I'll Send All My Loving

"I'll pretend I am kissing

The lips I am missing

And hope that my dreams will come true

And then while I'm away

I'll write home everyday

And I'll send all my loving to you"

-All My Loving, The Beatles

Dear Blog,

Things That Happened Since I Last Posted On You

• I cut my hair. Well, I didn't cut it, the hair salon lady did. What a disaster that would be if I did. *nervous laugh* So now, my hair is mildly shorter. Wonder if my classmates will notice when I go back to prison,*cough* I mean school. :) Oh, did I mention I apparently have a cowlick on my right side? o_O
• We went to this big bookstore that used to be Border's till they ran out of business. There were approx. four people in the whole building, including my mother, me, and the one cash register lady. They were having a sale, five dollars or less for every single book. Heaven, right? Except they were all old books. I was allowed to choose one book so I chose My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger. I've already read it, but I didn't want my mom to know that or else she'd make me chose another book. Shhh..I freaking love that book! I'm rereading it and have just rediscovered my freaking love for it.
• I entered this contest on Nathan Bransford blog. To read my entry click here. It's under my username alavanille and starts out with "Boy am I pissed". Isn't that interesting? Aren't you craving to read more? :D Sure you are.
• I FINISHED THE 2K FOR MY CREATIVE WRITING CLUB! *excited yelling not suitable for this blog ensues*

Things That Did Not Happen Since I Last Posted On You

• Read Crime and Punishment. Hey, My Most Excellent Year is just too good and too distracting. ;)

Oh yeah, I finally finished it. It's a roller coaster. Are you ready to hear the whole story? Well, I'll try to make it short.

Originally, I wanted this next post to be about a serious talk with Sleeping Beauty (the Disney movie). And I would have pointed out many issues I had with it, even though it was my favorite movie when I was in 4th grade (I even dressed up as her for Halloween). But then in my woe, I realized it would be impossible for me to write a decent story with all the necessary elements such as climax, resolution, because I have this problem with purple prose (Purple prose is a term of literary criticism used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself.) Yeah, I have a problem with that. I'll blog about these topics later, though. So I was seriously freaking out and I thought, hey I should blog about my problem with purple prose, which is overflowing in my ex-WIP (ex-WIP?!?! Will explain later). But then my mom banned me from the internet and wouldn't let me back on if I didn't finish my 2K. Though I did manage to sneak on to enter in Nathan's contest.

So, in incredible woe, I looked back on my ex-WIPs to get an idea from them, and I did (see, I do eventually come back to them.) I had this, what I thought was, great beginning. I knew the middle, but I didn't know the end. You'll now see why I'm weird. I do all the editing in my head. No skeleton first draft for me, nope, everything gets organized in my head because I'm not going to bother typing or writing out something and just changing it later. I don't know, but once I write something down, it feels final, you know? And then I'm reluctant to cut it out. Maybe you don't know and it's just me. *shrug* Great possibility. Anyways, in the middle of all this great thinking, I entered in the contest (do I really have to hyperlink it again?). What's crazy is the idea for the contest was my very old original idea for my 2K (here's another example of why you should always keep ex-WIPs or at least keep ideas in a notebook). After I did the first diary entry, I thought I really liked where this was going, so just for fun I did a second journal entry and I thought, this can really go somewhere. Before you know it, a plot is forming in my head and I'm terribly afraid my current WIP has now changed and my other current WIP has now retired to ex-WIP. Oh, do I have to go into all the details? Okay.

Why I Had to Ditch My WIP

1. Time was running out (by that I mean my break was coming to end) and I still hadn't written anything for it. I think I was becoming bored *le gasp!* with it.
2. Rereading the 6K, I realized there was way too much purple prose.
3. I watched how they made the Aladdin movie, which was really interesting, and I found out they had made this whole story board but some guy said "I don't like it" and they had to start all over. I got a glimpse of their old story board, and I have to say, the version they have now is way better than what they had then. This got me thinking maybe the plot in my head for the WIP was like their old story board. And in truth, I didn't like it that much.
4. I watched Bridges of Madison County, which is based on the novel by Robert James Waller. While watching it, the more I thought Wow this is an amazing story line and Man, my story line is crappy. I cried at the end of the movie. I don't if it was because I so felt the character of Francesca losing her love or because I was mourning my WIP which seemed as flat and dry as the plains of Iowa.

