough pieces to work with.

"Te Busque" started strictly as a Nelly Furtado album fic... where songs from her "Loose" album would inspire chapters and scenes in the story.
I have since increased the cespool (hopefully I'm using that right) to include themes of female enpowerment. The last thing I want is for people to read about Talia and see her as a weak character who plays herself as the victim and more to the point, she continues to indulge in her profession of choice because she's afraid of what else is out there.

That's beside the point. The point is that as far back as she can remember and considering how long she'd been in this business (I have a figure of something like 15 years... because she officially joins this club/bar when she turns 18... therefore she's 33 when the storyline begins), emotions aren't a big part of what she does, so she blocks a lot out.
Although she hadn't the slightest idea until his passing, her stepfather took advantage of her affections for him, made her see that being in bed with him was a commonplace thing. I suppose if this took place in America, he could be seen as a manipulative pediopile, although he doesn't put the ideas in her head until she's 15. Therefore, physically mature enough for him to take advantage of, plus the ridiculous amount of hormones.

She learns of his betrayal and true intentions after he's gone (got killed by some guys he owes money to) and starts to pay back his debt by becoming a part of their business... one of the guys opens this bar that has dancers as their primary source of entertainment, but its kept under wraps (within certain social circles because prositution is illegal in South America) that there's another side to the business.

She gives her body and soul, repays the debt within a couple years and uses the reminder of her income to send her mom off to America to pursue a better life. (She worked outrageous hours doing a couple of dead-end jobs that I can see as being bartending, waitressing and other stuff like that... so they were living on minimal income and the stepfather was leaching off that money and eventually any possible savings were gone). Of course she knows full well what Talia does and tries a couple times over the years to talk her out of it, saying she's better than that, she's the one who deserves that better life in America.

Ultimately, Talia is set in her ways and refuses to change... deep down, she believes that she isn't made for anything else and there's no other way to get by in the slums BUT this.

The difficult part is knowing where to begin writing... whose point of view I tell the story from...

The last time I listened to my iPod, I started brainstorming a few ideas.
The first two tracks of the album take place on different venues...

"Afraid" is a dance number from any night where the girls do a little shimmying during a few instrumental breaks, but otherwise, its a toss-up between a Samba and Cha-Cha.
The theme goes on about how we all have a choice of what to do with life and we shouldn't be afraid to make mistakes.

"Maneater" is a VIP number... part of a song selection that brings in bids from high-rollers and those who put up the most cash gets a girl to take home for the night...
Here, she's portrayed somewhat animalistically where she'll make you fall in love with her, but there's no telling what she might do. Sort of the premise of: you'll never be the same after you get with her.

Originally with the two songs, I was thinking they'd be the introduction of minor characters... where the story would begin its first two chapters being told by two different people and after that we get into the main story...

This is something I've done before and usually when I start with this "prologuing" system, it rarely pans out.

***

With Jonas's Story, I've peddled it around to a bunch of agents with the prologue attached and I later got told that I shouldn't include the prologue because people aren't interested in reading it... plus it stalls the action that gets someone interested in the story.

What people don't realize is that you need the prologue to really understand the meaning BEHIND the whole story... agents are so busy that they don't have time to really think about this and that, the obvious disconnect between the prologue and chapter 1
...the worst part is that my prologue is one of my best pieces of writing maybe ever... I'd told the story a couple times, rewritten and added to it... but it is AMAZING, really showcases the kind of story I mean to tell...

Here's the downside, though... I started revamping the story a bit, changing things here and there and stalled out halfway through Chapter 4... I can't very well send the story as is to agents because its not finished and my fear is that it never will be... almost as if I need a beta reader to help with it, but I really don't trust people with my work, afraid they'll see things too differently and want me to change things.

My deepest fear is that they won't like my protagonist... he is a fairly inactive protagonist for quite a while and that's the last thing people want to read... that and a protagonist that categorizes himself as an outsider that really doesn't get along with people in general... :sigh: it feels like looking in a mirror, people in general don't like to read about shy people... they're not interested in people like me...

Story of my life...

***

and "Te Busque" isn't a story I want to write to really bring attention to myself or be screaming for attention by writing about what people are interested in... female sexuality and all that... I simply find some music about female empowerment so powerful and visually stimulating, plus its where I am right now personally, trying to get comfortable in my own skin, with my own sexuality and all that... despite the fact I'm extremely single...

So I tossed that original idea out and went another direction...
I could go from the angle of talking about minor characters, but turning them into a couple of writing exercises.

I really ought to do that more often... when I know I'm going to go on one of my side-bars, rants, whatever you wanna call it, I should log them up between stars so some people will get that they're different ideas... and also to make the reading a bit easier, if anyone cares to read my blog

I've been playing around with a couple names for the other dancers at the club...
I immediately homed in on Emilia for the newest girl.
I'm not sure how much of a chunk it will be in the overall process, but I hope that part of this will reflect one of my favorite movies last year, "Suckerpunch." A lot of people panned it, sure, but I got it... the whole idea of being able to change your reality by retreating into your own world that you control, I get that.

The heroine was Babydoll, played by Emily Browning... therefore we have Emilia...
Emilia Rose and quite possibly, her name was originally Emily and to give it that extra kick, she changed it to Emilia for the stage.

In a lot of ways, she reflects who I am more than Talia does. For starters, she's a virgin, inexperienced in sexuality and relationships. Well, "starters" begins and ends that discussion.
My idea for her back-story and my means of integration into the main storyline goes like this:

The first "number" in the chronology of the main story is this song...
It will be Emilia's debut performance as a member of the girls' dance troupe and while the routine happens, I'll go into detail about how she became part of this.

The back-story probably takes place about a year ago, maybe over a couple years.
Point is that when she's still Emily Rose, she's 18, visiting this bar/club for the first time. It's her last hurrah before she goes off to college or something or other. But when she sees Talia perform this number (which ironically becomes her first debut number), she is entranced and enamored by her beauty and how she electrifies the stage. She comes by regularly, some of the staffers take notice of her and at one point (trying to hone in on when), she asks if she could become a dancer. (Better yet, an ad pops up because one of the girls went off to pursue other enterprises).

Auditions rarely happen because most of the girls are locked into this for life, all of their own free will, mind you. They decide to leave either when their bodies start to be unable to do what they can, they fall in love, or a few other things.
Talia is the leader, obviously, but she has her two best friends, Scarlet & Janelle? (working on that name) audition the girls. When Emily dances, she actually watches her audition and on the spot, she selects her, takes her under her wing, etc.

There are maybe a couple dozen routines that she has to learn and she can't go on until she's absolutely ready. Therefore, we have this 6 month period gap between when she gets drafted and when she finally gets on stage.

The catch is that Emily has no idea of the other side of the business... Talia thinks her to be very naive, so she asks that nobody tells her more than she needs to know. I'm playing around with the idea of one performance where Emilia plays the virgin that they plan to sacrifice... maybe because I'd recently rewatched "The House Bunny" and that's what the Zeta house did for their first huge party... it almost seems too perfect since Emma Stone portrays the sacrifice in that case... another Emily.

