Late Night Writing

Have you ever noticed, those of you who are writers, that at that moment when you’re just about to go to sleep, or should be going to sleep, you suddenly get struck with inspiration that’s so good you can’t wait until morning, partially for fear of forgetting it, to at least start it. So you get out the computer at 1:20 in the morning and you start writing and once you start you can’t very well stop, so by 3:00am you have several pages of something, and a twitching eye from lack of sleep.

This is just one of the reasons I do a lot of writing at night. The other thing is, I have nothing else to do. That really is an awful thing to say since I do spend a good bit of my day playing stupid flash games and watching anime, but that’s far beside the point. Once it gets to that point of ‘yeah, I should probably go to bed’ I usually have run out of ways to procrastinate, and I figure, I haven’t written anything all day… I should probably write something, just to make sure I did at least something. So I start writing. I think ‘I’ll just write a paragraph… or two… or three… and soon I’ve gone off and done something productive and it’s way later than I wanted to be up.

This is the problem with being a procrastinator; you think all day ‘I have time, I can do it in a little while’ and by the time you get around to it it’s very late. But, sometimes it can’t be helped. Sometimes you need to be in that half asleep, gotta get this done, mode before anything can come out of that bizarre little brain of yours. For example: I wrote my best story ever three nights in a row. I finished it at 4:20 in the morning. That might have also been because that was before I had a lap top and night was the only time my sister wasn’t barging in demanding, “It’s my turn!”

Another theory I have is that it’s the moons pull on a writer’s brain that allows them to be more creative at night. That’s completely ridiculous, though and only a writer would come up with it. Is it like this for other artists? Do you work better late at night?

BELIEVE IN ME WHO BELIEVES IN YOU!

Three points and a preen to the first person who can guess what I’m about to talk about. That’s right! Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann! If you are familiar with my blog you know that I attempt to review an anime series for Saturday. I fail at it miserably but I try anyway. Well this/last week was Gurren Lagann. With finals and everything I’ve found myself a bit behind so my review is still in progress. HOWEVER! I feel a small rant as a sort of teaser would be alright, if only for here. This is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann!

MINE IS THE DRILL THAT WILL PIERCE THE HEAVENS! Gurren Lagann is the story of a boy who loves to dig. His name is Simon and he lives in an underground village where the surface is nothing more than a myth. Simon is an orphan whose parents died in an earthquake when he was young. Since then his adoptive brother Kamina has been looking out for him. While Simon is scared of anything dangerous Kamina lives for glory and strives to see the surface, no matter what. His wish is granted when a huge gunmen drops right into their village.

Gurren Lagann is made up of three arcs. In the first we learn about the world we’ve been dropped in. We learn about Simon and Kamina and watch as they master their gunmen, Gurren-Lagann and somehow form a small army to fight against the beastmen who have been oppressing the humans, forcing them to live under ground. In the second arc we learn it goes a little bit deeper than just the beastmen. We meet the Helix King who is behind it all and watch our hero and his friends struggle to overthrow the tyrant and liberate the humans. The third arc takes place seven years after the Helix King’s defeat and shows us that the human’s problems go beyond the Helix King into the farthest reaches of the universe itself.

This is such a guy’s anime, but I love it. It’s so packed full of manliness you can’t help but love it. Every episode gets you pumped no matter what mood you may be in when you start it. Just listen to Kamina talk for five minutes and you’ll be ready to take on the world and kick its ass. It is a mech. anime so it’s full of giant robots beating the crap out of each other. What could be manlier than that? These mechs run off of FIGHTING SPIRIT! Or Spiral Energy, whichever you prefer. Spiral Energy comes from the human soul and emotions. So the more passion you have the more Spiral Energy you give off and the more badass you can be.

The art in this anime is something to take note of. It’s a rougher drawing style than usual anime uses. When things get really intense the lines get darker and sketchier than the normal smooth, finished look. The colors too are special, mostly using bright reds and blues when possible. Anything that can be brightly colored is.

What is a world without characters? Gurren Lagann has a very colorful cast of characters but unfortunately we learn very little about them. They’re incredibly lovable and you find yourself rather attached to them by the end, but we know hardly anything about them by the end. Yoko likes her riffle, Kittan has three sisters, Rossiu’s dad is a high priest, this is about the most they tell us. But for the purposes of the story, this is enough. What’s important is the characters’ personalities and how they react to the situations they are thrown in.

