I'm still alive!

I'm kind of afraid to check the last time I actually posted here. But here's the long and short of it.

First it was the last few weeks of school, and that was crazy between writing the last couple episodes of Spacecano and getting ready for graduation.

This happened before the semester was actually over. Ha.

Then eleven of us went on a missions trip to Christ's Outreach for the Blind.

It's pretty scenic down South.

And I had a camera.

SO YEAH.

That's where I was.

And now I'm planning to do Camp NaNoWriMo next month. Anybody else doing it now or doing it next month as well?

Heartbeats and Heroes

(Sorry to do this two times in a row. Scraps coming tomorrow or Sunday.)

Mitchell Schubert isn't exactly a shining picture of health. Ever since he was a kid, he's had what he calls "random heartbeat attacks". The adults call it AVNRT because it's very grown-up to use a weird acronym.

Kids used to call him a beanpole in school, because that's what he looked like. Well, a redheaded beanpole. Add to the fact that he wears glasses and a medical alert bracelet, and you have yourself a recipe for bullying.

Jack doesn't really care how much Mitchell yelled about his random heartbeat attacks. Mitchell's a tiny thing, and tiny things are fun to push around and knock about behind the school. Also, he is pretty sure that Mitchell made the whole thing up to get out of gym.

Mitchell figures that Ace must be his guardian angel when he shows up.

"Hey, jerkoff!" Ace adjusts his baseball cap. Tufts of dirty blonde hair stick out from under the brim. "Leave him alone!"

Jack smirks and pushes Mitchell away. Mitchell seizes the opportunity to whip out his medicine, taking it quickly to stop the palpitations.

Jack steps towards Ace. "Or what?"

Ace clenches his fists together. "I'ma make you pay."

Jack raises an eyebrow and pushes Mitchell to the ground. Ace runs at him, right hand in the air and ready to make contact, but he freezes when Jack grabs his wrist. "Stupid move."

Ace doesn't miss a beat. He drives his left fist into Jack's nose, bloodying it. Jack staggers back, and Ace smirks. "I'm ambidextrous, nimrod."

Jack wipes some of the blood from his nose and stares at it. He doesn't seem to know how to react, so he only gives the other two an uncertain look before threatening, "I'm gonna get you guys!" and trying to swagger off. The swagger is off.

Ace snorts. Then he notices that Mitchell is sprawled out on the ground, red-faced and sweaty. "You OK?" he asks. "You don't look so good."

Mitchell guesses he doesn't. "I'm fine… j-just chillin'…" he says, hoping the other boy would just drop the topic. He bites his lip. "Why'd you do that?"

Ace falls quiet as he sits down next to Mitchell, putting a fair amount of space between them. "People who… who hit other people should know what it's like. They should have a taste of their own medicine." He tugs at the bottom of his long shirtsleeves.

Mitchell looks at him, feeling like he was missing something. "Oh. 'Kay." He holds out one of his hands. "My name's Mitchell."

Ace grins. "Ace." He takes Mitchell's hand. "You stick with me, kid. We're gonna be just fine."

–

Mitchell hasn't seen his best friend's eyes since they were fourteen years old. Ace has been doing a good job the past three and a half years hiding them behind a huge pair of aviators. He doesn't even take them off in class, which Mitchell thinks is ridiculous. On the other hand, it's impressive that the teachers let him get away with it.

And it wasn't like he hadn't tried to find out why Ace had kept the shades on for so long. The guy has an annoying talent for changing the topic every time Mitchell brings it up. So Mitchell is a little surprised when Ace brings it up himself.

"You know how I've been wearing these awesome aviators for like… forever?" Ace leans against Mitchell's piano, fiddling with the keys but not playing any distinct melody.

Mitchell raises an eyebrow. "Um, yeah."

"And you know how I'm like, always here or at work or somewhere? And how I never let you in my house for long?" The piano keys plunk in discord.

