Page-turners, plagarism and future writing plans

it'll be my last entry for at least a week... I'd been kinda regular here, but got other plans taking time away... which involves not having a regular Internet connection.

No matter how much time has passed or how good/bad the product is, plagiarism SUCKS...
I was alerted to the fact someone from fictionpress took one of my stories and published it as an eBook on Amazon...

I had since been through a few rewrites so it isn't quite the same story anymore... okay, it IS... but the conversations are slightly different and some new details were added...

I figured it'd be something that polarized people because its an earlier draft than what I spent the past 2 years working on/off with... plus it was an attempt to take fanfiction to my own idea... let's say one person saw right through that on fictionpress...

two people said it was either childish, the writing was horrible or they deleted it cuz they gave up after 25 pages...

Geesh :roll:
I mean, people like Jane Austen and Ernest Hemingway get away with a lot of exposition and their stuff are classics... why should it be any different for an up & comer? Why is it frowned upon?

Agents want to be HOOKED within a sentence or two... if not that, they want the ends of chapters to make you want to keep reading... like you just HAVE to read more to see what happens... I totally commend Suzanne Collins for doing that in The Hunger Games... I've heard about this thing about ending chapters where the readers are thirsty for me... therefore, you have a page-turner you can't put down

I mean, that was really amazing that she did that... nobody else I've read into recently was like that... the characters did it for me...
and as much as a Twi-hard as I am, I admit that I wasn't hooked on Twilight until Edward showed up... the writing wasn't tantalizing enough, at least not yet... I became equally as fascinated by him as not only Bella, but Stephenie Meyer, obviously...
the first Harry Potter book... my mom had tried to talk me into the series for years... I forgot one detail... that Harry's parents were killed... I will attest, forevermore, that I was hooked on the Harry Potter series since page 12-13... that was when I read that they were killed and I was BALLING my eyes out...

Suzanne Collins I think is the only person that I haven't heard had struggles with publication...
it took J.K. Rowling YEARS... it took Stephenie Meyer maybe a year or two, thanks in part to Writer's Market... I'd take that route if I felt like giving up my credit card number (and explaining it to my folks who are still footing the bill), and as of now, I had anything good enough to publish... I'm in all kinds of directions with all my work...

Kathryn Stockett ("The Help") was the most inspirational in that she got 40 rejections before her book was published... to be honest, I'm not sure if I'd even been rejected 10 times yet... but it feels like an eternity whenever I get something back

I write pretty lengthy before I get to my bloody point... its my style and nobody quite appreciates that... unless we're friends or family...
and I think almost everything I'd written has a prologue attached... like a lengthy prologue that takes up more than a page....
With Jonas, my latest draft of the prologue took me to maybe 3 pages... it might be more than 3,000 words so I don't know if it'd be within range to submit to a short story contest...

anyway... the other two who read my stolen story loved it... but the 50% that didn't like it wasn't enough for me to throw in the towel and quote "Let her have this one"...

:sigh:
If I ever go back and fully re-edit, you know, I don't want to have to deal with copyright suits when its my own work in the first place
And I think I have another copy hanging around somewhere... I'd deleted half of my work on fictonpress to limit the damage, but I'll keep it up there until I'm sure this has died down...
what has me a little nervous is that they'd try this again and I wouldn't have the evidence anymore... at least not online with a date attached to it

I've got maybe an hour- 90 minutes to kill before shutting down my PC...
I haven't written for Cassandra since Thursday... when I was writing a little everyday... nothing seems to be occurring me looking at what I have so far...

I had a slew of dreams last night all sorta connected...
the first part was that we were watched "Spirited Away"... which will likely become one of my favorite movies of all time (meaning it'll be near the top of my fav movies list on my future movie blog)... with my grandma and we got as far as Chihiro's parents turning into pigs (literally, this is Miyazaki after all, all kinds of crap happens)...