Gurren Lagann is number three on my top five favorite anime list, but I’m thinking now that I’ve re-watched it maybe I should have put it at number two. I put Kuroshitsuji at number two mostly because I’m in love with the manga, but I feel that takes away from the anime a little. I may end up switching them around, but for now that’s how they stand. If you haven’t watched Gurren Lagann go watch it right now!~ If you have I hope you’ll drop by my site and check out the full review. Merry Christmas everyone!

Untitled, but certainly not short.

Hello internet darlings, I do apologize for my absence last week. I also apologize for subjecting you to this piece of my own work.

I heard them

say once that there was a

princess who could neither sink

nor cry and she was loved by most

and hated by some and

cursed by a very few.

And I think

about how I, who can both

sink and cry and quite often

do both am loved by some

and hated by others as I sit

under the desk in my sister’s

room and tell her about the

life-cycles of lichens.

which

is a topic she does not find so

interesting as the fairy tales I told her

when she was a baby and would

sit on top of my blue cotton colored

pillows and ask me for stories

with sad middles

and happy endings and a witch and

maybe even a princess and, if I

was feeling adventurous, an ocean

or a pond if I was not.

And she

would take the ends of my braids,

clutching them in sweaty palms if

I put a witch in the story, twisting

them between pink-lacquered

nails if I told her of a princess

and giving sharp, expectant

tugs when I talked about lichen.

Inevitably my sister,

light of my life, will fall asleep

and I will lift her gently in my arms

and carry her soft frame to bed,

and inevitably she will stir and

ask me if she can sink, and of course

I will say not today.

The Long and Short of It.

I’m a fiction writer. That’s what I identify myself as. My life’s ambition is to finish a book. Ending things is hard, by the way. When I was younger (younger being age fourteen) I wrote nothing but ‘novels intended.’ Stories I intended to make novels. But of course that failed miserably. I did manage to write a 100 page story by the end of my first year at LP but it died as soon as I reached the plot. Funny how that works.

One of the big things I had to learn at Lincoln Park was how to write short stories. We didn’t spend nearly as much time on it as I would have liked, but that’s how it worked out. I had to find an end point for a story I didn’t want to end. In work shop I had to find stopping points for a story that I wanted to make a full length book so that it could stand alone. I wasn’t allowed to do that in my second year, everything had to be self contained. This is when I really learned to write short stories.

It’s actually kind of surprising that I’ve managed to read for every reading possible during my years at LP. I never missed a chance to read. Not for the public readings and not for the department readings. What’s surprising about this is the fact that I could find something that didn’t take ten minutes to read out loud. I’ve found that something like a five page story double spaced is around ten minutes to read. That doesn’t seem all that long to some, I guess, but for a reading it’s forever, especially for the reader. There are a few pieces I cut up a little in order to shorten their reading time.

I still kind of suck at writing short stories. I always want to write the longer ones. It’s gotten to the point where if I really want to read something for a reading I have to write it specifically for that purpose. Some of these pieces turn out pretty well, actually, like Water Lilies and Masquerade. But even Masquerade needs expanding. My fans, (aka Courtney) pretty much demand it. And I would like to do more with it. I really would, but somehow I find myself stuck once more.

This is my problem with longer stories. How do you keep them going? I seem to be stuck in a sort of limbo of creative writing. Not enough story for a novel but too much story for a short story. I secretly hate short stories that go on for like twenty pages. To me that’s not really a short story. Though I will admit, I have written stories that long before. And actually the longest complete story I wrote, that was fit for human eyes at least, is probably my favorite. It’s called What Could Be and it’s fifteen pages single spaced.

I recently wrote a story called The Way She Walks for the Alumni reading next Friday and as usual, I think I want to do more with it. But of course I don’t know what. It feels like a short story, I’ll give it that. It’s at about six minutes and three pages right now so I can’t do anything with it until after the reading. It’s one of those stories that come out of the blue, you know? I was thinking about walking toe-heel one night. Don’t ask me why. I didn’t know people walked like that until I read ‘Princess Academy’ by Shannon Hale. Apparently that’s the proper way for Princesses to walk, but no one walks like that. It’s extremely weird to do so, I know I’ve tried. It feels weird and it looks weird and so I wrote a story about it.