For Emilia Rose, I picture her as being slightly tan, but not extremely tan or exotic looking. I'll have to look up her name, but one of the SYTYCD Top 20 looks like a girl I saw in a dream that played the role of my college roomate... looks nothing like anyone I roomed with... but she has brown hair that's very curly and most of it is tied up around the top of her head
Eliana Girard

Eliana is apparently a trained ballerina because for the exhibition night last Wednesday, she performed in what looked like a very strange, futuristic metallic tutu with two boys that were also classically trained...
so I might incorporate that into her character, taking dance classes all her life and such

I've also been considering the idea that Emily Rose is related to Juan Paulo Esposito, the guy that woos Talia and wants to take her away from the life she's living, etc, etc.
The two of them find out around the same time that Talia also sells her body to the highest bidder. The discussion with Emilia is narrowed down to a) let's not talk about it and b) you wouldn't understand my reasons... with J.P. its limited to a) there's no future with me, and b) there's no place for emotions in my business

There are a number of conflicts with the story and it'd be interesting if Emilia had that kind of role, going between the two and maybe trying to convince Talia to take a chance on her cousin.
She ultimately decides to, but for other reasons.

As for the next song, "Maneater"... I can't help but feel that the first time Alejandro (who becomes the jealous/possessive type) sees Talia is when she performs this number and he falls head over heels for her. He pursues her both as a regular client and as part of the business (he's related to the owner of the place and knows all about it)... in other words, he "speaks" to her in a language only she could understand, that's why they're sorta close and why he feels he has some kind of ownership of her.

His storyline is still kinda murky to me as is the relationship they have, but I'm getting closer. Either way, when this song comes on in a following chapter, this flashback gets explored... it goes back maybe 10 years after Talia paid off her debt and is just dancing because its all she knows how to do with her life.
Over and over, he repeats to himself: "Never seen a girl like this.." which is a lyric right of the song.

Testing Plot Points ["Te Busque"]

Strange ideas can come around at the most random times. I had a couple of strange dreams this morning. Then I was playing around with a few other ideas.

It might be because of the additional hormones coming with PMS... and over the past two days, I'd been pretty exhausted. But I tell ya, I prefer this much better than those extra bits of emotion last month... but it wasn't entirely my fault.
I still attest that my reality shows screwed me over when the right person didn't win any of them.

Well, "American Idol" is debatable... technically, the right person or rather people, got voted off a couple weeks before that.

But yeah, embracing exhaustion is so much easier than the addtional emotionality... cryin' all the time over not getting your way doesn't feel all that great in the long run. I just got so sick of exploding over almost everything.

If I wanna be technical, the past couple months haven't been that kind to me :-?
not to mention March being a double-whammy, in that I dealt with that and my first day of truly feeling sick in quite a while

So anyway... much much TMI later...

I got a strange idea for a possible plot point for Talia and started to run with it a bit in my mind.

One of the first questions that came to mind, considering what she's doing with her life, how she came to be in the business she's in. I decided a good cause would be a family situation. Her mom remarried (not sure what happened to her dad, whether he died or left) and it was a slightly younger guy...

I'll put it this way... her stepfather started forging this relationship with her when she was 15-16 and he was in his early to mid 30's... of course she was naive so she had no idea that there was something wrong with the situation. The way he "taught" her, this is a commonplace thing.
On top of that, I started considering other scenarios... like whether she'd been home-schooled her whole life or he suggested home-schooling her when she was coming of age... not that I'm writing the whole backstory of her younger days because that'd be a whole other story... or at least a novella's worth of material. I could drop all kinds of hints without overly suggesting that he didn't want other guys looking at her or seeing her. Wanted her all to himself... also a means of isolation.

The thing is is that this guy is a snake. I doubt he's even supporting the family because her mom still works two jobs. He leaches all the money for himself and uses it for a couple things. I was thinking maybe gambling because he owes a couple of the wrong kind of people money... and they end up taking him out execution style...
He gets killed when she's just turned 18. She doesn't find out until after he's gone what he's done. Her family's almost broke because he was stealing of the money to use on his own spending sprees. Which may or may not include indulging in a bit of irony...

As if it's bad enough she's restricted to do what she does because it's all she knows how to do... and that's how she literally & figuratively got screwed over by him.

Today the wheels started turning and got... well, knowing me, I'm pretty sadistic at times in my work, which is pretty dramatic to begin with.
A little while after he gets killed and she finds out the truth about him, she also kinda finds out that... well, he knocked her up...
which may or may not have been his intention to trap her and trap him in that particular family. Heck, he was embezzling the only income coming into the household for himself, that wouldn't be too far off base.

I'd been thinking over the idea for her motivation. What's she doing this for aside from the restrictions... is it because the pay in tips is GREAT and the money's going to support someone... I'd considered the idea of her paying for her mom's passage to America. Where she could very well open up her own dance studio... being originally a dancer or aspiring dancer herself...
yeah, taking that into account, it'd be cruel for Talia's father to have left the family. He had to have died. Then steploser broke into the money he left behind to feed whatever habits he has (which could be anything not related to drugs... this may be in South America, but I don't think I want to bring drugs into another story I'm writing)

There's one lyric in the title song I keep going back to... and I'm thinking, yes, it would be ironic, but thinking nonetheless that she's the kind of girl who goes to church or at least goes to confession every now and then.

"I ached for the earth
I stopped going to church.
The sound in the trees
makes me fall on my knees."

To further on the one idea, because she's in such great shape and has such a great figure, nobody has any idea until maybe she's into 6-7 months of it.
eh, the church thing kinda supports the idea because of the whole pro-life thing... sure, her morals aren't so perfect where she isn't above selling her body for money, but she still believes in pro-life.

After all is said and done, she works to save enough money to send her mom and baby Maria to America... or maybe Maria gets sent to live with an American family, but she contributes money as much as she can to support her.
That's a helluva motivation.

Adding insult to injury would be if there was a connection between J.P. and Maria and that's part of the reason he's there...

I considered the idea earlier that her mom and/or some of the guys who own the joint are connected to J.P. and asked him to go there to talk Talia into finding a better life for herself.

The one thing that I'm sure about with him is that a little while after she lets her guard down and decides she can be with him, she finds out that his intentions might not be pure. That he's trying to talk her out of what she's doing... something she can't seem to face up to.

I also considered an idea similar to the movie "Spanglish" where the narration is told from Fleur's daughter as part of a college-application essay... but an essay to convince a dance company to take her on because of what she went through to give her a good life... all that crap.

I'm not sure if escorting and prostituting would qualify as good points for that sort of thing... so I kinda dismissed that idea after a while.

Technically there's no end to how big a loser this stepfather figure is... but if anything, I should try to cap that off and expand more on the R-rated content of this work... how much am I really willing to go into about her and what does behind closed doors.