Thus, ex-WIP. Ta ta, farewell, I hate to say adieu but this new project inspired by Nathan's contest is really intriguing and I'm actually having fun writing it. I feel like I'm back on track now, thus the new label: woohoowriting.

Anyways, there's something I want to talk about that's non-related to my writing, though it is related to Nathan Bransford's contest.

I'm reading through all these diary entries and I'm seeing a lot of this:

• The friend who has everything. Everything meaning: Pretty, thin, and has all the boys chasing after her.

Read this. What's number 20? Uh, huh.

Might I say, cliche alert? If you don't believe me, go and skim through the entries yourself. This was seen a lot along with teens (well, the prompt was to write a diary entry in a teen voice) complaining about how stupid a diary was. Though, I didn't have a problem with that as much as I did with the beautiful-friend-who-gets-everything. I'm not saying it's bad, but I'm seeing it a lot and I have to wonder if it's the only thing that teens to seem to have a dilemma with. Not true. Sure, sometimes I get jealous if my friend makes a new friend and I feel like an antiscoial loner, but it's not the top thing on my mind. I'm not going to be writing a journal entry about it and there's no way my life is revolved around my contempt for my friend-who-gets-everything. Hmm. Well, it's definitely something to think about. And if you're reading this and haven't entered the contest yet, I suggest not doing it on a beautiful-friend-who-has-everything and try to set yourself apart from the crowd, kays?? Unless, of course, you can twist the concept in some way, which I'm always a fan of. ^.^

Well, this has officially turned out longer that I meant to. I wish you all Happy Writings!!!

After the break,

Vanille

So in the spirit of Nathan Bransford contest, I give you this quote:

"Keep a diary and one day it'll keep you." -Mae West

P.S. I don't know how the heck Nathan Bransford is going to read all those entries (there are approx. 500 +) and be the sole judge. By George, I myself was skimming and skipping through those entries There were also some good ones that I wouldn't be able to choose from. My, would I be a horrible judge.

P.S.2. My mom read the 2K and said it was pretty good! :D Before you say what I know what you're going to say, let me say this (whoa): My mom isn't one of those parents who are biased and say everything their children does is pretty much flippin' awesome. My mom is harsh, and whenever I allow her to read my writing, she usually hates it. But this time, she actually liked it (but with some editing suggestions, of course). I'm really proud. She said I really do have a talent for writing. (I knew it ;)) When my English teacher gave me a B- on my essay, my mom said "You're not a good writer." GAH! But this convinced her back. Okay, maybe I can't write essays that have to be specifically structured, but I think I'm hecka of a storyteller. ;) IMO.

Help Me If You Can

"Help me if you can I'm feeling down

And I do appreciate you being 'round

Help me get my feet back on the ground

Won't you please please help me?"

-Help!, The Beatles

Help indeed. Le photo du jour couldn't be more correct.

What I have accomplished these past few days:

• eating myself silly
• singing myself silly on the karaoke (Scored 99/100 singing The Beatles)
• playing solitaire
• updating this blog

What I haven't accomplished:

• Writing. Anything.

When I last left you a few posts ago, I told you I had around 2,000 words finished.

I still do.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down. Okay. You know what? Right after I post this, I'm going to write. No getting distractions and chatting on the Young Writer's Society chat rooms. No more internet, period. It's not that I have writer's block or I don't know what to write. It's because I'm lazy, that's it. I know exactly what to write. I am capable of writing, see me write now? I just...I don't know what's gotten into me. What's gotten into you Vanille?! (This is bad, I'm talking to myself).You know, I'm on my three-week winter break right now. One week has already passed, this is the start of my second. When I have to go back...*shudders*...I will be very busy. No time to write, maybe no time to update this blog. Not even on weekends. *sigh*

Also, I have to write a 2K short story for my creative writing club. I haven't done so yet, because I don't know what to write. Every plot I think of cannot fit into a mere 2K, though that's only as far as I've gotten to on my novel! *cries*

Well. I suppose I've already ranted enough on my writing woes. One thing that surprised me today: When I reached my hand inside my bag of hot cheetos, there were practically none left. O_o

Yikes. Anyways today I'm going to be talking about literary lingo. For those of you newbie writers out there who are completely ignorant when you go to these critique groups or writing forums. You find yourself asking stupidly, "What is ___?" Well, I'm about to tell you now.