"Get to the point, man."

Plunk. Plunk-plunk. "Phht. 'K, don't freak out on me, bro." Ace takes hold of the glasses, and he slowly pulls them off. A long, thick scar traces the bottom of his left eye. It's the most noticeable thing in the world. "Yeah. It's bad, I know."

Mitchell can't help but stare. "Um… what? What happened? I don't…"

Ace just stares at him. "Think about it, Mitchell. Do I really need to spell this out for you?"

Mitchell grapples with what this could mean. Then it hits him like so many refrigerators full of horror, if that was a thing. "Oh my God. Ace. You… you mean… your parents?" He touches his own left eye.

"My dad." Ace plunks at the keys some more. "So yeah." He swallows. "That's kinda what the thing with the maps is about."

What? Wait. What. "Oh you moron. You complete dumb – ffffh." Mitchell can feel his heartbeat beginning to quicken, but it's no cause for alarm yet. "You are not running away. That's the stupidest thing you've ever thought of! And for that matter, why didn't you ever tell anyone that this – " he makes some wild motion around his eye – "was happening? You coulda gotten out of there! Why the hell would you stay? Obviously you don't give a crap about your family, so what's there to lose?"

Ace stares at him with angry grey eyes, but he is so calm. "Mitchell, calm down. You're stressing yourself out." He puts a hand on Mitchell's shoulder and forces him to sit down.

Mitchell glares at him. "I can't believe you're just going to up and disappear. This your idea of a goodbye, you jerk?"

"Dude, would you just calm down so you don't have heart failure or something?" Ace says this more snappishly than intended. "…Sorry."

Mitchell sighs and nods. "I'm calm. My heart is AO-flippin'-K." He closes his eyes tightly. "No heart failure up in here."

"Good." Ace sits down next to him. "Cuz you should come with me. Y'know. To Washington and be basically Canadian." He smiles a little when Mitchell opens one eye to see if he's serious. "I'm so serious, dude."

"Oh." Mitchell opens both eyes and stares ahead. "So we're like… road-tripping it up now like some Fellowship of the Specs, right?" He smiles and holds out his fist.

Ace pounds it. "For sure."

This is what I've been doing.*

*Well, sorta. Wrote this ages ago. Just continuing it now.

Psychology, Cartography

Ace is eighteen and still hasn’t completely grown into his own body. He’s made up for it by growing well into his mind and everybody else’s. Just because he sells fruit doesn’t make him any less of a psychologist. And just to make sure nobody else can get into his head, he keeps on a pair of aviators.

That’s his superhero name, by the way. Aviators.

He volunteers for more shifts than anybody else, and if they won’t give him any extra shifts, he’ll hang around the place anyway. It’s not like he has the best job in the world. He just works the register. It’s like being stuck on repeat.

He is so tired of being stuck on repeat.

Shea works with him on almost every shift. She cannot fathom why he is almost always there. “Are you seriously here? Again? Dontcha have a life, you loser?” Shea actually believes that honesty is the best policy. Funny how quiet she gets if anyone asks her about that eye patch, though.

Yeah, maybe there are other places that Ace could be. But being closer to work means getting more shifts, which means getting a little farther and further away from his house. And shoot, anything that gets him away from there is all right in Ace’s book.

“Don’t you ever go home, bro? It’s like you’re either here or at school or at my house. All the time.” Mitchell thinks he’s so hilarious. He has no idea how dead-on that statement is. Ace doesn’t think he’s actually seen his biological family in two solid days.

Good.

“You caught me, dude. I am totally trying to find a way to secretly move into your house without you realizing it.” Mitchell laughs. He has no idea Ace wasn’t kidding.

When he was younger, he used to fantasize about taking off in the dead of night. No warnings, no notes, no nothing – a clean break. Except if he did, then who’d end up saving Mitchell from getting shoved into lockers?