Either earlier today or yesterday, I thought of ideas for the relationship between her and Alejandro.
Was he pursuing her for years? Did they ever hook up?
Or maybe he's asked her to marry him several times and they're engaged?
Or is he just considering the idea of proposing... again...

I wrote another story where my heroine was in a relationship with a boyfriend, she relocated to Alaska to live with her mom cuz her dad died... then after a month or so there, she meets a new guy she connects with and decides to cut all content with her boyfriend...
that's one thing

but it's another to have someone being engaged... no matter if its a short or long time... either way, it seems like a jackass-ish thing to do to bring another guy into the mix just to mess with that kind of relationship

So Talia and Alejandro can't be super close... if anything, whatever relationship they have is based in sex and it's not always a frequent occurrence...
I doubt he even spends the night. They could get into it after hours and that's basically it, they go their separate ways and such

I need to figure out the logistics of this karaoke night... if it's a regular occurrence and just how often it happens...
with J.P.'s entrance, he has to be completely oblivious to the kind of joint this is. It's not a VIP night, obviously, so it's good old fun. He shows up with a couple of his friends that he's come to vacation with or whatever it is that they're doing. He gets picked out of a crowd to duet with her on this song. She's very flirtatious and he thinks it's real, naturally.

Then after the song's over, she disappears and he doesn't see her again.
There'll be a couple times throughout the story where he'll be looking for her, but the other dancers try to deter him from that idea... as if they're her wall of defense and such.

ooo... wow...

I'd been listening to a lot of songs I'd been considering for this project a lot...
one of them is "Sex Shooter"... which was a Razzie winner for worst song in a motion picture... from Prince's girl group Apollonia 6... I'm starting to think that that could work either way. It doesn't necessarily have to be a VIP number...

especially because there's another song he did, unreleased, that could... where "Sex Shooter" is a group number all the way, this other song could be a solo...

Hell, it could be a private number with Talia and whatever client she's with at the time...
"G-Spot" was a song that Prince eventually gave to one of his many girlfriends, Jill Jones... but I heard one version where its kind of a duet between the two of them... but anyway, I can just picture this song playing and Talia getting freaky to it... like she's ready to give someone a lap dance or something...

yep, my dirty mind's showing all right...
and probably a bunch of people reading will say I need to get out more :shrug:

I'm not gonna argue.
It's kind of strange for this kind of material to come from the mind of a virgin :roll:
but also one that was a complete prude 1-2 years ago... I certainly didn't think I'd be anywhere near this area in my writing... maybe EVER...

Yep, I'm still going to be bouncing a bunch of ideas off the walls to see if anything sticks. But the brainstorming is still very much afoot.

"Te Busque"- Say[ing] it Right

Some 6 years ago when I heard that Nelly Furtado song the first time, I tell you it blew my mind. It was so sensual, absolutely nothing like her previous single. Although "I'm like a bird" annoyed me for another reasons aside from my finding it boring.

At the time, "Say it right" only reminded me of this one guy because we were together with a group of people when I heard it the first time. So much that I had to hear it a couple more times online. Even then, when I thought about it, I could picture the most beautiful belly-dancer grooving to this song completely in-synch with the beat.

Over the years, of course, he's become less associated with the song and now I just associate it with the incomplete choreography that springs to mind whenever I listen to it.

Nelly Furtado, I felt, started out as a very homely girl-next-door type. But when I finally found her album for this one song, it became so much more than I imagined it would. I had no idea that it'd be somewhat of a hip-hop influenced record. Then again, her duet with producer Timbaland "Promiscuous" should have been somewhat of a give-away, not that the entire album was like that either.

As a whole, "Loose" is a very urban sounding album that has some Latin roots. She's of Portuguese descent and likely, a couple of the songs were in that language

Once I wrapped my head around it, I always thought of it as a bit of a dance record. Choreography sprung up left and right, but not a whole lot of it stuck every time. If anything, there was a lot of repetition. This coming from someone with two left feet who hasn't danced a day in their life, not professionally by any means.
I didn't make the connection until a few months ago that a whole musical experience could transend in my writing. In addition to the fact it's been getting more risque all the time, it seemed like the perfect fit. I'm also sure that I'll be able to handle it so that things won't be taken the wrong way. My family won't look at the risque content and think I need to be committed because there'll be a great story and message that results out of all this.

I'd been toying with a number of ideas not only for my characters, but for other songs to be included in the mix. It's becoming more vast all the time. I want my female protagonist to be a strong one, so I'd been playing a lot of Lady Gaga because empowerment is one of her biggest musical themes.
The one thing I want to make sure of is that the important key points of the story are inspired by the album that got me started on the idea.

I've got a bunch of songs picked out for inclusion, but not quite the order. Maybe what I should do next to figure out if they're in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd act of the production.

There's also the matter of which songs will go to dance numbers and if so, if they're a normal night or a VIP night where bids are being placed for the girls on stage, or if it's a character's monologue or just mood music for the background of a slow scene.

The first act will be an introduction of our main characters.

Likely, the first song will be the first track on the album and it'll be a regular dance number.

"Maneater" will be a flashback through the eyes of Alejandro Gutierrez. The first time he sees Talia Montes dance on stage.
I've yet to figure out exactly what their relationship is. They work together a lot on stage because he's a singer that backs up her dancing (sometimes vice versa). He's probably the son or nephew of the owner of the place and stands to inherit it. They could be business partners in this whole thing.

It's still a matter of figuring out if there's anything romantic involved. With him, is just about lust? Does she sometimes use him for sex? Being friends with benefits, except they're not quite friends.
She has a camerarderie with the other dancers and of course the people who run the place, but she doesn't have a lot of close friends. She chooses to live her life in that way because she chooses to stand alone. Plus, after the life she's had, there's no reason to really trust people. At the end of the day, it's just business.

I'm believing that Alejandro might believe they have more than what's actually there. I'd hate to write things as if she's stringing him along and leading him to believe she feels the same way when she really doesn't. So the whole jealousy thing would seem ridiculous as it'd be because of something she did rather than something he did.

I have a feeling that the full scope of her situation won't be called into question until the last part of the triangle arrives.
The American (of Latino descent), Juan Paulo "J.P." Esposito

who I believe comes from a proper family because he spends some time trying to talk Talia out of her way of life... when he finds out initially that the first time they danced together was a fluke, that there's no future there, he's devestated that she feels she has to do this, but he continues to pursue her.

The 2nd act is all about this pursuit... something has to happen where she starts to see things as they are with him and she starts to feel the same way...
"Say it Right" closes out that act and the 3rd opens with the following track on the album.

The only thing I've completely established about Alejandro and his stake in the venue is that he sees Talia as the star of the attraction and without her, maybe they'll lose a lot of business... or she starts to believe that's the case and that's what starts her on that thought process that leads her to that epiphany.

I've got the lyrics of this one song in another tab and I still forget a lot of the lyrics.
But in a nutshell, I feel like they fit her romantic situation perfectly.

