Hindrance, Thy Name is Procrastination.

Image by Nemo's great uncle via FlickrWhat should I be doing?

Working on the long, hyper detailed version of my outline.

What am I actually doing?

Typing a blog post, eating fried rice, and mindlessly browsing the Kindle Store. Am I proud of myself? No, but I'm definitely not ashamed, even though I should be.

Yep. Should be.

I want to read Lolita, but I'm afraid it will be one of those classic books that turns out to be amazing and incredibly boring at the same time. That was how the 1962 film struck me, anyway: I just couldn't stop watching because I was so interested, but I'll be skinned and left out in the sun to dry if it didn't drag on forever! I know that you can't judge a book by it's movie, so I think I might just give it a shot.

I downloaded a sample on my Kindle to see how I liked it. I was immediately stricken with the desire to both slap Humbert Humbert in the face and crane my neck and stare at him as if he were the eighth wonder of the world. I've been told that this feeling will persist for most of the novel.

 This is very different from how the movie made me feel about him...mostly, I would assume, because they changed quite a bit about Lolita to redeem the tale a bit.

It's almost like looking at a train wreck. You just can't stop, and a tiny, sordid part of you actually wants to see more.

To POV or not to POV?

Today I have a question. That's right, a question. No rambling about nothing important at all, not even a little bit. Just a simple question.

Which point of view is your favorite? Is it first? Third person limited? What about omniscient? It may even be second, rare as it is these days. Does it change from one to the other when you're writing instead of reading?

When it comes to reading I usually like what best fits the story, but am definitley limited to third person in writing. It's just so hard to make good prose when you're limited to your narrator. I envy those of you who are gifted in that area, I really do. First person may be a lot harder to pull off, but it really does look fun.

I would also like to note that the single most viewed post on this entire blog is the one that mentions My Little Pony. Truly, it is capable of mind control. I hope I didn't scar those of you who were unfamiliar with the story by linking Cupcakes a while back, and just want to warn everypony one more time that you should be very, very afraid of Pinkie Pie.

Excerpt the Second

Image via WikipediaI'm fairly certain that I've at least got an actual scene from my novel going on here. The goal was to focus on character motivation...I was going to write about how Muriel wants to be a daredevil and find adventure but can't have it because she's stuck in the city. You can all see just how well that went. I gave the nutjob just what she wanted...or, well, what she thinks she wants for now.
 Somehow I never end up developing the parts of my characters that I sat down to develop.

I do believe I have a new development for my Muriel, however: She's crazy as a loon.

(Psst...I hope there aren't as many typing and spelling mistakes in this excerpt as there were in the first!)



------

The snow was falling in sheets. As she leaned out the window, feeling the tiny, icy pinpricks land on her skin, Muriel tried to make out the building across the alleyway beneath her bedroom. It was all in vain; there was simply too much snow.

She leaned back into the room and shut the window. Chilled water dripped down her face as the flakes that had lighted on her head began to melt in the warmed air. Snow, and lots of it. Just what she had been hoping and praying for. December and January had almost passed completely without so much as a flake.

Behind her the television was chattering away, and she crossed the room to her dresser so that she could turn it off. The entire house was finally asleep. Now it could be quiet.

While she was still at the front of her room she flipped off the light switch, leaving the room in complete darkness, and felt her way to her bed. Muriel didn't want the slightest bit of glare on the window. She was hoping that the man would come and stand on the sidewalk that night like he had every night for the past two weeks, the one that she could see if she looked as far to the left as she could while staring out at the city beyond. Of course, the snow that night would make it harder to see him, but Muriel had the feeling she would. It was almost as if the world around him wanted him to be seen.

The snow was so thick that night, however, that she couldn't even see the fire escape directly outside. There was only a thick, animated whiteness, squirming and moving as if it were alive as each snowflake rocketed toward the ground. Muriel tried to zero in on a single flake and follow its journey to the ground, but it had left her field of vision before she could really even focus on it at all.

All seemed still in the frozen world outside save those madly swirling snowflakes.

Muriel snapped awake before she had even realized that she had fallen asleep. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she was covered in cold sweat. Something had frightened her, of that she was convinced. But what?

She rested her forehead on the glass. A chill shook her as the heat of her body met the frigid windowpane. How long had she been asleep? It couldn't have been very long, for the snow had not slowed one bit...unless it was going to snow buckets all night.

That was when Muriel saw it. Or him, rather.

He was in the alleyway this time. Not very far into it, as he still would have been quite visible from the street were the weather not so bad. He was only a relatively small black form, shaped very much like a man and nearly invisible behind the wall of falling snow. But it was him, there was no question.

Muriel slid her window open and climbed out onto the fire escape wearing nothing but her pink flannel nightgown.