A few elements came together regarding Jonas and that movie was the final piece. After watching it, I launched into my prologue for Jonas...
certain characters just say with you and I was believing that... you know... at the end of the movie, Chihiro and Haku go their separate ways... and they seem to have that long-lasting life-long friendship thing going for them... supposing she moves into her new house and a version of him lives nearby and they rekindle their friendship...

in the very back of my mind, that was probably my intention with the story... because he really was a special character, I felt... full of surprises, obviously...

both of them were in the dream... but then another thought came to mind... from the fact we'd been rewatching Card Captors on YouTube... and either I or someone say something about the "River" card... and it has to do with Haku... for reasons I won't quite give away... even though my audience (however small it is, a couple people) have seen the movie...

then it came a part in the dream where things changed over from one train of thought to another... and whatever character I was embodies was sick with a fever... like a burning up type of fever... and deep down, I felt touched by the other person's concern...

after that, it got even stranger, off-the-grid as it were... I arrive at a table and supposedly someone sitting next to Arthur... not quite King Arthur, but the version from "Merlin"... same actor... the guy sitting next to him had a carrot to his throat, like threatening his life... I defend him and Arthur brushes it off... like they were playing around or something...
I don't let it go cuz even though its not a weapon, it looked like a threat to me...

Arthur is very condensing to Merlin, both of which are in their early 20's... so its a different version of the Arthurian tales (its the Syfy series)...

I don't remember the logistics of some of these things, but its the most vivid dream I've had in a while where I actually remember it when I wake up...
lately its been the case that its vivid when I'm sleeping but when I'm awake, it goes :poof: so there's a remenant left behind that I can't take anything from

 I don't think I'd ever been so lucky where my dreams influence an entire story... at least nothing I'd put in the path of publication... ok, only Jonas has been on the path..
but I'd written half a dozen stories that I'd like to edit until they're set to be considered... I'd just like him to be first cuz he's the first original story I'd written

hmm... I'd considered the idea of bringing dragons into Cassandra's "realm"... which I'll call it for the moment... I doubt its anything that exists in this world or even this planet... it'll be a fictional place like Camelot (just to give an example) but it has Asian tinges to it... cuz in part, it'll be influenced by the samurai era... Feudal Japan... and part of it comes from those types of fighting movies
not quite like Crouching Tiger, though... just saw that the other day

hmm.... no wonder it was thrown in with The Matrix with the coming of a new era of fight scenes in movies... same choreographer...
and I figured as much that it was dubbed... the lip flaps didn't completely fit with certain characters and the voices changed in some scenes... therefore it wasnt consistent... I think I would have liked it a lot better in its original format... then I could have said it was my first ever foreign film...

Miyazaki doesn't count because I'd never seen his films in their original form. I watched "Spirited Away" in Japanese for 10 minutes but when Haku came in, I didnt like his Japanese voice so I stopped...
sorry guys, I'd just become too accustomed to/fond of Jason Marsden's voiceover work to substitute if for anything else

even part of my college animé club, I never saw any films in Japanese... I've seen animé in Japanese, entire series, but not movies... not that I remember anyway...

Cassandra will be a toss-up between the girl in "Crouching Tiger" and Katniss from The Hunger Games... and some of Rukia from Bleach

she won't be nearly as hypersensitive to "Ren" as Rukia is to Renji... but she's hesitant to accept his help...
me thinks because she had a hard life that turned her cold and she's spent her life focused on becoming stronger than the girl she used to be... the girl that used to call Ren her best friend...
after her appointment to the princess's personal guard, their relationship changed and she became all business

for all I know, the enemy of the piece, she might have found out that he's the one that killed someone close to her and because she wasnt strong enough to protect them, she wanted to change that so she wouldnt lose anyone else

her biggest flaw might be that she's so wound up about the strength and protection that she doesn't relax... Ren might say to her on multiple occasions that she needs to enjoy the time she has with other people or she'll have more to regret with their loss than the loss itself.
or maybe this comment will come at a crucial moment in the story

I've played around with the idea of using magic... maybe the thing that gives him the edge in this confrontation... which there aren't a lot of details about in the prologue, I want it to be limited to a few sentences... or it could just be a preface...
she thought she had him, but he had some sort of magic up his sleeve that either preserved his life or damaged hers to the state its in now

if I go that route, in which she needs magic to defeat him... there's also the possibility of dragons... cuz they go hand in hand with magic...