Mitchell has no idea what it’s really like at home. Ace is too proud to admit that he needs a hero, too. So he settles for finding excuses to not go back. He gets weird looks and awkward questions about it on a regular basis, but that’s fine.

Everybody will be asking a different set of questions soon enough.

Before he was twelve and needed to save his best friend’s skinny behind at every turn, he collected maps and taped them up in his room like wallpaper. Every night, he would trace the paths from his house to any number of anywhere-elses.

Canada sounds nice, but he doesn’t have a passport. He guesses Washington will do. Washington is basically Canada.

“You should be in cartography,” Mitchell says when he first sees all the maps. Then he realizes he rhymed and laughs.

Ace shrugs. “Whatcha think of Washington, bro?” He’s casual. There’s no ulterior motive behind this question, not at all.

“Dunno.” Mitchell sniffs. “It’s Washington.”

“It’s basically Canada.”

Mitchell chuckles and nods.

“You ever wanna be basically Canadian?”

“Huh?”

Then Ace realizes that his dad’s going to be home and smoothly suggests they relocate – so smoothly that it’s completely awkward. Mitchell notices, of course. He’s only ever been to Ace’s house a couple times in the seven years they’ve known each other, and both times have been brief.

When they relocate to Mitchell’s house, Ace figures it’s time to be straight with him. He pulls off the aviators. Mitchell is shocked, of course. He always thought the glasses had been worn for dramatic effect. Not to hide… that.

Yeah. It’s bad, Ace knows. “That’s kinda what the thing with the maps is about.”

It takes Mitchell a second to figure it out. Then he’s worried and angry and depressed all at one time. Ace has never heard his best friend yell like that. It’s kind of impressive, but it makes sense. Mitchell is a redhead.

When he quiets down, Ace tells him his idea. They’re eighteen, they’re out of school in two days, and they have mobility.

Mitchell’s pretty bright. And he’s pretty up for adventure. Ace guesses that’s why they’re best friends.

So two days later when Shea and Ace close down shop, Ace tries to be extra nice to her. He’s sorry about that eye patch, by the way. Shea is suspicious, but doesn’t question the change in attitude.

“See ya tomorrow, Ace.” She leaves him behind.

Ace smiles to himself. “No you won’t.”

Sunday Scraps

What do you mean this is late? It's just not on time.

This is pretty video-heavy, even for me.

1) I kind of want to read this.


2) So Friday night, my friend Kirstin gathered us to her house to watch this masterpiece:

It was so bad, it was good. Innuendo like you wouldn't expect from the 1950s. Plus it's just... yeeeeah. Half the characters have seizures at some point in the movie. XD What you have to do is get a group together and make the ever-loving fun out of it.

3) Just kinda stumbled across this website/animation called Ana Somnia. It's really interesting because every time you replay it, there's a different animation, but it's really freaky and trippy.

Hope everyone's enjoying their weekend!

Something about school.

...Wait, hold on a minute, you can put a location on these posts now?

*Fiddles with it*

Haha, yes. I am now located in Atlantis. I am now done being a child.

Anyway.

I somehow created the PERFECT STORM OF PROJECTS. Seriously. Episode 3 for Spacecano! is going to show next Thursday, so we're working on that right now. In Group Problem Solving, we have a group presentation also due next Thursday, and it has to be at least 40 minutes long. And in Piano, we have our midterm on Monday. So everybody's kind of practicing for that.

"The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5500 light years" and that's where Google Images stopped being informative.

At least I got to coin the term "snowquake" in the process.

So yeah, it's pretty chaotic, but it's fun, too. It's nice to have all these things to do, y'know?

Some things I've been working on.

1) Patches and Pals (WT)

Tasia Henley is seven years old, has a brown eye and a hazel eye, but doesn’t have cancer. The doctors were worried about that because of the whole iris thing, especially when she started complaining that it was really hard to see. Turned out that she just needed glasses.

