A Healthy Dose of PMS ~#

[Psychotic Maniacal Sanity]

Actually, the funniest thing is that if I don't force myself to sit down and start writing I'll never actually do it. There's a difference, for me, between forcing the writing, and making it come when it doesn't want to. xd Because I'm always so tired lately, and I've gotten quite lazy, the only way to actually write is to force myself to sit downd and actually do something. Once I've started I'm usually okay, but it's the getting started that's the problem. It's really quite odd. O_O

And, yeah. I love the pub rants, they're awesome. =O I read a blog similar to it a while ago, but unfortunately the author stopped her blogging and so all the posts stopped. ;-; At least with these, they're still going! =DD

And, this year in English we get to study... Well, we do one piece of drama written before 1770, which is She Stoops To Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith, and then we do some poetry later in the year (well, in the spring actually), which is a selection of work by Emily Dickinson. Novel-wise we actually get a choice; the coursework involves us basically choosing two 'texts' (anything from poetry, to drama, to novels/short stories) and compare/contrast them under an essay title of our choice. What our teacher is doing, is she's going to study one novel with us (The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morisette). For my other text I've chosen The Bell Jar, by Plath. I love it. <33

Anyway, I kind of digressed, but, hell. It's all good. =3  

[Psychotic Maniacal Sanity]

~Thursday September 18th, 2008.

Today has actually been a good day. I'm surprised. After a few hiccups at school today (which, if people are desperate to know about are in my regular blog) I managed to actually get a lot done. I've only written 1,000 words, sure, but I'm pretty damn positive that if my homework hadn't taken three hours to complete I would have written a hell of a lot more.

So, yeah. I love days like today. And it was one of those wonderful days that start out really misty, and cool and fresh and crisp, and there were blue skies and minus the fact that there were no fallen leaves, it was a wonderful autumn day. It didn't even rain once. =O

My novel at the moment is taking a turn for the more depressing now. There is a slow, steady arc into madness for one of the characters beginning sometime soon, and before long there will be a suicide, more madness, and despite a few nice bonding scenes I think things are actually going to be quite harrowing to write. >_o I've become so attached to these poor people, it's difficult to see it happen to them. And yet, I am really enjoying myself.

I figure, since I've not put anything else up here in the original works forum, I'll make myself feel better about my writing by putting a tiny excerpt that I'm pleased with from tonight. ;3

Quote:

“What are you thinking about?” Ellette asked the question again, her sly alternative noted by Medina instantly. This was her moment, her cry for help, and Ellette was listening.

“Farcia,” she said, and then, “Calina. Renani. Azaliah. I’m thinking about all of it because I don’t know how to sort it.” She shifted, and sat with her face in her hands, elbows pressed against her thighs. She could feel the dark purple bruises that would come already blossoming; her pointed elbows digging into the skin.

“Are you unhappy?” Ellette asked. Something in her voice was sympathetic, and this made Medina look up.

“Aren’t you?”

Ellette shook her head. “I’m not unhappy,” she said softly. “I can’t be unhappy. I like it here, it’s nice and peaceful, and the people are nice to us. Unhappiness is negative, but I don’t feel bad.”

“Oh.” Medina thought about this in silence for some time, gazing out across the lake and the trees that surrounded it like a secure, comforting cocoon. She didn’t understand how Ellette could be happy. “I’m not happy.”

“Nor I,” Ellette agreed. With the prompting of Medina’s confused expression, she elaborated. “I’m not happy,” she said. “I’m not sad. I’m not happy because I don’t feel joy, or elation, but I’m not sad because I don’t feel bad. I guess I’m content with my lot, and that’s all there is to it.”

“I don’t know how to be content,” Medina answered after a few more moments of silence. She began to fiddle with a small pebble by her side thoughtfully, running her pointed fingers over the smooth grey surface absently. “I used to, I guess. I was happy being who I was, although I did want a little more- does that make sense? But ever since... You know how things change, and you can’t ever go back, and once you’ve started the ball rolling it’s like you’ve got to make do with what you’ve got because you might get run over if you stop? Well, I can’t make do. I keep running back and trying to jump that bloody great boulder, and Letty it’s killing me. Every time it hits me I feel like I’ll never get up again, and what’s the point in trying anyway?

“We can’t live our lives like this. I can’t live my live like this. I’m young, and I- I-” Ellette had raised her eyebrows. “I know you’re young too, Letty, I know. I just, I can’t describe it any other way. I want to have a life to live! I’ve read so much in all those books about people, and the way- they live. They don’t get caught up in public scandal; that always happens to the bad guy. What have we done to deserve this?”