Now I’m rambling. The long and short of it is, short stories are hard, and so are novels. Long stories are the way to go, unless you want to read them out loud. Then you’re pretty much screwed. I wanna know how my classmates managed it.

Good morning (or maybe it is already afternoon for you) lovely people, and welcome once again to Friday

It seems as though once again my internet life has dissipated and gobbled itself up into the abyss. Quite a bit of what I've done lately has been a ridiculous amount of studying, writing, and food exploration Yet I still have plenty of lovely things to bring you this week in the genre of film

First on my list is a cult classic. A boy with serious mental problems begins seeing a giant bunny proclaiming the end of the worldA close friend of mine was almost appalled I'd not seen it. It was stylistically intriguing and I found Mr. Gyllenhaal's dark humor quite good

Next there's another dark, male- driven movie. A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions discover that they have much more in common than a hometownI will watch pretty much anything Joseph Gordon- Levitt is in, this movie is another reason why

By far one one the more interesting stories I've seen on film is this one. Two women want to have their own biological child; an experimental scientific process could make it possible Completely makes you wonder the possibilities of science and the future of creating children in same sex relationships

Hope you all take a look and enjoy

Stealing friday

I am invading Friday for a moment to tell you to check out my sister's band, Katharsis. Hurrah for shameless promotion :)

Thank you lovlies!

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White Christmas

This movie is one of my favorite Christmas movies. I didn’t discover it until a few years ago but since then I’ve watched it every Christmas without fail. It’s a cute little romance story set in a surprisingly warm Pine Tree Vermont in December staring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen.

Our main characters, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis met in World War II. Bob already had a solo voice act before the war but after Phil saved his live, injuring his arm in the process, his solo became a duet. Now that the two have become wildly famous, Davis has taken it upon himself to secure Bob’s happiness and find him a wife, his ulterior motive being a little time all to himself. Enter Betty and Judy Haynes, sisters of an old army pal of Bob and Phil. Betty is the ‘mother hen’ older sister and Judy is the manipulative scamp. If it’s for their greater good, she’ll do it without hesitation. When Bob takes notice of Betty, Phil instantly decides to sent them up, whatever it takes. This leads them straight to Vermont and a snowless ski lodge run by Bob and Phil’s former army General.

Enter the plot. General Waverly, his granddaughter and his house keeper run this ski lodge. The problem is there’s no snow. No snow means no skiing, no skiing means no business and no business means no money. They’d already hired the Haynes sisters to perform for their guests which now don’t exist. Our four main characters decide to help out the old General by bringing the whole Wallace and Davis show up to the lodge. Bob soon learns, however that this isn’t quite enough to lift General Waverly’s spirits and decides to doing something extra special for the old man.

I like this movie for two main reasons. The first is the romance. This is not your typical romance. Bob and Betty don’t hate each other but they’re not exactly friendly either. They spend the movie going back and forth between getting along perfectly and squabbling about something. Usually it’s Betty getting offended or misled about Bob’s intentions and pushing him away. Poor Bob. Naturally, Phil and Judy can’t be left out. Initially they get along very well but the romantic spark is rather downplayed by their schemes to get Bob and Betty together. I’m not entirely sure how it is that Phil is the one who gets the girls when he acts rather awkward in reply to Judy’s advances. Bob and Betty’s relationship feels extremely natural, despite their friends pushing them towards it. Even after they kiss for the first time it’s not a huge change for them. They just keep going as they had before, pretending it was no big deal.

The other reason I love this movie is the music. Yes, White Christmas is a musical. Again, though, it feels natural. A lot of the time the music is in context. Bob and Phil are professional performers, with their own TV show and everything. Betty and Judy are more armature but they have a lot of talent and also perform for a living. So with a few exceptions the song and dance numbers happen during a show or rehearsal. Even those few songs that occur outside of the show feel natural because we know this is what they do. It just seems right for Phil to sing to Judy as they dance, and for Bob to serenade Betty during their late night chance meeting.

So if you haven’t seen it, go watch it. If you have, watch it again. It’s a good movie.