In the day, in the night
Say it right, say it all
You either got it or you don't
You either stand or you fall

When your will is broken
When it slips from your hands
When there's no time for joking
There's a hole in the plan

Oh, you don't mean nothing at all to me
No, you don't mean nothing at all to me
Oh, you've got what it takes to set me free
Oh, you could mean everything to me

I can't say that I'm not lost and found
I can't say that I don't love the light and the dark
I can't that I don't know that I am alive
And all of what I feel I could show you tonight

From my hands I can give you, something that I made
From my mouth I can sing you another brick that I laid
From my body I can show you a place, God knows
If you know this place is holy, do you really want to go?

which ends with her seducing him to the bedroom... making it the first time she's really living up to the euphenism "making love"... letting down her walls to give in to this one person

Aside from more things about Alejandro, which remain a mystery for some insane reason, the other thing I need to figure out is my perspective...

Will it be 1st person from different POV's... or will I stick with 3rd...

I think I've got to limit things so whoever I decide can read this will be about to make up their own minds about stuff... I don't want to lead them in any particular direction, except that she's a character to admired rather than pitied...
and I certainly wouldn't want someone who knows me well enough to read about her and think some of her thoughts and actions verge on autobiographical...

One person read Jonas's story and said they saw a lot of my insecurities in Jonas... and he was just a guy on Facebook who followed the link to my other site where I had my stories posted... an old Angelfire site I haven't been on in forever...
if there's one thing I hate/dread, it's people reading my writing and making assumptions about me through it...

by the way, most of them are negative assumptions... writing's all I got, so it's kinda depressing that that's something a lot of people get from my work... and they wonder why I don't like to share a whole lot of it :-?

Talia Montez back-story discussion ["Te Busque"]

Just to give this blog a little more regularity, a little more activity, I'm going to pretty much post all of my sketches and ideas here... I'll bounce them off my own blog and see what else comes up.

A quote came to mind from a movie and I simply built on it.
Took me a while to remember that it was from "50 first dates" in a scene where Drew Barrymore tells Adam Sandler
"You have to realize that there is no future with me."

It just popped into my head and sounded like a great place to start. I put together a few sentences, a hypothetical conversation somewhere in the middle of this story, or perhaps towards the beginning, say chapter 5 or 6.

It got pretty interesting, actually.
For the newcomer lover, I finally decided on the name: Juan Paulo Escavedo

even more interesting, I looked up the origin of the surname and found another name I planned to use, Alejandro... the name of Sheila E's uncle

maybe I should push things a step further and make Juan Paulo a musician :-P
nah, I'll leave that for another time, figuring out what he's doing in Rio of all places. I believe he's American or at least Latin American (has a couple generations to his name, so there's nothing that should connect him to the whole illegal immigration thing that's a hot topic these days)...

shoot... it's one thing that this is an album fic, but its another where a lot of the other songs I'm considering to inspire scenes are all from the same artist... just got me thinking about lyrics in "Americano" where the lyrics say "I don't speak your languango... I don't speak your Jesus Christo... don't you try to catch me now... I'm living on the edge of the law"

Juan Paulo, I believe, was very much raised with American values and grew up like anyone else in our country. But he still maintains a little bit of an accent, tiny bit, because maybe his grandparents live in the same house as his family, which might be large... possibly the oldest or youngest of 5 siblings... those are just ideas

Talia is the center of my focus right now. And I got the surname Montez, thinking oddly enough about the character Gabriella Montez from High School Musical... they've nothing in common, I just needed a catchy surname that sounded exotic and it follows within the realm of possibility for Portuguese descent

believe me, I tossed around other famous surnames like Cruz and Hayek, Mendes and Bandereas... all of them sounded cheesy and it would sound contrived... not a lot of people would guess Montez came from anywhere specific

maybe to be safe I'll make it Montes... I'll compare the two in print and see which I like... for once, I would at least like my characters to have last names... usually it's something I completely bypass to save time on the creativity process.

here's the conversation I derived from that first line:

Talia: You need to understand that there is no future with me. In my line of work, everything is business. There's no room for emotions in this game. And that's what this is to a lot of people.

J.P: It wasn't a game to me. It never was. This is real. Deep down, I know you feel the same way too.

Talia: Then you are a fool for falling for my act the way so many others have before you.

Pretty hardcore stuff...
Talia's been in this business a long time. I've surmised since the day she turned 18. Now I believe she's going into her 30's or mid-30's... haven't entirely decided yet.
Like it is with a lot of people, if you're in a certain way of life for a long time and it's all you know, you resist change.

Taking it from my own experiences... I'm risking further exclusion from society for not conforming to [fill the blank]... long story

Why would it be that she refuses to leave this line of work... is it the only thing she has going for her... is it the only thing she knows how to do...

I started digging through my head and gave up with something pretty sick and disturbing.
But I wouldn't say unheard of.

I did a little research and came across a research article on the racy topic I'm attempted to tackle in part with this story: prostitution... and I looked to see if the reason I drafted in my mind came up.
It did...

There were a few other things, most of which involve pimps and abusive relationships... I don't know if I'm necessarily that far into considering that at all... still haven't figured out the relationship with her and Alejandro

financial stuff... and part of this is financially related... more on that later...
to support a drug habit... I don't care if this is in South America, I don't want to involve drugs in this anywhere... certainly not going to make her an addict... and considering my recent (well, the past year) putting my foot down on this issue, it's convenient enough where there's no point in doing it. It's the obvious choice... kinda the same way where a lot of romance novels and movies show sexual content to prove a point

I don't quite know if I want to make Alejandro a messed up character or not... if anything, he'd have a problem holding his liquor... but I haven't an answer in my head...

At one point in the article, I finally came across the go-ahead I need: past history of abuse
It was like a lightbulb went off in my head...

a pretty sensitive topic, almost as much as discussing different elements of the sex trade (where I'm only going through one or two angles)

I've determined the following about Talia's past:

She was homeschooled by her mom her whole life.
Her dad either died or left them when she was at a young age.
Her mom remarried to support their financial situation... they survived mostly on her working double-shifts as a waitress...
Her stepfather is a younger man...

now, supposing... eee... not sure if I'm liking where this is going, but I'll see how it feels...
her mom got knocked up by her boyfriend when she was a teenager or just barely 18...

well, that wouldn't necessarily be outrageous... I was kinda thinking that maybe there was a little bit of an age difference when her mom remarries because she marries a younger guy

This happens, I believe, when Talia's maybe 11... maybe 12...
because when she's 15, the stepfather is in his early 30's...

not a HUGE age gap, but supposing that the marriage happens when he's around 26-27 and her mom is in her mid-30's... so when he's 30-31, she's 38-39

Her mom remarries to help with the financial situation, but something doesn't quite check out. She still has to work long hours every night while the stepfather probably does manual labor for minimum wage.