I wouldn't say magic is a forbidden discipline... like it is in "Merlin"... I don't even remember if Arthur found out whether Merlin is a wizard or not... but supposedly it was banned by his father and because it failed to save his father's life, he might not welcome it...

I think Cassandra spurns magic for a number of reasons... perhaps in her mind, magic is cheating... her skill lies in her physicality, agility and skills with her sword(s)... so she has refused to learn magic for years... but figures it might be necessary to defeat this enemy...
and there might be different kinds of magic (still kinda gunning for the Avatar version where it lies in a number of elements... although I wouldn't mind calling it "the trinity of elements" it sounds so official... fire, wind & water... subject to change... her ambition is so strong that fire probably comes to her the most easily)...

Ren might already be skilled in one of these, but he'd kept it secret from her cuz he knows how she feels about it

I'm not sure if I'll put too much between where I left off and the next scene I "shoot"... inner monologue and stuff... but I doubt there can be inner monologue if she's in long-term sedation (under the influence of Ren's Nightshade... something he procured from his uncle who runs an apothocrary shop)... unless its like a flashback or something that involves her and the princess...

but I see Ren being led into another scene where he either finds her meditating under a waterfall or doing Tai-Chi (of which I know nothing about, but it feels right, lol)

Project "Warrior"- the story so far

I don't know how far I'll be able to take this, but I'm intrigued enough to post on this blog that's been otherwise DEAD for a great while...
so why not... it's at least something...

I have a couple names and I have a few circumstances already in place.

btw, the temporary title I'll give to this project is "Warrior"...
although my protagonist is really more of a swordman/samurai type...

I had something in mind that jumped to mind the first night as far as a title goes... I'd lost it, but it was either The or A "Warrior's"... and there was a third word I can't remember anymore.

The prologue divulged details... the last few seconds of an important duel. At least it was to my star. This invincible enemy she swore revenge on came up victorious and she's in disbelief. She may or may not have had him... he might have tricked her into believing that she had the upperhand when, in fact, he's 10 or 50x stronger than her.

All of the dialogue came from her. A desperation was in the narrative.
I'm sure the whole story will be from her POV, although there will be parts in the 3rd person. I'm not locking too many things in just yet.

I've written a couple sentences every day, which is good. That'll keep this going. As long as I still have questions that I have answers to, I think I'll be okay for a little while.

(Last night, I typed up a couple other scenes in my "vamp" story... just so I have them there so I can work on them later... its strange, the more I read/write about my previous workplace, the more I wonder if that was even real... it'd become so trival to me... but then again, I twisted the whole situation around in my mind in an effort to make me feel better... and I think it has in a way, sorta sick & twisted, but it has helped)
and it REALLY annoys the hell outta me, I cannot tell you... when Im doing an entry on any blog and my PC just freezes and does a few cycles... meanwhile, I can't add anything to what I'm working on... I've lost a few ideas that way... creative minds like me really hate that...

for the most part, I'm not going to map too much out. At least I won't do that on the same page as the actual story... otherwise, I start doing a lot of explaining and people, including myself, would forget what the characters were even doing on about in the story...
you know its bad when you do the same "stream of consciousness" thing you do while blogging in the stories...

and this is getting REALLY frustrating... I can't wait 10 minutes between paragraphs like this or I won't get anything done... ahhh!!
I swear if this computer wasn't so important to what little I have going for me, I'd thrown it against the wall by now...

I'm gonna use this venue for my movie blog, but apparently the trade-off is gonna be... I'll have it automatically saved every paragraph... which apparently takes FOREVER ... but at least its on record... meanwhile ive had far too many times... and this is happening over a 5 minute period, mind you, between all kinds of PC problems and what not... my Xanga blog, I've written entire entries... press enter and an error message comes up that says that I haven't written a new entry... like WTF... and I've lost entire entries... between that and losing my Internet signal...

what I'll probably do is type up on Word... and copy/paste every couple paragraphs, it'll auto-save and I'll have that going... its a lot faster than this...

now I forgot what I was saying...

I'm trying to label some bits of inspiration... if there is going to be any supernatural elements in this and part of me believes there will be... the model that comes to mind is the animé model with the characters looking the way they do and such... its also the way I've learned to sketch, so I'll be working from that angle.