The cold snow quickly penetrated her slippers, but she didn't care. Holding onto the rail to keep her balance, Muriel climbed down the metal stairs, taking note of how many level areas she came to. There were three floors between her bedroom and the alley below. Before long she came to the ladder and nearly slid down it rather than climbed.

Her foot finally struck pavement when she realized that what she was doing was absolutely insane. She was a thirteen year old Jewish girl standing in the middle of a snow filled alleyway in Brooklyn at who knew what hour of the night to meet some stranger that she had seen from her window. It was completely mad.

Mad and wonderful.

Muriel grinned and set off in the direction of the anthropomorphic black figure.

The closer she got, the more of him she could see. It was as if they two of them were concealed in a bubble; the blizzard was raging all around it but not inside of it. It could have simply been that she was so focused on him that the snow didn't matter anymore, but Muriel always liked to imagine that something simply wonderful was happening, even when nothing out of the ordinary was going on at all.

When she was only a few feet away from him he turned, and she saw that he was wearing a bowler hat pulled down over his face that was as black as the suit he wore. It looked as if not a single snowflake had landed on either one. They were still both just as black as black could be.

He reached out his hand, palm up, and beckoned to her.

Behind her was her apartment, and inside were her mother and father. Muriel loved them more than anything else in the world and couldn't stand the thought of leaving them alone. She also knew that it was incredibly wrong to go with a stranger, because when one did such a thing one had no idea where one would end up.

And that was what had her pinned. She didn't know why, but Muriel knew that this individual wasn't your garden variety stranger. He had somewhere that he would like to take her, and if she didn't go with him, she would never find out where that place was.

Crazy, irrational, and sometimes unbelievable Muriel took his hand and followed after him when she felt him pulling on her. He threw the jacket of his suit over her shoulders and led her on toward where she knew the street was, but where she saw nothing but that moving whiteness.

Before long the white was still and hazy, and she realized that there was no more snowfall. There was only seemingly endless white fog, and various details and outlines coming gradually into focus.

Though she was dazed and dizzy, Muriel actually managed a laugh. She had come into the alleyway just to talk to this gentleman, and so far she hadn't said a single word. 

Is the future now? God, I hope not.

Image by Witer via FlickrI finally began Fahrenheit 451 the other day. I'm only on part 2 right now, but I can already tell that everyone who told me that the book was a must-read was completely right.

They were also right about how, though the story is set in a dystopian future, it reflects our own society today so much that it's almost frightening. I can say that it's much more frightening than not because I'm certain it reflects our society more now than it did when it was first written in the 1950s.




Books are illegal, television shows and games have been dumbed down to the point that they're nothing but series of bright colors, sports are all anyone cares about because they don't require much philosophy, and all of the liberal arts schools are closed because people stopped going to them. All of the jobs involve technical and computer skills, and sitting around on the porch talking is seen as useless and dangerous because, golly gee, if people start thinking then they just might get ideas! Different ideas! Then there will be war over those ideas, and it won't even be the "fun kind" of war.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm scared that this is where we're going to end up fairly soon, especially since I spent eight hours in a lecture hall the day before listening to a lady tell me that it didn't matter whether or not you were doing what you loved if there wasn't a job market for it. You know what? I don't care if I'm going to be poor because being a writer isn't corporate enough for the future. I'll open up a can of beans and eat it like it's a turkey dinner because I'll be doing what I love.

And besides, people with no house don't have to pay the bills. So nyah.

In short, read this book and let it scare you. You'll thank yourself for picking it up, and don't ever let someone tell you that you shouldn't follow your dreams just because they're becoming obsolete. Don't let the man keep you down, and don't get stuck in the three piece cage if you want to work with whales and wear a scuba suit.

Three guesses as to what this post is going to be about.

ThImage by brody4 via FlickrI'm sincerely sorry that I can't shut up about this novel. It's just really coming together, and quite frankly, I'm overjoyed. Nothing has ever come together like this for me. Usually it starts as an idea and stays as an idea because I'm more than afraid to plan it out and actually DO it. Fear of screwing up? Oh yes. I should think so.

This time, however, I told myself that such a thing simply would not fly. I buckled down and actually started outlining the thing, and didn't make myself too scared to plan out the story from start all the way to finish.

The only problem is that now I'm terrified of actually writing it.

On a related matter, I decided to bump the age of my main character from fourteen down to thirteen. While she's supposed to seem young and naive for her age, I was writing my scenes and realized that she just might be a bit too young and naive to be fourteen.

Is she too immature to be thirteen?

Incredibly. But not so much that it makes it look like I such at characterization. I've just got to say that I'm glad I made the change before I actually started on the manuscript. Does anyone out there know how annoying it is to go back and change things about a character (such as name or age) and then go change all of the references made TO that thing you changed? And all of the plot points it influenced?

Ugh. That's another reason to make sure you've got it straight before you start writing. Believe me, the more sure you are about exactly what is going to happen and when, the easier the actual writing will be.