Because her mom's working a lot, she and her stepfather have this special relationship... things don't get to this point until she's 15... but she trusts him wholly and completely...
you see where this is going...

but there're no red flags about the situation. She trusts him and in fact, he convinces her that he loves her and vice versa... I mean, he's a good looking guy, hence the reason why I made him slightly younger than her mom.

In retrospect, the reason he's doing this is because there's nothing going on sexually between him and the woman he married... so he fulfills whatever needs with the only other available girl in his life...

Then the ultimate kicker...
I haven't figured out how or why yet... but he dies when she turns 18... and her family has NO money to their name. He took it all with him in one shape, form or the other... naturally Talia's pissed, feels very much betrayed by what he did... therefore the reason she feels that she can't trust another man in a relationship because in the end, he turns on her...

And she doesn't find out about this betrayal until his death... no chance for a confrontation or explanation from the horse's mouth...

The homeschooling thing works her situation in a couple ways...
firstly, she's pretty much isolated from other experiences. She doesn't establish any friendships and those that she had had languished over time once her stepfather came into the picture.
secondly, she wasn't given a formal education so she's not suited for any line of work... can't even get into a college because there're no funds to her name... and that's the last thing on her mind...

Yeah, I agree that the idea is sick & twisted... that her sexual experiences came from encounters she had with someone living in her house... and yet that's what she goes on to do...
She decides that it's all about business.

I'm still toying around with the idea that maybe her mom worked at the same place she goes on to work at... and the name itself got her in the door...

the question marks remain about how her stepfather died... and if her mom is still alive...
was there a murder/suicide?
did her mom got insane or have a breakdown after finding out what happened...
did she get incapacited in a scuffle over the situation...

I don't believe that either of them knew about what he did with what little money they had until his untimely death... and I don't believe either of them were responsible for it...
maybe he was a gambler, owed some people a lot of money and ultimately they knocked his block off to call it even...

That sounds a little too much like The Pick-up Artist... where Molly Ringwald would gamble her paychecks for working at the museum to settle her father's debt...

although...
I'm thinking that maybe the gambling thing could work... but for the first couple years, Talia turns to this business to settle the debt... something that these bookies don't seem to mind at all, maybe because they heard things... sick things...

She'd do it until she was 21... the original deal...
then I think part of it becomes a disease that twists in her head...
she's repaid the debt and even got her mom a visa to America... and stayed behind because it's the only thing she knows how to do...

I mean, she's going into her 30's now when the story officially begins... the majority of this will be backstory only... the story sets up with a couple of dance numbers of hers... Alejandro gets introduced here... Juan Paulo and a couple of his friends arrive... perhaps to see the city during Carnivale... still working on that

Then I came up with another pretty sick/cool idea...

That her stepfather used to call her "princess"... that was his petname for her...
of course after finding about the betrayal, she loathes being called that...

at some point during that previous conversation I started, she's gotta blow up at Juan Paulo...

"so you're going to be my knight in shining armor... saving the poor damsel in distress... You're no prince and I will never be anyone's princess!"
something to that effect...

I'm almost thinking there's going to be a point in the story where one of her clients starts to take advantage of her and he's going to come to her rescue... of course she'll be pissed at him, not thanking him for saving her... saying that she didn't need to be saved, etc, etc.

She's very proud and resists changing at every cost... at some point, she's going to start changing her mind... much to the displeasure of Alejandro... who might even believe they're together just because he's a regular "client" of hers that she occasionally sees outside the workplace... heck, she could be an escort too

lol... just thinking about Heather Graham in "The Hangover"
"technically I'm an escort, but stripping's a great way to meet the clients"

I've drawn the line at stripping and provocative dancing.

The backstory will prove useful later on... when I'm trying to sift through her actions and determine if there're within her nature or not... based on this or that, would she do this or that... that sort of thing.

I don't believe that my writing will get any darker than that kind of relationship between people... a teenage girl romantically involved with her stepfather, who's really using her for sex and her family for their money to support his addiction to gambling... lol... I wonder if there're even casinos in Rio

"Te Busque"- a Nelly Furtado album fic

This isn't exactly romantasy based and by no means in my area of expertise. This is merely an idea.

Every now and then, I experience this phenomenon. I listen to an album and either based on stuff I'm going through or just daydreaming, pictures pop in my head.
I might have addressed this with my Lindsay Lohan inspired album fic, which will probably be called "Nobody 'till you" when I finally get my act together on it. I didn't connect with the album "Speak" quite until my mind started revolving around this guy I had a crush on during my senior year of high school. Almost every song reminded me of him, so ideas came to mind of what I could do. Its kinda like a cross between wish fulfillment and realistic fiction, taking situations I faced and explored the "what if's"... except for the fact that a lot of it seemed very manufactured and biased, despite it being in 3rd person POV.

Like I said, a lot of stuff to work on.

Then one day I was listening to Prince's "Come" album and during the 2nd track, "Space"... my mind went off to another world... not quite to outer space, but I was transported somewhere else. I followed the rabbit hole, listening through the album a few times within the same week to try to get pictures and images together to put each song to a scene and vice versa.
The only unfortunate part now is when it comes time to write about that particular album for my project is I might be rendered unable to review the album. Ever since I got my album fic together, I haven't been able to think of it any other way. The same scenes always came back.

Now it's happened with Nelly Furtado's "Loose" album, which evolved into one of my most unexpected pleasures as far as my music collection goes. I didn't quite get into it at first. The hip-hop flavor, I wasn't necessarily accustomed to and it was so far and behind her first single "I'm like a bird," which I never really liked to begin with.
You could say that "Say it right" and "Promiscious" guided me on my way through the album.
My mind just wandered off a couple Saturdays ago and boy was I surprised to see what came out.

Albeit, a little unorthodox and definitely not my area of expertise or even covering subject matter I'm entirely comfortable with.

I looked up the translation of the title of one song on the album and it translates to "I searched for you"
until I find a better title, that'll be temporary.

There are a lot of temporary things that I need to sort through before I even type the words "chapter 1."
I know I have at least three key players, one of them is my heroine, the girl I see in my mind whenever I listen to the vocals on the album.
One of them will be her secret lover that she eventually ends up together with in a happy ending.
And the third is probably the most mysterious of them all because I don't know anything about him.

The only thing I do know: he is VERY protective of her.
Under the impression that she's his property. To say they're romantically linked would be a stretch... because I don't know quite what it is yet. I think the majority of it is based on the physical aspects rather than knowing each other's personalities.

I don't know if I'm very content in saying that the entire relationship is based on sex and that's all she is to him, his own whore for all intensive purposes.
Because just thinking about typing the word "whore" or having that particular state of mind coming from him... I mean, ultimately this is something that's going to empower women rather than making them out to be objects.