Okay. That was a bit long, but it made me feel good. ;]


As for now, I'd better get off to bed. @@;

~  

[necrophagette]

Psychotic Maniacal Sanity

My novel at the moment is taking a turn for the more depressing now. There is a slow, steady arc into madness for one of the characters beginning sometime soon, and before long there will be a suicide, more madness, and despite a few nice bonding scenes I think things are actually going to be quite harrowing to write. >_o I've become so attached to these poor people, it's difficult to see it happen to them. And yet, I am really enjoying myself.

I love madness, personally. Huge fan. Absolutely. smile

I know -exactly- what you're saying about getting attached to your characters, thought it might be even more of a problem for me... I recently (after like four years of messing with these particular characters) decided that I really DO have to kill off the character I created to kill off. I JUST REALLY DON'T WANT TO. *sob* He's my favorite character ever, and I came up with like seventeen thousand reasons why I should let him live forever and ever and ever... But since I joined this guild, I've realized, that as an author, it's my job to be horrible to my characters, not to coddle them. Sigh.

Anyway, the point is that I'm right there with you.  

[Psychotic Maniacal Sanity]

After four years that must be hard. @_@ Luckily I've only been working on this trilogy of novels since the beginning of June or else I think it would be impossible to kill who I have to kill (despite the fact that technically she's already dead because she died in the first novel. xD) The problem I have is that during this second novel I've grown much more attached to these two particular characters. I had to write the death and the madness in the first novel, but the characters were more secondary. Now I know them even more. =O

We can do it though! It's our duty! =3

And damn this school keyboard. The damn space key doesn't work, so you have to hit it really hard to get it to do anything. .____.  

[DesertRoseFallen]

Must be England if the school keyboards are horrible. We need better schools. They banned this website from our school, it sucks.

I know what you mean with growing attatched. I've been working on my trilogy since January and I'm on the last book and I just don't want it to end or hurt my characters.

But madness is always fun to write about. biggrin

 

[Psychotic Maniacal Sanity]

They've blocked Gaia at one of my schools (it's a Sixth Form partnership with two school bases), but the other school is so bad that they don't even bother banning anything but porn and homework cheat sites. There's no point. XD

Yes. I love my characters. Though, tonight even they can't get me writing. I've had a sucky day. .____.

I think I'll write my journal entry later. See if things improve at all.  

[Psychotic Maniacal Sanity]

~Friday September 19th, 2008.

Yes, ladies and gents-- mostly ladies- it's that time again. Journal update time.

... Today has been one of those days. Again. Just when things begin to look up once more (I woke up with my characters in my head today, again) depression hit and I just couldn't be bothered to write. I won't go into details, but a trip to the doctor's really made me feel down this evening, and so I spent the whole night doing nothing but want to sleep it off. Eventually, though, true to my word to myself, I forced myself to write something. It took me four hours, but I wrote 1k. XD

Wow. That's sad. Of course, it wasn't four hours consecutively, because that would be poor, but it was definitely hard work. I'm glad I did it, and now, to be perfectly honest, I can't wait to get off this computer and just sleep.

So. Yeah. Sleep.

~  

[Psychotic Maniacal Sanity]

~Saturday 20th September, 2008.

Today has actually been a pretty awesome day. :3

My sister's eleventh birthday is on Thursday, so today she held her birthday party. She had five friends come skating with us, and that was so much fun. I told myself I wouldn't do any skating, in case I hurt myself and broke a wrist or something (which would seriously mess with my ability to do exams and shiz). But, I decided eventually that I didn't feel like writing, or reading, because the music in the skate rink was way too loud, and it was dance music which I struggle to write to anyway. So, I went skating.

At first I was a little unstable, because I hadn't skated in so long, but eventually I got my confidence back, and before I knew it I was skating as fast as the professionals again. It felt good. <3

It tired me out, though, because I'm not used to it. Now the tops of my legs are a little sore, and the bottom of my feet because the skates I got were falling to pieces and made my feet blistery. I got home, was so tired that I couldn't stay awake, and took an hour to have a nap. And took some headache pills. When I woke up I was in charge of keeping an eye on some of the kids who had come back to our house to stay the night (three of them, plus my sister), so I spent most of my evening chatting with this one guy called Paul, who really is kinda sweet.

