A Slightly Less Technological Parallel Universe

Well, here we are again. I've been having some ideas about revisions for a story I wrote three years ago, but nothing concrete yet. Wheels are turning. The Wizard of Oz was involved. The story in question is actually on draft three, which is farther than anything else has made it. The problem with that one is that in the first two drafts, I found things that I didn't like, and wanted to change. But once I got to the third draft, I didn't know what should happen, only what shouldn't. But still, maybe we'll be able to rescue that one from the scrap heap eventually.

For now, we're just going to keep going with prompts. Today's is to pick an everyday object (again). Then, describe life without the item (before), and life with the item (after).

Such Wealth is Not in This Box

I have so many story ideas. Just little plot bunnies. They hop around in your head, refusing to leave until you scoop them up and do something with them. Problem is, I don't have anything more than a vague idea about anything. So I don’t know what the next project is.

I'd like to write some things to submit to the local college publication at the end of January, but again, no real ideas. I submitted "A History of Falling Off the Wall" last year, and they didn't want that one. So I need to learn from my mistakes and write something that is very much not that.

I need to take a page out of Oliver Queen's book and become someone else. Something else.

An Emotional Review

Is it Friday already? I had hoped I would have accomplished something by now.

I've been thinking lately about what sort of direction I should be, uh, writing in. there's some improvements I need to make in my overall writing style. Sure, I could just keep doing what I'm doing, but let's not forget the point of all this.

I started this blog nearly a year ago to chronicle my journey toward becoming a real writer. So far, I am no closer to that goal than I was when I started. So continuing to do the same old thing is not going to work.

Something has to change.

There's No Place Like Home

I know I've been a slacker lately when it comes to interesting content, and for that, I apologize. I've also been slacking on these prompt things. You're supposed to do one each day, but they're so god damn boring! It's all "describe this" and "describe that." "What's your ideal party?" One where everyone leaves me alone, thank you very much. So basically I'm just skipping through them when I need something to write about, hoping to find one that doesn’t make me want to take a nap. 

That brings us to Day 8, entitled "All Good Things Come to an End?" It asks that I imagine that some place I'm fond of is closing down. And, nosy thing that it is, it wants to know why it's so important and what I'm going to do about it closing. How would I convince someone to go there with me? While I've basically accepted that establishments are going to close and parks are going to get paved over, it did get me thinking.

There's nothing quite so, I don’t know, disheartening, as the impossibility of going home. There's a song called "Acadia" that I've been listening to lately, that's about having all these memories of your childhood home, even though it's gone. It starts with "In the house I grew up in, my room in the basement…" which makes it relatable to me, since I did in fact have a room in the basement. And while the house is still there, my room has been repurposed.

Have you ever been out in the middle of Washington, around Tri-Cities? It's this big, flat, open nothingness. I find it wholly unsettling. Entirely too much sky. The point? To me, this place is what "no home to go back to" feels like. I don't know, maybe it's because there's no shelter, nowhere secure to hide. It's an incredibly vulnerable place, and I don't like it.

Usually when I find myself in this desolate corner of Washington, I've been up since some ungodly hour, and I'm only halfway to wherever I'm going. So there's always this weary sense of wanting to be "not here."

This is how my brain works. I connect things to other things that might not make sense to anyone else. I connect places to feelings. I connect flavors to shapes and colors (wintergreen and root beer are same plateau-like shape, by the way). I think this blog is just an attempt to convey that, somehow.

Over to you, readers. What does home or the lack thereof feel like?

Must be Crumbs in the Butter

I'm going to be honest. I'm really flaking out on this 31 days of prompts thing. Probably because they're super boring. It feels like some of them are just teaching people who can't describe things how to describe things. But Mad, you might say, aren't you terrible at describing things? Damn right I am. But I don't think describing how an everyday object feels, smells, tastes, etc., is going to help me.

Anyway, so I skipped ahead to Day 4, which sounded like more fun. Basically, it asks what line from a movie do you quote a lot, or makes you laugh or smile, and why this line stands out to you.

Of course I thought this would be an easy task. I know tons of movie lines! I quote them all the time! And then I spent four or five hours trying to think of one (and watching the season finale of Legends of Tomorrow, which was quite an ordeal). I watch a lot more TV than movies, so we may have to take an alternate route.

All right, many hours later, and I have a line. The funny thing about this is that no one realizes it's a line from a movie. I've absorbed it into my lexicon. The phrase in question is "a different kettle of onions." From what I can tell, this is the lesser used version of the usual "kettle of fish." I actually stole it from a movie called Alice (no, not that one). It’s a little known movie (technically it's a two part miniseries) that is very important to me for… reasons.

Honestly, there are so many great lines in this movie. I love it. When I first saw it, it was a rental. I went out and bought it the next day, and watched it every day for at least a week. Everyone should watch it. You should watch it. It's a modern Alice, who ends up in Wonderland, where things have gone a bit downhill. The whole place is run by the Queen of Hearts, who harvests emotions from Oysters (people from our world) in her casino.

Anyway, the line. Why did it stand out, that was the question. Because it was different. I'd never heard the phrase before. So I stole it (and even used it in a past post). The movie also contains the line "madder than a box of frogs," which I think I should use more often.

It’s currently 1:30am, so I'm going to call it for this post. Maybe by Tuesday I'll have something more interesting to write about. I'm not counting on it. I did mention in the past that I might do a regular feature where I talk about cool music I found. This is still in the works, not to worry.

Rejection of Reality

I've recently acquired a challenge thing that gives 31 days of writing prompts. The idea is to get yourself in the habit of writing every day. The first prompt is to write about a favorite childhood book. Like, you're supposed to relive your memories of experiencing this story.

This veers dangerously into the realm of reality. I don’t do reality, as a general rule. I'm not really a fan of "write what you know," because what I know is pretty boring. But I accepted the challenge, so here we are.

The question of a favorite childhood book is a tricky one. What are the parameters of childhood? That's potentially a lot of years, and a lot of books. When I initially read the prompt, the story that came to mind was Dr. Seuss' "Too Many Daves" which was actually part of a collection called The Sneetches and Other Stories. The thing about that story is that I barely remember reading it as a child. As an adult, I actually had it memorized for a while. I revisited it this past Christmas, so it was fairly fresh in my mind. So all of today I had bits of it rolling around in my head. And I'd laugh to myself like a weirdo.

But this isn't a very interesting story. Do you see why I don't write reality? It’s not fun or exciting. I want very much to tell you a detailed story about reading a beloved book and getting lost in the story and some wonderful tale of youthful imagination. But I don't remember that. I remember reading a lot of books, but not anything noteworthy about the reading experience.

That's my issue with prompts like this. Anything that's "Tell about an experience you had" is going to end in automatic failure for me. For a supposed writer, I'm a pretty terrible storyteller. But you give me a prompt that's like, "Make up a story where something explodes," and we're golden. I can make up anything. I don’t have any interesting personal experiences to draw from.

So I failed the Day 1 prompt. We'll see if we can do better tomorrow. I looked ahead to the next one, but I've forgotten what it was.

What about you, readers? What was your favorite childhood book, and do you have an interesting story about it?