You never really know sometimes in 3rd world countries like this what kind of things go on. But I don't know just how much I'm willing to push the issue.
In fact, some of the ideas floating in my head about my approach almost make me feel ill... I mean, the mere idea of a man believing he owns a woman so much that despite the line of business she's in, he can tell her "I want to have you in my bed tonight, so tell everyone that they won't be able to hire you for the night"...

man, that disgusts me... not to mention the fact that I don't know just how much sex I plan to put in this... I only wrote my first ever sex scene a couple months ago, so the idea of approaching that is a bit nerve-wrecking. Plus this one morale I have that has kinda gone out the window along with that.... I don't feel the need to really put a physical relationship into my works because that's not what I believe relationships should be strictly based on... that's something that really makes me ill, the idea of that being all there is.

All sorts of ideas are coming to mind about the kind of story I want to write... but I really want it to be something of value, but also something that people will want to read, rather than it being some experiment for my own personal needs. I've written maybe 3 sex scenes, going into a little detail, but not too far into it because it's still a touchy issue for me.
One of them was a very selfless gesture... the girl doing a favor for this guy that's been down and out and it kinda affirms that he has value...
another was very emotional, because they hadn't been together in a long time and their relationship was never about that, but she figured in their time apart that he'd be the person she'd like to lost her virginity to... it was the kind of thing where he supported her and wouldn't let her steer wrong...
The third was, eh... not exactly pure, but it was one of the strangest things I'd experimented with... the girl has been in a relationship with her girlfriend for a week, like maybe 3-6 months... the physical hasn't been satisfying or it just plain hasn't been there... she kinda decides that she wants to be with a man and kinda realizes that it's better with a man... I haven't gotten too far into it, but what I kinda figured is that she ended in a lesbian relationship because maybe of an encounter with a man that temporarily scared her away from thinking of the opposite sex in that way

Then there was a 4th time where it was hinted at and pretty much said that it happened, but I didn't go into any real details about the actual act.

All of this coming a virgin, who you might believe is sexually deprieved... it was pretty insane for a while between a number of sex scenes in movies putting ideas in my head, but also assuring me that it was okay to explore that in my writing cuz I hadn't before.

What's even crazier is the fact that I didn't feel anywhere near up for writing this kind of stuff or exploring it 5 years ago... I mean, I got a book from Comic-Con from a series written by Sherrilyn Kenyon, and when I read it, it was so hard to get through because every couple chapters there was a very graphic sex scenes. I wanted to almost throw the book across the room because it freaked me out.

And no, this doesn't mean I'm eager to pick that back up or buy into "50 shades of gray"... which had become such a sensation that SNL wrote a very uncomfortable sketch about it last Saturday... kinda like a mother's day commerical for Amazon, but every time the husband and/or kids came into the room with kids, the mom was using "50 shades of gray" for the same purposes as a guy does with Playboy & Penthouse

Don't you give me that crap "I read it just for the articles"

... back to the story ideas I'm trying to put together.
I have ideas for the three main characters in my "love" triangle

Don't know how the jealous b/f feels about the heroine, but I don't know how much of it is love and how much is lust...
something tells me that he has a very Italian New Yorker type personality... like a gang/mafia mentality... his attitude is that he doesn't like it when other guys get to oogle his girl.

I still don't know what kind of venue this is. It's not a striptease joint because there's no stripping and there're no poles. It has a bar. It could be something of a club, but the act that brings people in each time are the dancing sirens.
Part of the establishment is a prostitution ring, but the details still have yet to come together. I see a lot of lap dances happening, private rooms and all that... so maybe stripping does happen behind closed doors, but only the high rollers get the utmost "pleasure" of taking a girl home with them to spend the night with.

There's a certain cameraderie between these women because there's only maybe 4-5 of them including my heroine. What they do in the public setting involves a song and dance act. The dancing is sexy, but not dirty or provactive with obscene gestures and stuff like that. Listening to this album, the majority of it has a lot of belly-dancing and elements from Bollywood. With some of it, I can even imagine there being some Salsa dancing.

Even though I know that the majority of the record is Nelly Furtado singing her own back-up, the group setting is just more visually appealing. Naturally as my heroine, she's at the center of the group, the star that a lot of people come out to see.
Maybe even, she'd just become the star because the girl originally in her place fell ill or... stuff happened... quite possibly that's where things could get very intense.

Which brings forth the biggest variable that I need to iron out and determine:
where in South America does this take place?

I kinda see it being a hot spot in an otherwise run down neighbor that has a lot of poverty, or rather it's on the outskirts of that. She and the girls were plucked from the situation, likely because they had no families or their families wanted to give them a better life.
I'm not quite sure how their dancing talents were found out about to where the "plucking" could happen... and for the record, recruitment doesn't happen unless they're of 18. In some South American countries, that might even be 17 instead of 18... but I just feel more comfortable with it being 18.

Eh... something tells me that the girls that end up working there have had no other opportunity aside from selling themselves in that way... it's very troubling and sad, but it happens a lot, even to this day.

Therefore I need to do a little research on these types of establishments, which could lead to some unpleasant looks into sex trafficking (not a very age-objectionable trade either), looking into which South American countries where this happens most often to help narrow down the list.
Most likely I'll be restricted to the detail that Nelly Furtado is of Pourtuguese ethnicity so the countries where those routes are more prominent is where I'd start

Of course I still need a leg to stand on so if the other details don't match up with Pourtgal relations, then I'll drop that particular detail.
Right now, I'm prematurely aiming for Brazil or one of the countries north of it like Venuzula or Bolivia... Chile and Argentina don't quite feel right to me, but then again, I'll do my research before deciding.

As for the playlist, I'm flexible in not necessarily strictly sticking to this one Nelly Furtado album... it was the activating incident that started all of this, but I'm open for other ideas. Pretty much anything that kinda sounds exotic is fair game.
Because of the similarities, I listened to Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi"... then I decided to check out "Alejandro" from her 2nd album.

It sounds like it could work really well in the mix to the point I might even be inspired to call the jealous boyfriend Alejandro...

actually, the activating incident might be "Sex Shooter," that song Apollonia 6 did in Purple Rain... the choreography for that particular number inspired a few of the things that became to mind while listening to the album

When it comes to my heroine, something that's important is her initial mindset. She'd been doing this for a while, since she was 18, but she only became the lead girl of the group for less than a year.
Eh, when it comes to thinking about possibly a troubling truth, that scares me a little bit... especially when I'm thinking of a "Dirty Dancing" situation... where the loser that knocked up Penny was moving on to the next defenseless girl...

like it would be outrageous... if the jealous boyfriend was in a relationship with her before he moved on to my heroine and later on, she finds out that he's not as good as he claims to be...

wow, that scares me, but I might have to go there for a selling point... I dunno...
nah, I don't think it would be the jealous boyfriend, but maybe an older brother or cousin and she later receives a warning to be careful of who she trusts...

Then there's the detail that when it comes to selling herself, she has a similiar attitude about that Julia Roberts did in "Pretty Woman"... she keeps emotions out of it and she does what she has to do to make that extra cash... which suggests that her relationship with the jealous boyfriend doesn't have a lot of emotions in it, but maybe overtime it changes...