And then, finally at 1am, once they'd gone to bed (they're still awake, though, I can hear them) I got to sit down and do some writing. My original plan had been to do homework after, but that hasn't been the case- I'll do it tomorrow.

I'm actually pretty pleased with my output. Considering that yesterday I struggled to even write a word, tonight the words came a lot easier. I'm onto a rather amusing scene right now, with some character revelations and cute bits with the main characters, so I'm really enjoying myself. I've also written 1.5k, which after this writer's block feels like a miracle. Miracle I tell you!

So, now, I'm at 66.4k for this novel, giving me only 14k to write before NaNoWriMo starts. I've also been planning out some characters for said NaNo novel. So far I have two main characters: the villain, Redd (but everybody calls her Rouge because she hates mixing languages) Noir, and Allouez, my hero. Rouge has a brother called Blue (Redd and Blue, geddit?); their parents thought it would be funny. XD

As of yet I have no conflict, and no reason why my hero would hate my villain and quest to kill her, or why my villain would quest to kill my hero, but it's okay. I have a while to come up with something yet.

Now, though, it's 2:40am and I'm tired. I guess I should go to bed, but not before I put up my line for the day. I'm going to start doing this, because I think it might help me have more confidence in the quality of my work, or at least I'll enjoy it a bit more.

Line(s) for today:

Ellette: “Oh, he did. He knew I was a Cuckoo, even if Calina never did.”
Medina: “A Cuckoo?”


Thank you, and good night. ;3  

[DesertRoseFallen]

Haha I love skating. When I slept over at one of my guy mates, four of us went ice skating and it was so funny when one of the guys fell over.
I prefer ice skating...

I hope your head is better and I'm loving your character names. What genre do you write again?

 

[Psychotic Maniacal Sanity]

I can't ice skate as well as I can roller skate. XD

I write sort of a mixture of everything really. I get classed by a friend as Dark Cabaret/Fantasy, but basically it's realistic fantasy with plenty of the darker elements of life, like murder, suicide, prostitution, and sometimes it's funny. Mostly it's just emotional though. XD I always struggle to categorise myself.

I'm glad you like my names, though. XP
And, my head is much better today thank you. ;]  

[Psychotic Maniacal Sanity]

~Sunday 21st September, 2008.


Today we went for a walk. Three miles of walk. And then ate out at a restaurant. It was nice. <3

As for writing.

Well. Technically I've not written any fiction today; or at least I've not written any fiction on my own novel. However, I have spent a good two or three hours of my evening rewriting a prologue for my English Literature homework. We had to rewrite the prologue to She Stoops To Conquer, by Oliver Goldsmith, in a different style, and for a different audience.

I got really really stuck with it, because forced creativity that I'll have to perform in class is not my strong point. But, I kept working on it, and ended up with something that I think is at least decent.

It probably doesn't make sense without reading the original prologue (which you can find on the internet) but I'm going to post it here anyway, because I'm actually quite proud of it, and I don't have a line for the day. :]

She Stoops To Conquer
Prologue Rewrite

Enter MR. WOODWARD, dressed in black carrying a long thin staff, and holding in one hand a book of Fairytales, the other a Handkerchief.

Gather round boys and girls, and I will tell you a story.
Our tale begins a long time ago.
A time when Comedy lived merrily alongside the humans and ‘Price To Pay’ was three dollars-a-pop,
Back row in the theatre with a bag of carrot lollies and a cup of iced tea.
But now our dearest Comedy Rabbit is dying because a Sentimental man named Tragedy has been putting poison in the soup,
And without our sweetest Comedy, a man has no right to the lollies, nor the tea.
Whatever is a creature to do?
Comedy Rabbit is a fact of life, a critter used to the hardships of life but amused and ticklish in every respect all the same. Without our Mr. Rabbit, how does the world spin?
Who does Mr. McGregor throw from his garden for carrot-snatching if not Comedy Rabbit?

I have carrot sweeties to give, a box at the most,
And those always draw the crowds.
It used to be carrots, but now Comedy rabbit is running with the Fever Fairies
And carrot cake isn’t available to the general public.
So kiddies like yourselves got to starve, and listen to a Tragedy In Three Acts
And cry all the way to the end.