Actually, it’s her twin Shea who has cancer. Yes, that’s why she’s cross-eyed and has red eyes a lot. That’s also why her eye hurts so much so often. Everything makes a horrible kind of sense now. But Shea is really brave and strong, so Tasia keeps telling everybody that it’s going to be just fine. So stop worrying, ‘kay?

They’re going to do something called an enucleation, which is a fancy word that means when Shea wakes up, she’s only going to have one eye. But that’s OK because it means she gets a cool eye patch, so she might as well be a pirate. And pirates are just so cool, right? Right.

“When you get your pirate ship, I can be first mate, right?” Tasia and Shea’s drawings of their pirate adventures litter the hospital bed.

Shea gives Tasia a pointed look. “Duh. You’re my sister. It’s the rules.” She grabs a red crayon and scribbles in the ship.

2) To Carmen, from Waldo

Where in the world could you be?
Oh I wish there was some way you could see
That you don't need to steal the world
When adventure's all you need
So take my hand and disappear with me*

*Yes, this is about Where's Waldo and Carmen Sandiego. They would be an amazing couple. Search your heart. You know it to be true.

3) Blue Court Revolution (WT)

There was something sort of light and blue flickering in the darkness when he returned. "That was kind of rude, Evan. I was trying to tell you something, and you just ran off." The blue, light thing shifted a little.

Evan squinted. "Oh geez, is that you again?" He half expected her to tell him that the universe was in danger, and he was the only one who could save it. "Why are you blue? I thought we were twins."

"You can see me now? Awesome." The Cora-shape shifted in a way that suggested a sort of strange dance. "And I'm not blue. I'm just wearing Blue Court regalia, but you wouldn't remember that."

Friday Fragments

Man, it feels like it's been forever since I've done this.

1) So last night was the NPP's first show, and it went great. We had a full house, and everybody seemed to really enjoy it. Only downside was that because of stupid university rules, we couldn't film it. So lame.

2) This is too excellent.

Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant!- Case of the Two Watsons from Squadron B on Vimeo.

3) Did you even realize that the Deathly Hallows movie is less than a month away? I know. Sneaking up like a ninja. A magic ninja.

4) I'm really loving this 750 Words site. As an experiment, I wrote all my 750 words before, then copy and pasted it into the browser. This is what it said about the time:

Writing started at 19:12pm and stopped immediately, bam.

So funny.

Anyways, that's all I really have to say this week. Have a good weekend, everybody! :)

Killing Your Darlings

Guess I'm bringing this up because there is a small faction of people in class who want to kill off the president. Well, the character, I mean. (As a side note, it's ridiculous what we can get away with saying just because we're writers. Such as, "Let's kill the president!")

I've got this reputation for killing at least one character per story, and I'm not sure where it came from, because that's really not accurate. I mean, I get really attached to my characters! Even the villains, bless their evil hearts. If I'm gonna kill them off, it's gotta mean something.

And then we have stories where it seems like everyone is dying left and right. I'm sure we can all think of a couple examples. *Cough*Deathly Hallows*Cough*Hunger Games*Cough* And it's like, never-ending sorrow. And it can be really, really difficult to see the point in some of these deaths. Not saying that it can't be used effectively, but there's just that little part of you that got really attached and... yeah. You know.

So how do you handle character deaths?

Did not mean to disappear./ 750words.com

Oh my gosh, you guys. Blogspot/Blogger just hated me this past week. Every time I tried to go to Blogspot, I got this:

So annoying. But then I tried blogger.com instead today, and that decided to work. Tech is so weird.

Anyways.

Happy Memorial Day to those who are celebrating it. :) For everybody else, Happy Monday! ...Yeah, sorry about that.

I actually wanted to tell you guys about this really awesome website called 750words.com. It's kind of like Write or Die, but more reward-centered instead of punishment-centered. It encourages you to write at least 750 words every day, and you can get these neat badges. It also analyzes what you write to show a bunch of things. Here's a link to one of my analyses.