After writing my prologue, I wrote a few bits of dialogue. I'd focused on that more than working on putting a whole scene together. I'll add what comes to mind as it does, but not worry about the details for a while

between two characters, I figure that this takes place at an infirmary tent or something of that nature... this doesn't take place in 21st century civilization, although I haven't nailed down where its set at...

one character is asking about her condition and the other gave details that kinda define the kind of person she is... the not-giving-up type... she's been aggravating her injuries, preventing them from healing because she's still angry about being defeated and almost killed by this invincible foe... who I will probably call I.F. for the moment just because invincible is such a long word to type... that might lead me to a name, who knows...

I wrote a couple bits of dialogue between this doctor or whoever is looking after her... and who I believe is an old friend of hers, someone she grew up with

yesterday I found a name...
usually I don't put a whole lot of thoughts into my names... like I'll pick whatever jumps to mind or feels right and I'll run with it... Jonas was kinda obvious after a while... I wanted something that at least sounded Biblical, therefore I have the -eriah suffix... he could have been an Isaiah for all I know... but the name was inspired from The Giver... the character Jonas with the pale eyes... and I also had my high school crush David with the pale blue eyes that I was inspired to put into my story when it transpired into the 20th/21st century

I didn't think I'd put much thought into the names to start out, but "Cassandra" just sounded right for her. Pronounciation: Ca-san-dra... not Ca-sawn-dra... Cassandara... there's something kinda regal about it, but its also something tough...
the image that came to mind was something out of Avatar... the last airbender, not James Cameron's movie... thats kinda annoying that Avatar came out and it was something different from the animé... therefore, they couldn't freaking using Avatar in their title...

now "the last airbender" has become a joke... a lot of people have called it one of the worst movies ever made... me, I don't really think it was THAT bad... it differed from the animé considerably... the most annoying error was the misprounciation of the protagonist...

his name is Aang... but in the Shyamalan film, it was pronounced Ung... eww.... everytime I heard it, I wanted to scream at the big screen that they're saying it WRONG...

Katara wasn't nearly as strong a character in this movie and Sokka was meant to be the comic relief, the comedian... although I thought Jackson Rathbone's performance was great... nice to see Jasper Cullen in a somewhat lighter role... he was the stronger of the siblings, which didn't echo the animé at all

let's see... and someone figured it would be a GREAT idea to have different looking people as the different benders... nationalities... like Aang was Asian, obviously... I don't know what Katara and Sokka were supposed to be... I don't remember much about the earth benders... but the fire benders were all Indian...

which I felt was ridiculous...
Zuko isn't Indian! Dev Petal didn't look anything like the character in the animé...

so as an adaptation of the series, the Shyamalan version was a failure because none of the characters were nailed...

but (see, there's my rambling again) with my warrior, Cassandra... I was trying out a few names from the series... what I immediately thought of... because of the color red, the scarlet in her uniform... I thought about Zuko's sister Azula... who is one of the series' villians... daughter of the Fire Lord and all that...
I'm trying to think, though, I'm hesistant to google with my PC like this... Zuko had a girlfriend or a love interest... and I'm thinking her name might have been Cassandra... but I'll have to look it up... cuz this will drive me NUTS

ok, I'm good... the love interest's name was Mai...
and maybe part of me is thinking about the sequel Avatar series that came out a year ago... as far as how Cassandra is dressed and such

and apparently... according to the little I read about the "Sonja" sequel series... Aang and Katara end up together cuz one of their kids is in the series... lol...

I haven't seen how the series ends, so I had no idea... I'd seen bits and pieces, but the furthest I'd ever seen was where the gang saw this mock-up play about their adventures where all of their characters are grossly exaggerated and/or nothing like they are in real life...
and after a little joke about Katara and Aang's relationship on stage, he asked her how she felt about him...
undecided... maybe a little uncomfortable with being pressured into answering the question... ultimately Katara said that she wasn't ready for a relationship until the Fire Lord was defeated

I come across so much stuff between the animé I watch and the movies I've seen... a lot of stuff works its way into my head when I write these things that I sometimes borrow ideas without realizing, not knowing where they come from
(and I got to wondering if Jackson Rathbone is descended from the famous Basil Rathbone... despite the fact I'm totally in the Sherlock Holmes brand, between the Guy Ritchie adaptation, reading the actual books and looking forward to the new show "Elementary"... I haven't seen the original Sherlock Holmes before)...

after the intital bits of dialogue, I ended one session with the sentence "Just give me a minute"

yesterday I wrote in a way I never had before... but with my notebooks, I'm kinda hesitant to put too much in when my vision isn't super clear cuz its a pain to erase everything... the life of erasers isn't long at all :-?

