A Midnight Parallax

1. Officially finish writing After Life, Between the Lines, and Wake Me Up When September Ends.  Seriously, this is at the top of my list.  I want them done.  The XYZ Affair can be the last story I finish because it's just one-shots.  Wake needs to be over so I can get to the last installment of the trilogy.

2. Finish writing 1 novel before the year is up.  I'll have my own personal NaNoWriMo.  Yes, I know that's a double possessive but it's the internet and I still type the same way I do as when I was in high school.

3. Find a better job.  That should be higher on my list, but right now I'm just fed up.

4. Become a better writer.  I feel like my style needs to be more engaging and direct.  I tend to go on tangents and feel like my narrative style is 'foot in mouth' and not as smooth as I'd like.

5. Go out more and see the world.

6. Get through my to-read list.

7. Spend more time with my friends.

1. The cupboard in our basement is exactly like the one Harry Potter lives in while he stays with the Dursleys.  Americans would call it a "closet" or "pantry" but my parents and their British ways call it a "cupboard" too.  Anyway, I feel weird having lived in my house for so long and not realizing that.

2. The supermarket by my house doesn't sell cigarettes.  Yes, that's right.  There's a supermarket in NYC that does not sell cigarettes.  Not that I smoke, but someone needed a pack and I came back empty-handed.

3. I need to stop slacking actually write all the stuff for my fics.  I have all the ideas and plots, I've just been finding other things to do rather than write them down while they're fresh.

4. I am incapable of writing a "happily ever after" story.  I thought I could, but I did the sketch of Confessions of a Fairy Godmother and the ending was again one of those neither here nor there endings.  I mean, I like the end and as far as I can tell, I'm keeping it.  I've talked to my best friend and another friend about this, and they've both said it's probably because I'm realistic and don't believe in "happily ever after."  It's not quite the same as 'I don't believe in Santa Claus, I can't write a Christmas story about him.'  It has to do with my personal writing style and "happily ever after" is more a stylistic issue than storyline.  Writers write based on how they imagine the world runs.  I mean, it's not rocket science to write a "happily ever after" ending, and could have easily tied up the story that way.  But this is pretty close -- it's that we make our own happy endings.

5. All those cliche romance stories where the guy and the girl are forced to be together due to circumstances beyond their control and pretend that they are a real couple while they secretly hate each other, but end up falling for one another?  They have to fall for each other or the story doesn't work.  I read one where they don't end up together and I realize that the entire point of reading was to see them get together, and if they don't, it's almost like cheating.  (Of course, in the story I read, there were two parts so each of them found their significant other by the conclusions.)  I remember learning this in Theory of Drama, but for some reason didn't visualize this as one of those situations.

I'm supposed to be asleep.  But I just finished reading a story online and something is bothering me, so this is my rant.

(Bear in mind that I am sleep deprived here and I may or may not take this down in the morning.)


I am SICK of reading a story where after the leading guy and leading girl split up, the guy can go on a rampage of sleeping with a different woman every night while the girl is stuck home every night wallowing (while she may or may not be pregnant).  Then when the guy and girl get back together (after girl catches guy with evil skank whore he's been using, and of course still forgives him), the guy makes some declaration about how he would have killed any other man who would have slept with his girl, and how glad he is that she didn't.  Meanwhile, he was screwing half of California or wherever while she just sat around eating ice cream waiting for him to come to his senses.

I hate how the story emphasizes how it's okay for a guy to sleep with whoever he wants after a break up, but the girl has to maintain some nun-like celibacy.  And I don't want to hear the b.s. that guys don't know how to deal with emotions and just screw anything that moves -- what's good for the goose is good for the gander. 

I've lost count of how many times I've read a story where the woman had to be a virgin before she got married, even though her future husband had at least ten other women before marrying her.  Somehow, guys get off on being the first and only man "his true love" has been with.  What about all those other women he was sleeping with?  Aren't they ever going to be someone's "true love"?  No, because society doesn't like whores.  They're not people and they're not worthy of love or they wouldn't have spread their legs.

I especially hate it because this was the same b.s. that my mother fed me.  I was told not to sleep with anyone before marriage because it would disturb my husband, but it's fine for him to screw around before we get married because it's his precious pride.  I called crap on that theory the minute she told me it.  And if you do find out that he was sleeping with someone interim for a break up and makes a comment about you being celibate, I say you guilt his ass for eternity for that bullshit.

This is probably I never do that in my stories (if I even bother to use couples).  My heroines get to jump in the sack with the nearest hot guy too.  I refuse to let some stupid girl take an oath of celibacy and sit there crying over a tub of Ben & Jerry's.  In my original stories, I don't emphasize who has sex first or with whom unless it's actually important.  Eighty percent of the time, it's not. 

When is society going to get over that stupid little piece of flesh?  The double-standard is ridiculous.  Think outside the box people!  The only reason they wanted "virgins" back in the day was to assure paternity (of course, we all know how much more accurate that is that maternity).  Now a trip to a clinic can clear that problem right up.  Or if you're poor and in dire need of attention, there's always Maury.

This is like when I'm bored and actually listen at weddings and the pandit goes on about "maidenly virtue" and leaves out the guy's cavorting.  At that point, I just want to find a cute guy in the room and screw his brains out.  Of course, most guys don't actually sit inside for the wedding ceremony (that's too girly for them, they hang out in the front and either smoke and/or drink, or they only go to the reception where there is alcohol throughout the night and girls with smaller dresses, not shalwars and saris which FYI you can't hike up) and to top it off most males in attendance either related to me or I would rather go lesbian than tap that!  Maybe the next wedding I go to won't be so bad... (And pigs will sprout wings and fly in front of one eligible guy...)