I tried to make a sad tale; I tried to conjure a Wicked Queen with warts and
An underbite, and a Wicked Mirror that only tells the truth,
But the real truth is I just like to laugh, and make faces out of carrot sticks.
My tale would go something like “A run in the park is a run in the dark if the Wicked Queen were near; A run in the park ain’t a run at all if you think about the trippy-traps and sticky-ups and lions and tigers and bears. A run in the dark ain’t a run in the park ‘cos a blind rabbit gonna trip up on bricks”
But tales of darkness is something I leave for the Vampires and Homophobes.

I’m not either, or, so I guess I’ll stick to kiddy tales and offerings of the kind of candy that doesn’t rot a soul from the inside out.

In our fairytale wood, a cat or a bunny could cry out for fear
Of foxes or wolves, or hunters or traps,
But Tragedy is hard-hitting like the bumper of a car driving at full speed down the motorway
And often unavoidable--
But! Oh there is a saviour! Here comes a Hero in Green, a Robin Hood of our metaphorical forest.
A healer with the highest power and plenty of the moo-lar to keep us in the business. Look kiddies, he’s got healthy candy and boxes and boxes of carrot-sticks from old McGregor’s garden.
Ain’t that sweet?
Those brightly coloured candies might look tasty,
lickin’-your-lips-tasty with a zing-of-space tasty,
But they’re poisoned like soup.
Comedy Rabbit doesn’t believe in Tragedy Candies; those candies to make you cry
Make you sigh
Make you die
With boredom.
Hero in Green, glittering Gold-smith has the plan. The carrot candies taste good,
Better than soulless candies from that Wicked Sentimental man
With the top hat
And sinister cloak.

Eat those carrots kiddies, and Comedy Rabbit might leap to life
The poison fever slipping into the night
With the dark-dark and run-in-the-park.
But take a silver-plated-bullet candy, then our sweetest Comedy Rabbit might fall
To the third bowl of comedy,
Which was not just right.  

[Psychotic Maniacal Sanity]

~Monday 22nd September, 2008.

The first day of autumn. Wet, windy, damp, and horrible. D= Totally not productive.

Today hasn't been quite as productive as I'd planned at all, but I guess something is definitely better than nothing. Today I realised something about my villains for my NaNoWriMo project, and that will no doubt make them more interesting to write about, but as for my current project I'm so far not having too much luck with it. I've been feeling a little like my story is too flat, lately, and although it might be possibly because I have yet to write all the scenes that make the earlier ones siginificant, it's making it hard to get the first scenes written in the first place. How suckish.

I guess I'll just have to work harder, to get further, to get to the important bits where everything makes sense.

As they say within the Structuralist school of thought, "Things only make sense in comparison to something else". This is how my novels work. They work with themselves. Now, I just need to get the second half of said selves written.

Words written today: 1,087.

Line for today:

The sunset would have been beautiful, if only she could have seen it all. Instead, all she caught was a glimpse of the reds and golds of the sun as it made its steady way into the grave, spilling through trees to play across the water. She thought that it would have been nice if she could see the horizon; at least that way she would have known which way was up.  

[saint_savin]

You're doing NaNo? I AM SO GOING TO CHEER YOU ON.

Especially since, you know, good villains. YAY!  

[Psychotic Maniacal Sanity]

Oh yeah, I'm totally doing NaNo. I did it for the first time in 2005, and now it would be like hell to miss it. XD I was debating whether to stay something new for November or not, but I figured if I write something as stupid as possible during NaNoWriMo then perhaps I'll be more motivated to write something serious (aka this) when I'm done. I think it'll be a welcome break.

And, cheering on is much appreciated. heart It makes things much easier when there's motivation.



On another note, I was listening to Enya today, and I realised that the song Fallen Embers really epitomises the relationship between Medina and Ellette. It's wonderful, showing the more emotional side to their friendship, and it just really makes me think of them. Especially how it effects Medina when Ellette isn't there any more.

"Once, as my heart remembers,
All the stars were falling embers.
Once, when night seemed forever
I was with you.

Once, in the care of morning
In the air was all belonging.
Once, when that day was dawning.
I was with you.

How far we are from morning.
How far we are
And the stars shining through the darkness,
Falling in the air.

Once, as the night was leaving
Into us our dreams were weaving.
Once, all dreams were worth keeping.
I was with you.

Once, when our hearts were singing,
I was with you."


Anyway, randomness over. I'll be back later with an actual update. X3  

[DesertRoseFallen]

I'm no where near good enough to enter a writing contest. I suck xD

Well I'm cheering you on as much as possible! Go you!

Great lyrics as well and well done on the words counts. biggrin