I wrote a few sentence fragments that came to mind to describe parts of the scenery... I haven't settled on a narrative style yet, so I'm just adding details that I can work into sentences later...
these aren't them by the way, but the overall gist of it

her eyes are bloodshot. she has sullen black hair. a firm, unmoving jaw.
bandages of varying colorations are wrapped around her legs, arms and torso.
scarlet warrior's uniform ripped in a few places
multiple lacerations still visible even with all the bandaging

a sword was laying to the side... dust on the handle and I just added that it was split, unable to be repaired...

I wrote a few bits of dialogue from him to kinda define him as well as add to the scenario

he's sorry for how things turned out.
he knew how much she wanted to exact her revenge for whomever she wanted to avenge
"I'm probably the last person you want to see"... although I'm still figuring that part out, to see if that has any relevence...

he ends with the sentiment that she needs to let her injuries heal or she's no good to anyone...
and "my friend Cassie knew when patience was the most important thing"

so I know for a fact that they grew up together, they were super close... and quite possibly, he's the only person who has called her "Cassie"

the question is what she's going to do in respond to his visit...

I don't even have a name... originally, I thought something like Damon... cuz Ian Solmenhader kinda came to mind... but I shot that down...

for the moment, I'll call him Ren...

I'm going into my animé background again and thinking that just maybe... they have a similiar relationship to the characters Rukia and Renji in Bleach... they grew up in the same troubled neighborhood, enrolled at the same time at an academy that would train them to be Soul Reapers

Rukia was a little skilled with Kito than swordfighting... Kito is spell-casting for the most part...
but she was adopted by one of the most powerful families in the Soul Society, the Kuchki Clan

meanwhile, Renji was motivated to push forward with his training and became a lieutant to a soul reaper captain in one of the court guard squads...

who happens to be the leader of the Kuchki Clan, Byakuya Kuchki... I believe, in his mind, his goal is to surpass him in strength because he's the one person that kinda stands between him and Rukia

I could go on about all the possible pairings of characters... but Renji certainly thinks that Rukia is the person he wants to end up with...

so paying a little bit of homage, I guess... I'll at least give this character the name "Ren" and see how it works out... or if something else comes to mind...

Cassandra is an unbelievably strong character... definitely in league with Katniss Everdeen with a little bit of Rukia and Katara... but she won't be quite the same

Rukia and Renji has a really strange relationship where I really don't understand why they relate to each other the way they do...
like Renji will tease her in instances and she'll push back and say she's doing just fine without his help... like its an automatic thing...

I don't want Cassandra and "Ren" to be like that at all...

the question I'm left with after I finished his last bit of dialogue... how will she react to his visiting her? which way will the conversation go?
will she flip out at him? will she be somewhat quiet about it, but fight back tears while saying "I almost had him"...

there's only so far I'm willing to go with that... I don't want her to mope around or burst into hysterical sobbing because things aren't going her way...
but after this failure, she'd become so volitle that she'd had to be sedated so she doesn't reopen wounds and aggravate injuries

One thing I kinda want to stay... I mean really stay away from...
I don't want her to fall into the Kill Bill stereotype... I'd never seen either of the movies, but cuz I'd seen some of Tarantino's stuff (after being so in love with "Inglorious Basterds"... GREAT movie), I probably will at some point

she fancies swordfighting, but I think the Kill Bill series is meant to pay homage to the old Bruce Lee movies...
I don't want to fall into that pitfall either

it will have some Japanese influence for sure, make no mistake about that...