Of course, at the rate I'm going, slutty spinster doesn't seem so bad either.

Anyway, the point is all you heroines out there, don't be afraid to whore it up before going back to Prince Charming.  And make sure you do it before the bump starts to show!

Trick or treat?

At the supermarket last weekend, they started putting out the Halloween stuff.  I know that means my birthday is coming up.  It's kind of unbelievable what's happened between this upcoming birthday and the last one.  I've experienced so much, learned a lot about "the real world" and what it's like to have a "real job."

A year ago, I knew what I'd be doing for the next five years.  Now I don't know what I'll be doing in the next five weeks...  It's kind of exciting and kind of like "What the fuck am I doing with my life?"

And on that note, I'm trying to have Chapter 6 of Between the Lines posted some time tomorrow.  Or else only the gods know when I'll actually get it done.  A couple more letters of The XYZ Affair are done (Promise and Xerox are mostly done, while I'm currently writing Rune), but I have to edit them and I might just post them out of order.  I also might post the alternate versions of other letters that I wrote.

I'm yawning as I write this... Work has me beat at the end of every day and not in a good way.  I quit being an economics major because I didn't want to do that much math... Now I have an accounting job.  The things one lives to see.  But I'm also looking for another gig (so I can quit this accounting thing) which is tough too.  Every time I'm about to get an offer, at the last possible minute they go with someone else after having me come in and giving me the huge impression that I'm a shoe-in for the position.  It's not fun having to tell perfect strangers what you plan to do with your life, what you do in your spare time, or if you know me, any one of the plethora of job interview horror stories I've been through (one interviewer tried to make me cry, another didn't know my name, etc.).  It wears on you after a while.

Every time I get the urge to write, it's right when I can't do it.  I know how so many chapters of Wake Me Up are supposed to go at this point but none of them are written down.  I get to do the one-shots on the train rides (Umbrella is still in rough draft form along with Sunday, and I have the outline for Xerox which will be M-rated and I can't write that on the train or at work...).  I sat down to edit Umbrella because my internet connection is wonky and my brain was like 'NO!  No more work!'  I know because I got that stabbing pain right there and decided to save my "Comma?  No comma?"ing for later.

That's kind of where things stand.  (Oh and my internet connection fell in the middle of my posting this the first time but thankfully LJ had it backed up!)

To add insult to injury I keep getting small cuts on the palms of my hands from accidents.  Nothing serious, no stitches, blood transfusion or ritual animal sacrifice needed...  So I've gotten slowed down again.  Oh how the universe conspires!

Since Psych is on hiatus, my brother convinced me to watch the new episode of Numb3rs with him last night.  I quit watching Numb3rs after an episode earlier in the season where a surfer/park ranger got killed.  When they interviewed his ex-girlfriend, who was a swimsuit model, her reason for breaking up with him was because "he couldn't feed her" with his poor park ranger salary.  I kid you not.  When she said that, I replied, "She did it.  Models don't eat.  She's the worst liar ever."  There have been a lot of fake-out endings this season on Numb3rs, but I totally called it.

Anyway, since I had nothing better to do, I sat down to watch Numb3rs do an I, Robot meets Simone episode.  A few minutes after the computer geek was murdered, my brother asked, "What other reason is there to kill someone if not for money?" 

My response?  "Sleeping with the wrong person."

Of course, the computer geek's assistant this week was a frumpy slightly older lady and his wife was the pretty anorexic girl, which was supposed to throw us off.  But not me.  I guessed it was the wife before I even knew what either of them looked like.

The only show that ever throws me for a loop is Psych.  But that's because they cheat.  They leave out huge chunks of information, then there are flashbacks at the end revealing how things really happened.  Half of the evidence they use isn't shown until the end of the episode.  However, I forgive them because I love Shawn's pop culture references.

I'm suffering from writer's block for Wake Me Up...  My deadline for posting the first chapter is actually for February 1, which is getting closer and closer everyday.

In the meantime, as I scramble trying to decide between rewriting the first two chapters I already have or just posting them, I've been reading some other stories in the fandom and realized that you can see traces of people's favorite stories in their own stories.  There are odd turns of phrase that come from each person, and it becomes obvious that imitation is in fact flattery. 

I first noticed the influence of favorite stories while reading someone else's story and thinking that the terminology and sentences looked too familiar to another popular story on the site.  So I decided to see if I could spot it elsewhere.  It didn't take long for me to notice that I'd poached some cues from my own favorite authors' stories, and immediately rushed to edit it.  It happened because I'd read them so many times I had simply registered the phrasing in my head.  Also, I'm silly but I read someone's recent fic and noticed a description I had used myself in my own story that the person had liked.  I thought it was really cool because it meant that person liked reading my story over and over too.

Another thing I noticed is that I have never given any story I've written a happy ending.  No happily ever afters.  In ten years of writing I've never written a happy ending.  I know it's ten years because I wrote my first real story during midwinter recess in the 7th grade.  So does that mean there's something wrong with me?  My best friend laughed and said no when I let her in on my discovery.  She just said I'm realistic.  I don't know, she's the one getting the Masters in Neuroscience...  I guess I can take her word on it? 

Yeah, so that's all I've got...