Excerpt, maybe?

I'm not exactly sure when this scene will appear in my novel, only that it will. I know that the writing is suckish at the moment, it only being the first draft of a first draft. It will probably change quite drastically before things are over with, but I believe it will remain essentially the same scene.

I kind of just went with the flow on this one and wrote. It's from the novel I'm hoping isn't terrible that I'm working on right now, the one I recently decided to turn into a series (seeing as the synopsis alone was going to span several pages in Word).

Writing this scene has told me, however, that I'm incredibly rusty, especially at dialogue. Definitely need to work on some more prompts before I start outlining this baby. I'm thinking I might actually start the writing in about three weeks, so I'm excited :D

I also have my fingers crossed as I copy and paste this, seeing as the past four attempts (at least) have resulted in disaster. Seriously, this thing has taken me days to get up.

-----


The knight lightly shoved Muriel into a room that was so dark the window looked like a patch of stars on the wall. Without a word he left, nearly slamming the door behind him.

She felt a hand grab onto her shoulder to stop her from going any farther into the room and assumed, or rather hoped, that it was the Retriever.

“Follow me to my room. There isn't any light in your's.”

She recognized the voice. Muriel didn't know why she breathed a sigh of relief, but she did.

His hand found hers, and the Retriever led her straight on through the darkness for at least a few yards. “Wait here. I'll light the fire.”

Muriel listened as he fumbled around in the darkness. Tears were welling up in her eyes, and her face was hot. She had kept saying the entire way up to the room that she needed to go home...why hadn't anyone listened to her?

The room was suddenly illuminated with flickering, steadily growing light. The Retriever had found the fireplace.

From what little light there was Muriel could make out teal wallpaper, colored slightly yellow from the firelight. The fireplace was cream colored, and decorated with all sorts of carvings that she really wasn't in the mood to look at. As the light grew stronger she could see dark polished wooden floors and a bed in the corner of the room opposite the fireplace.

“Please, sit down...I'll be with you in just a moment.” the Retriever turned towards the window and lifted his hat, placed it on the windowsill.

Muriel didn't budge, her nails digging into her forearms as hot tears streamed down her cold face. “Can I just go home? Please?”

The Retriever was silent, his jaw tightly clenched. He leaned out the window, palms gripping the windowsill. “No...not once you're in.”

“But-”

He pushed himself up and crossed the room, taking her hand. “Please? Come and sit down.”

Muriel, tears now streaming freely down her face, finally complied.

The bedsheets were white and plain, making the bed look large and spacious, if not plain. She drew her knees up to her chest and sobbed, no longer caring to hold back.

“Come on, don't cry...please? There's nothing either one of us can do about it.” he laid his hand warily on her back, patting it gently.

Muriel would have pulled away from anyone else, but she could tell that he was a kind man and meant what he said. “Why...won't...you...let...me...leave?”

“Because you can only come in. You can't go out. Your kind, I mean...once you're in, you have to stay.” the Retriever explained. “Oh, please stop crying...this happens every time, I hate it!”

He leaned forward, his head in his hands.

Muriel wiped her eyes and sniffed thickly. “What do you mean? My kind? Every time?”

“Every one of you...you always cry.” he sounded exhausted, his voice muffled by his hands.

Muriel tugged at his shirt collar until he sat up. “You've...brought in more people like me before?”

“Yes...or rather, I used to.” the Retriever ran his hand through his hair. “Nowadays we can't get them to come anymore...especially when they're as old as you. Usually only the little ones can even see me calling to them.”

“I...I don't understand.” Muriel shook her head.

“You're not just here for the fun of it, um...” the Retriever paused.

“Muriel.”

“You're not just here for the fun of it, Muriel. I never would have taken you away from your world unless I had a reason. We need you here. To survive.”

He stood up and made his way to the door, stopping in the doorframe. “I know tonight's been rough. I'll talk about it more tomorrow, I promise. Your room is adjoined to mine. I'll sleep there tonight since it's this one is warmer becuase of the fire. We didn't have any in your fireplace because, well, quite frankly we didn't expect to have anyone come.”

He chuckled, so lightly that it was almost inaudible. “We had almost given up on getting anyone at all...you don't know how much we need you here, Muriel. It's been...such a long time.”

Muriel wiped another tear off of her cheek—she knew there was no way she was going to get them to stop flowing enough to get a decent night's sleep---and, when she saw that he hadn't moved yet, managed to keep her voice from shaking enough to ask, “What's your name? You know mine. I want to know your's.”

“I don't have one. They just call me The Retriever when we don't have one of you and The Guardian when we do.”

“Ah.”

Muriel reclined onto the bed and stared up at the blurred ceiling. “Nick, then.”

“What?” the Retriever asked, stopping in the middle of his slow retreat into the other room.

“Nick. That's what I'm naming you.”