I believe that her duty was to protect someone of royalty... I'm thinking a princess... again, going back to that night, Shanghai Noon was still kinda hovering in my mind... cuz Jackie Chan played one of her guards

I'm not planning to go into that relationship too much, certainly not right away...
but what I do know is that I.F. either killed the princess or kidnapped her... and Cassandra felt duty-bound to protect her...
she might believe that the princess is dead, but to push the storyline forward, she might still be alive... but not to her knowledge

spoiler alert, I guess...

hmm... it could be that Ren was the reason Cassandra failed to protect the princess... she gave her the night off duty because Ren insisted on going out with her or spending time with her... which they don't get to do anymore...
but in that one night where she was out of the picture, the princess got kidnapped and she flipped OUT on Ren for distracting her...

both are skilled at what they do, but I think I.F. might also have sorcery on his side... and Cassandra's journey in this story is gaining the ability to deal with him... maybe learning a little sorcery of her own...
working with fire & ice or maybe some other elements too... I'm not going to jump too far ahead and try to plan things out...

but along the way, I'm going to leave clues for myself to figure out more about these characters.

3 "new" ideas, all of which I'm hesitant to share

I had a moment the other night while watching my animé hour on Adult Swim...
while watching Bleach... this one enemy, Ichigo finally seemed to have defeated... someone who's been kind of a pain to deal with because he is just that strong... but even I have to admit he was a cool villian (I'd post his name, but I don't know if I can spell it, lol)

it was going onto a commerical break and this enemy makes his presence known once again and I'm thinking "WTF, I thought he was dead... "

the idea popped into about an seemingly invincible foe... which a lot of animé tend to have...

something came into my head and started writing about... like a prologue of sorts... the protagonist was fighting the antagonist, I gather, to exact revenge for something he did... she's been beaten badly and struggles not to let this opportunity go. She tries to grab onto his arm and asks why he's still standing, she can't let this go, she must defeat him...
even to her last breath, she tries to keep going, but can't...

then I started writing something that happens a bit afterwards... another character asking about her... her injuries are taking a long time to heal, she's still hungry for revenge and she needed to be sedated because it threatens her recovery...

other than that, I don't have a lot so far... I'm thinking along the lines of an alternate world... something out of animé... I see her as a warrior, a very strong warrior... really skilled with a sword... I know nothing about the villian except that he either kidnapped or killed someone important to her, whether its a family member or someone she cared about... I'd come off watching Shanghai Noon for the first time earlier, so I was thinking that maybe she was meant to protect a princess or something, but failed in her duties...

I'll leave the idea alone for a while to see if anything come out of it. Because I had done so in the past and regretted it, its not going anywhere and I refuse to throw away any more ideas... I've had whole stories I've discarded and now I wish I hadn't just so I can look back and see if I want to change anything

there isn't much to the idea yet... so I can't necessarily say I don't know if I want to share it with anymore...

as for the other two, I'd been either brainstorming or writing bits and pieces for but haven't done anything really serious with them yet

"Te Busque" I've got my characters mostly mapped out... I have my 3rd act oultined... I just need to figure how the other pieces are going to come together..
I'm hesitant to show that one off or even discuss it because its hot subject matter.. the girls in it aren't just dancers, but on some nights at their place of business, they dance and auction themselves off to the highest bidder for a night... prostitution... and the main character came unpleasant circumstances that shaped her personality... her stepfather told her how special she was and he brainwashed her into believing their relationship was normal... they slept together... then when he dies, she finds out that all of the money her family has was gambled away so he literally screwed her out of a livelihood, out of money...
and to help clear a debt he accumulated, she offers her body and services to the people he owed money to... and she stays with it because its all she knows how to do, her stepfather kinda spoiled her for anything else she could possibly do... like she doesn't have the proper education to pursue a higher education... I'm kinda nervous about letting my family see that one no matter what shape it comes in because I'm writing about girls selling their bodies to make a living... like what does that say about me?