The newcomer that she ultimately ends up with might change her mind about how she thinks about things in relationships...
I'm still fishing around for ideas for names, origin stories, logistics, clearly...

here's what I have as far as ideas for scenes per the songs from the album and then some...

1) Human- the opening number where the girls are introduced
2) Maneater- maybe a flashback to the previous leader's usual routine
3) Promiscious- the 1st time she and the newcomer meet, they duet and she flirts with him like its part of the act, but instead he ends up falling for her
5) Showtime- a slow scene either before or after curtains, getting ready to get on stage of leave... kind of a moment of reflection
6) No Hay Igual... ?
7) Te Busque- another duet between her and the newcomer... like that medley between Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor in "Moulin Rouge"... or like a duet between Tony & Maria in "West Side Story" (which I'll have to see again to check my references, lol)... might also be something that comes back at the very end just before the credits roll
8) Say It Right- her declaration of love/feelings for him
9) Do It- ?
12) All Good things come to an end- maybe her ending things with the newcomer, saying "who are we kidding, we can't do this, run away together, my life is here"... something like that...

"Sex Shooter" might be another number in there somewhere that helps set up the story with "Human" (I know the real name of the song is "Afraid", but I don't really care... the main hook "so afraid of what people might say, that's okay cuz we're only human")

"Alejandro" could be a farewell song she sings to the jealous boyfriend... though I'm not sure if he necessarily buys into her breaking things up with him...

whatever happens, there has to be a moment where she feels betrayed by the newcomer and has to give him 12)...
and at some point, not sure how in the world he's going to say this, the jealous boyfriend has to say to her "you really do love him, huh?" and tells her that she can go with him and he won't try to stop her

Ultimately, the two of them leave the country for brighter prospects where he'll take care of her so she doesn't need to go through that particular business trade again... giving her back her humanity as it was.

All I have so far with names...
her temporary namesake will be Talia and that may or may not change...
the jealous boyfriend may or may not be called Alejandro
and the newcomer, I'm thinking Paulo, but I'm not sure as of yet...

After I decide what country I'm in, I can start going through common names, all of which will be ethnically related. Research is going to be important here because I can't make this stuff up as I go. And naturally I'll keep my eyes and ears open for songs and maybe movies to help bring my vision closer and closer to becoming a reality.

Computer Blue [does not compute]

You'd have to be a die-hard Prince fan to get the reference. Ironically, that was the last chapter I started working on before this weekend.
Saw The Avengers and having seen all the Marvel films to this point, predominantly "Iron-Man" dozens of times, I thought it was well done. And as always, Mr. Downey was a pleasure. It's so cool in this franchise where you just know Tony Stark, don't really need to be schooled in the kind of person he is because it is what it is.
Flawed, but hey, all people are to a point.

Me included.
I'll be fair. When I'm PMSing, I sometimes write the craziest entries and sometimes the most depressing or the most angry. I got away from a really flaming entry I wanted to do Saturday amidst all this angst that's been going on with me, but I dodged the bullet in that I just didn't write it.

It's often the rule that you shouldn't do anything when you're angry because likely you're going to regret it since you're not in your right mind.

I'd been pretty much focusing on writing this intellecutal take on Prince's music, focusing so far on all the songs on the Purple Rain soundtrack. It's going to be the kind of thing that I think a lot of smart people will get it and people that don't want to think too much will just chuck it and say that it was rather pointless.
I kinda want to appeal to Prince's fanbase, but at the same time, I'd like for The Word to spread (that's the name of it, no connection to the Jehovah's Witnesses whatsoever except for the fact Prince is one) through word of mouth and hopefully Prince will get even more fans that will appreciate him, younger fans in particular and therefore he's respected as much as the really big names in music like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson
I'm personally hoping that this will come out while Prince is still with us just to prove you don't need to go like Van Gough in order to get the props you richly deserve.

So anyway, that's that. I've been focusing on that to take time away from the Avengers issue. If I don't get too excited, I won't come in with excess expectations that won't get met, etc, etc. Plus when it comes to Mr. Downey, I've lost my head several times cuz he's just it for me.
Kinda the way Prince is with music, but with that medium, there're so many names I like to indulge in and it's something that can span over decades. I like to stay current, but also like to appeal to the past so I at least have some cultural indications.

I rode the high of The Avengers throughout yesterday and now the euphoria's kinda come and gone and I'm left with the same old issues.

I make the reference to that song title because sometimes I feel like a computer that everyone around me tries to program instructions into and I'm saying "this does not compute."
Maybe I picked the wrong song (Prince has another track called "Something in the water (does not compute)"... referring to his girlfriends leaving him or using him, thinking its something in the water than something he did)...

I'm not sure what it is with me. Sometimes I feel like all my life, I haven't had an inkling of the kind of person I am. I've heard a lot of don't's and can't's.
It might not come off that way when I'm writing, but my mind tends to twist things so they appear worse than they are. I come from a great house with a roof over head, access to just about everything a person needs to survive and I've got a great family.

The thing is, though, I feel like they've tried to mold me. Tried to tell me what I should be, what I should do. To a point, it makes sense that an education is important. I went out and got a diploma and had many an adventure along the way (mostly during my senior year, lol, but nonetheless). That got me my first position.
It might be a lot of character flaws and personality traits on my part, but I just couldn't cut it. I'd been lost in the mist ever since.

I know my greatest problem is my inability to relate to people. I'm not very social by nature. I can trace it all back to one experience and that's why making friends was so hard for me. I didn't know where I belonged or if I belonged anywhere. I was afraid to take chances and people telling me I can't do something like hang out with them.
That's part of the reason why high school was kinda miserable. Except for being in the companys of musicals and concert choir, academics was all I had. I didn't bother spending time with people because I really didn't have any friends. The only other excitement I got was when I was suffering through my guy crushes. Writing took me away from all that. At first it was fanfiction to write up a companion for myself while I was recuping from back surgery. Then I started getting all these ideas. For the most part, they took me away from the fact I didn't have anyone.

I didn't know until these past couple years just how much writing has been an important thing for me. I got told maybe a year into writing my fiction that I couldn't pursue writing professionally. Unless it was non-fiction, there was no future in it.

Writing's the only sense of identity that I have. Take that all away and what's left... I'm a movie junkie, music fan, a bit of a nerd and I'm a good student. That's part of why working at the lab started taking its toll on me because I felt like I was becoming a robot with the whole routine of it all. I had stopped writing, been unable to find anything really to write about.

All the while, I tried finding an agent for Jonas and I almost never heard back.

I feel rather restricted when I think about my future. Every single day, I heard words floating around me like job, ads, work, employment... I know why that is, but its not going to change anything. I'm just fed up with hearing that stuff, like as if the focus is always on me to do something with my life.

I have very little to really contribute to society aside from my intellectual property.
I'm not very social, I suck with crowds and I've got social anxiety like nobody's business.