• WIP=Work In Progress not to be confused with RIP
• MC = Main Character
• MMC = Male Main Character
• FMC = Female Main Character
• SC = Secondary Character not used that often
• IMO = In My Opinion this can go for anything really, but writers tend to politely debate, and so we use this acrony a fair lot
• POV = Point of View like 1st person POV
• YA = Young Adult
• MG = Middle Grade
• SF = Science Fiction
• Fanfiction = A story based on books, TV shows, movies, etc. Harry Potter and mangas are used quite a lot in fanfiction.
• RPG = Role Playing Games, You basically fill out a form for an imaginary character you are going to play, then you and other rpgers will create a story by talking to each other as your imaginary characters.
• Plot Bunny = A plot that has been hopping around your head all day. Usually pops up during a story you are writing. Very bothersome, pestering you with writing them. Often writers send these plot bunnies to Plot Bunny Day Cares, to be picked up once they have finished doing whatever they're doing.
• Mary Sue = A character that is too perfect (nothing can go wrong with them, the odds seem to be always on their side, flawless). Mary Sues are considered to be very cliched, and there can be many variants of them (like writers trying so hard not to make their character into a Mary Sue, they end up making one anyways - this is called an Anti-Sue). They also appear in fanfiction and rpgs. For more information on Mary Sues go here. To see if your character may be a Mary Sue, go here.
• Gary Stu = The male version of a Mary Sue

Well, that's all I can think of right now, if I remember, I'll add more later. My MMC (don't you feel smart now that you know what I'm talking bout?) scored a 26 on the Mary Sue test, which is pretty good, I just need to polish him up a bit. :) But so far, I haven't really gotten to know his personality (because if you've forgotten, I'm only 2K in!). Hope you've gotten a better understanding of literary lingo now.

Also, on that website, they had some pretty funny syndromes which I see often. These are what I'd called another FTSODTP (For The Sake of Developing the Plot). Let me explain: You give your character a syndrome such as antisocial personality disorder so they won't talk to people. It's an easy way to do it, isn't it? Kind of like an excuse. And a lot of these are also bcoming overused.

Anyways, let me include some of them here.

• Changing the spelling of an ordinary name - EG, Alysin, Makynzie, Jayk, Dayve
• Does your character pick up new skills insanely fast? - "It usually takes years to learn this super advanced sword technique, but Mary Sue did it in days! *CoughKurosakiIchigoCough*
• Barbie Doll syndrome - Giving the character the main title for every plot that comes their way, no matter how irrelevant the titles are to each other; Giving them multiple professions/titles that have nothing to do with each other. "Princess Barbie has a medical degree. When she isn't saving the lives of humans, she's cooking top-class dinners at her favorite restaurant and saving the lives of pets everywhere!
• "Rebellious princess syndrome" - Symptoms include complaining about or refusing to wear "ladylike" clothing, refusing aristocratic suitors, generally hating her social position, and possibly even running away to escape marriage."
• Personal fixation/obsession - For example, Darth Vader's obsession with finding Luke Skywalker, Harry Osbourne's fixation with killing Spider-Man in the movies, and Wile E. Coyote's obsession with catching the Roadrunner.

From This Website

These are the ones I found interesting, these are the kinds of things Mary Sue's often have. I'd like to comment on the first and last one. For the first one: Are you noticing that vampires are now being called vampyres, fairies have turned into faeries, and magic is either magyk or magik? Kind of being overused now isn't it... And as for the last post, this is only very Mary Sue if the person has a personal fixation/obsession with someone for no apparant reason. That is horrible! It is one of those FTSODTP things. Eeksa!

That's all for now, folks. My back hurts and when I stretch, it cracks. That is not good. Imma off to write! *arm shoots out to the sky like Superman*

Au revoir, after the break,

Vanille

"If I fall asleep with a pen in my hand, don't remove it - I might be writing in my dreams." - Danzae Pace

P.S. Just keep on ignoring the Read More! things. I'm trying to get it fixed.