Then there's this other story I kinda wrote out of frustration from where I was... I felt like I was losing myself to my old workplace... and my saviours ended up being vampires... they still drink blood and all that, they're not quite like the Cullens, but they're tamer than the horror movie vampires...
then it became something of an escape and my frustration about things continues to go into it... and I'm extremely nervous to show that to my family because of things I've said about myself... I don't like to really show my vulnerabilities all that much, I'm more liable to clam up than fully disclose stuff like that.
I think every now and then that I need to see a therapist or see someone about my on & off depression... the lows aren't so low that I cut myself or inflict any sort of self-harm... but there are moments where I really wish I wasn't here... the confusion of my existence is too painful to bear sometimes... something usually comes around to pick me back up again, but its temporary relief...

I mean, the worst is that if I put that kind of stuff out there, there's no taking it back... no saying "I'm fine, that was just a moment of weakness" cuz I've had a few moments that I ulitmately keep to myself...
and I'm also thinking that if I say I want to see a therapist, they're going to give me a flat out no because I'd be making excuses... or if I'd look bad on my record... I dunno... but they'd probably say I don't need that kind of help and its something I need to push through on my own...

I don't want to have to change too much of myself to fit in... I've sworn off the idea of dieting because I don't want society to dictate my waist line... the whole "thin is in" thing...

I am a little monster, so I believe Gaga's "Born this Way" mantra to be true... that I should love myself for the way I am and not change to make other people like me...

I know there's a reason why I'm not considered beautiful by society... why I wasn't born blonde with blue eyes... I've considered dying my hair blonde, but sometimes I don't even know if I'd be up for that drastic a change...
I also know there's a reason why I'm ridiculously shy and insecure... why I'm not an eloquent speaker... that's something that has doomed a couple interviews, I'm sure... I'm a great typer and communicate well that way to make up for where I lack...

so how come I can't make a career out of that... why do I have to have this outgoing personality to get places in life...

my personality is meant to carry over because I don't have the looks that draw people in right away... but I can't bring that across because of the reasons I posted above...

would it be totally ironic and contradictory if I went to a therapist so I could be better with speaking to people... meddling with that... and I believe that that was the product of experiences I had when I was younger... I don't speak up because when I did, I got backlash for it... saying the wrong thing or the people around me were just rude... my default is to keep quiet so I don't offend anyone

although silence can be offensive to some people too... its taken as snobbyness

I'd written a few scenes down for my vampire story... why these two vamps are taking such an interest in my character, I don't know... supposedly the depression is so bad that it could attract other vampires so they keep an eye on me to preserve myself... again, why do they care? I have no idea...
but I've theorized a few reasons why I was fired from my place of work and put that into the story... my lack of communication finally caught up for me... and I really have nothing to go into interviews with... the economy sucks and I was fired because I have trouble communicating with people... its an issue that goes way back and I'm too set in my habits to change them...

it just makes me feel better sometimes to take frustration on certain people that I believe were why I was let go in the first place... they didn't want to deal with my anti-society tendancies...

I even weaved this conspiracy and made that into the big climax of the story...
but I haven't fully figured out the reasons why it came to conspiracy...

I was paranoid by certain things, making up theories and at the end of it all, it turned out to be true... of course I'm taking poetic license with this...

I want to put some of my experiences in the workplace in the story... I'd already written about the day I was let go... vamps included... I wrote a few scenes in one of my notebooks... one takes place a year after that day... I'd been everywhere I could possibly go locally and never got an interview... I'm frustrated and thinking that the "wrongdoers" are deliberately going out of their way to make sure I'm not hired anywhere else...

yeah, that makes as much sense as that SNL sketch the other week... where Kenan Thompson went to all these places, got hired, Bain Capital bought them just so he'd get laid off... although that was kinda stupid, especially when it came down to, they bought that one Orange Julius he worked at so they can lay him off... and a shoe-shine stand, they sent to China, to lay him off...

what's a good story without a little conspiracy thrown in there?
but I can't really show that to my former employers and co-workers... they'd know who they are and I'd been berated for the things I said

it shows my family that I'm manically depressed so I can't really show them either... but its something I've gone back to a couple times, I write something down when I'm frustrated and maybe one day I'll have enough to write a fully realized story... putting all these scenes together into one thing, kinda how they splice together a movie from scenes they shot at different times, not necessarily in chronological order

The question is where my attention is gonna be... and I still have another chapter in another project to work through

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 :-?