So yeah, you should definitely check it out! It's really cool.

Friday Fragments - Story Recs Edition

A few book/series/whatever that are pretty excellent and, if you are so inclined, you would do well to check out.

1) Airborne (The Matt Cruse Trilogy) by Kenneth Oppel
Book One: Airborne
Book Two: Skybreaker
Book Three: Starclimber
I read the first two books in high school, and they were the first steampunk books I'd ever come across. This world is just captivating and has this magical quality, even though it's technically sci-fi, and the characters are so much fun. So yeah, there's this spirit of adventure, but it also manages to cover some pretty interesting issues that steampunk is known for.

2) Other Electricities by Ander Monson
This is a collection of short stories that kind of tell one big story. It's really interesting. It's about this town in Michigan that's responding to a girl's death. The voice is kind of odd and the prose is more poetic than in most stories. There are no real "main characters", exactly. It's a strange story, but a good strange.
And yeah, I had to read it for class last fall.

3) Geektastic by an assortment of writers
This book is amazing and pretty much a must-read if you're a nerd or a geek in any way, shape, or form. Sara Zarr's "This is My Audition Monologue" pretty much makes the whole book. It has all the geeky fun things like conventions and RPGs and such, but there are some pretty deep themes explored, too.

And, if you're into fanfic like my friend Kirstin and me:

The Very Secret Diary. (Harry Potter/ Chamber of Secrets)
Dear. God. This story is terrifying in the best possible way. It starts off slow, but of course it gets exciting right around the October 31 entry (and you probably know why). My friend and I both read it in one night.
But just a warning, it gets really dark and disturbing. This is basically CoS from Ginny's perspective.

"Don't be afraid to be deep."

(Despite the title, this is not a serious post.)

So I told you guys about how in the New Play Project, we're writing about a group of super sexy scientists that have to stop a spacecano from destroying earth. Professor Feffer has been telling us that we shouldn't be afraid to be deep and really explore the characters.

Cue him walking in on the Episode Three team (the team I'm on) discussing character histories, personality flaws, and vulnerabilities.

"You know what I said earlier about not being afraid to be deep?"

"Yeah?"

"Not for this group. Don't be afraid to be shallow!"

He's started implying that we're the special group because while all the other teams have stuff written, it took us 2 1/2 hours to even start writing. We were too busy discussing character arcs and motivations and... and chips.

We might be the special group, guys.

Friday Fragments

Well I was going to post yesterday, but Blogspot seemed to be having... issues. (I think I'm going to have to temporarily change the update schedule, by the way, just to accommodate classes.)

1) The New Play Project is excellent. On Tuesday and Thursday morning, we focused on ideas and decided on a show, which we've all seemed to nickname Spacecano. It's about a meteor that's also a volcano that is going to crash into earth in six days, and this team of "super sexy scientists" is trying to find a way to stop it. Meanwhile, there's a volcano cult and all this other stuff happening.
Yeah, this show is going to be kind of amazing.

2) It was so hot this week! It got into the 90s or near the 90s on a couple days at least. It was pretty nice. Guess it's supposed to cool down again, though.

3) I heard someone mention that they're turning The Perks of Being a Wallflower into a movie. This is one book I've wanted to read for a while, but everybody seems so divided on it that I'm a little apprehensive. If any of you have read it, what did you think?
Also, I have no idea if the movie thing is actually true. *Googles* Nevermind. It is true and it is supposed to release next year.

4) Is it super obvious that I am burning out from everything in the world? :)

Have a good weekend, everybody!

Awesome thing of the day: "Born like an artist..."

This incredibly moving piece comes from here.

Edit: Hmm. Apparently the picture doesn't work anymore. Just follow the link. I promise you, it's amazing.

Everybody knows how I feel about videos by now.

And how I love making them, too.



Proper post later. Like, tomorrow. :)