I always think about fixing that... at first it was kinda like me beating myself up like "I need to see a shrink" but now it's kinda like "maybe I need some medication to make it easier for me to deal with people."
Just given the personality type I have, where when it comes to my favorite mediums, I have an addictive personality. In the back of my mind, I'm freaking that one day I'm going to get in such a bad way that I could overdose on Xanax or whatever I'm taking.

I'd never taken any behavioral modification medication ever and somehow I don't see it ending well.

Sometimes I wonder when I think about my character Jonas, how he has my social anxiety, except times 10... he has psychic abilities that flair up when he loses control... like I consider putting something in the storyline about tackling his anxiety issues, but it never goes anywhere pleasant. I don't want there to be prescription drugs involved in this. As if I'm afraid to push him too far in one direction, but it'd make a helluva lot more sense than... I dunno, he's put out of comission for the 3rd time over the period of 2 weeks... not to mention he gets thrown off horseback into a frozen pond and loses his hearing temporarily

I'll have to remember this, though. Just had a lightbulb moment...
Instead of that whole excessive scene... cuz there's this one scene that takes place a day or two after Nina sees what its like when Jonas loses control... she's a little distant from him. He then comes out and says exactly what's she's thinking and runs off. When he gets really upset, he uses his abilities to force people away from him by telekinesis. How about examining that closer and supposing that he puts up a barrier around himself that no one can pentrate or come anywhere near.
He does this to Nina, but she somehow talks him down and they reach an understanding.

I'd hate to diss Twilight in saying this because I personally love the series, the books especially... but this is what kinda will separate Nina from Bella... Bella kinda accepts Edward as a vampire and doesn't really question it, at least that's how it goes in the movie and most people don't bother to read the book...
there has to be a moment of doubt in Nina's mind or the story might not completely take.

Whatever chapter that is, I'll have to remember that. Glad I still have some ideas in my head.

I haven't been able to write my usual set of fiction or even work with Jonas in a long time because I just don't have the perservence in me. Writing about Prince is another thing where that feels like my one shot to really make it as a writer and non-fiction sells better.
The idea was to have a book about Prince in bookstores that people have access to... now with Barnes & Nobles possibly going under, that isn't going to happen. So I'm hoping e-books work just as well.

So I'd been kinda mad at myself a bit lately because I don't know where I'm going. Everyone's trying to give me suggestions of what I should do. Nothing makes sense to me from any angle.
The worst of it is the suggestion of taking a few non-credit courses, which I'll probably do anyway...
but it seems pointless to just do a bunch of random courses on the off-chance that there'll be a position open where I can use that.

I'm certainly not going to waste my time doing EVERYTHING just to give myself more of a shot. A degree in marine biology should have gotten me better than this... instead I got sucked back into the vacuum because my social skills hold me back.

The worst is that writing is the only thing I know I'm really good at and it's the one thing that everyone has told me I can't do. I've been still working on my writing for the past sevearl years to prove them wrong, but so far I've come up empty.

What I could possibly do... I mean, I'd written a few short stories since my last massive fictional undertaking. I'll keep my eye out for the next writer's digest contest... see if anything I'd write could qualify and if I have to, I'll chop off a few 1,000 words...
I'd written two stories with my protagonist Casey Carlton, who volunteered at the hospital throughout high school to be a source of moral support for patients, especially when they have nobody. She becomes very close to two individuals. One of which is visually based off American Idol contestant, Alexis Grace... Jolienne Carine was the most popular girl in school, but her popularity was apparently an illusion because when she contracted leukemia, nobody came to visit her. Well, she kinda unknowingly fell into popularity because she was so strikingly different compared to all the other girls.
Kinda goes to show how fickle the student body is (another example of this can be seen in the movie "Can't buy me love"... which I saw long after I wrote this story)

interestingly I wrote another story where my protagonist is the popular girl and she kinda realizes that she's at the center of attention but doesn't know anybody who's talking to her... like she kinda wakes up and realizes the illusion is in place... it's a rather obscure piece of work, especiallly considering she's seeing the ghost of her boyfriend who died in a terrible car crash and he came back to the world of the living to settle this ancient curse going around a penacle of Indian burial grounds...
You'd have to read it to kinda understand it, but it wasn't one of my more impressive works. The majority was thrown together at the last minute cuz I didn't think I had the energy to keep it going for much longer.

I'd have to make a few changes here and there... but I wrote a 2nd story with Casey Carlton... where she's in a bit of a pickle, kinda like I am... she's in school, working towards a medical degree of some kind, but she recently had a bad time interning at an emergecy room for a summer... scared her pretty bad. So to get her back on the horse, her conseulor suggests she looks into the psychological side of medicene and sees this one patient at a rehabilitation clinic... I'll have to change his name, but aside from that, you couldn't tell unless you knew me that he was inspired by Julian from "Less than Zero"...
the story turned out amazingly, was a lot of fun to write, despite how morbid his sense of humor...

I'll have to see the word limits I have to work with, but I think that I can manage to get at least one of these stories enrolled in a contest to see where things go.

I have a lot of work to do with Jonas still... I haven't touched chapter 4 for a little more than a month... and the vibe was kinda wrong... but I'm thinking that I can work on it little by little, chapter by chapter... get some opinions on the writer's digest forums and hopefully everyone can help me hone my query letter just to see if anyone will get me another shot.

It's a rather unique story, I think, so it'll be hit & miss. I'm hoping, even praying, that one day, the perfect person will come across it, love what they read and will go thru hell & high water for me so it can get published.

It's a bit of a toss-up because it's the following things:

• YA
• romantasy (fantasy-romance)
• high school aged characters
• 3rd person POV
• includes:
•     reincarnation
•     angels
•     evil sorcerors
•     magic
•     physical manifestions of nature's elements
•     pegasuses
•     dragons
•     PSI/ESP

not to mention the fact that Jonas is a rather inactive protagonist, at least starting out... that's kinda the reason why the majority of the story is from Nina's perspective (without it being in first person). It only starts showing things from just his view when he starts getting a grasp of who he is, rather who he was in his past life.

The thing is I kinda know what I want and where I want to be... the downside is that it's an uphill battle... not to mention I've eliminated every other possibility besides this... it also won't get me health insurance coverage, but hopefully in a couple months when I turn 26, the healthcare law will get overturned so I don't have to have insurance.

Narrow-minded, yes.
A fool's errand, absolutely.

This goal I've got in mind... whether it boils down to Jonas or my insane Prince project... my success boils down to how other people perceive my work. The fact that part is out of my hands unnerves me a bit. But hey, I'd written several works of fiction from start to finish... been trying to get one ready for publishing for about 8 years... not to mention the massive volume my work on Prince will be...

not quite 1,000 pages... but it will easily hit 25-30 pages just discussing Purple Rain... between all the albums he's done throughout his career, it could easily hit 300-400 pages... but I want my goal to be something like 500 pages.

The voice in my head is more or less telling me to look through Jonas again, maybe I'll be inspired to add more stuff and hopefully, things will get back on track.
I doubt I'll be ready to go back to my Prince project for a little while, but its good to have at least a little bit of a break.