Happy July 4th!

To celebrate, have the preamble to the constitution as only Shatner can read it!

Funny Face Friday #1!

In yet another devious plot to keep my blog active and alliterative, I've added another event! Every Friday, you get some sort of funny face, whether it's a photo, a drawing, or, as is this case, a comic book panel.

 

This is possibly my favorite Wolverine panel ever. It comes from Ms. Marvel #40, a comic which also boasts some of the best Deadpool I've read in a while.

Metaphor Monday #2

Metaphor Monday was such a hit last week that I'm doing it again this week! Which I'd been planning on doing anyway. Which is good because I'm still not sure what constitutes a hit in a blog with... what, 8 readers? I love you guys!




Literary analysis is like ping pong. You take a sentence or a phrase or an idea and bounce it around, trying to get it over all obstacles and keep it on the table. Occasionally, you miss entirely and it rolls under the stairs, or ends up in the cat litter. Ironically, those are the papers teachers tend to grade highest.

Metaphor Monday #1

In the interest of actually putting interesting things on this blog, I've decided to start a new weekly item. Every Monday, I will post a metaphor. It will probably be strange, and I will probably stretch it far past the breaking points because it is fun to do things like that to metaphors! Plus, I like alliteration.

So, for the first ever Metaphor Monday!

Courage is like pancakes because the more you have, the taller you stand. Also, I hear courage tastes delicious with syrup and fresh blueberries.

Parody Potatoes

Huh, I haven't posted since April Fool's Day. I DIDN'T GO TO A CONVENT, PEOPLE! I WAS JOKING! I know, you were all fooled.

Anyway! Peter David is writing a parody of Twilight called Potato Moon. It's a round robin sort of thing with a lot of people taking a turn.

Anyway, I wrote a chapter. It's some of the most alliterative work I've ever written. And ridiculous. Anyway, you can find it here. I'm pretty sure it stands on its own, though the rest of it's pretty good too.

Direction in Life

I've been having a lot of thoughts of where and what to do with my life. It's been really difficult for me, living like this. School doesn't excite me, I'm hardly keeping up with my writing, I've even been, I'll admit, a little depressed.

I've always wanted to be a writer, but I don't think that's right for me. In fact, I've realized writing is what's been holding me back. Both writing and reading. I've been so involved with the fictional world, I've ignored the real world. My social life is a wreck, I'm barely passing school, I'm so involved in fiction, I've practically lost my sense of what is real and what isn't.

It isn't healthy. But I couldn't see that for far too long. I was too busy thinking about what will happen in Blackest Night? Who will be on the new roster of the Teen Titans? When will the next Neil Gaiman book come out?

But I've found something better than all of that.

I've found religion.

Yes, I've accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, and I don't see how I could ever have felt otherwise.

And I'm going to pursue this farther. I need to get more in touch with my inner-self, with my soul. I'm dropping out of college. It hasn't been doing anything for me anyway. There's this nunnery in Vermont that I want to find. I'm going to join and find my true, Christian soul.

This is a big change for me. I'm a little nervous, and very excited. I'm not sure what will happen after this, but it's definitely going to be better than my life has been.

Writer's Block

You may have noticed a failure to post for a while recently. I'm a little blocked up, writing-wise. Sometimes it's hard to keep it up. I love writing, and I'm good at it, but I get discouraged sometimes, you know? It's hard remembering that I need to work at it, that I need to not get discouraged by how few people read my blog, to remember that the readers will come if I provide incentive. I need to update this more often. I need to write more. I need to finish posting my boat journal entries. They aren't my finest work ever, but I want them preserved in the great internet.

Anyway, I'm done whining. I did write something tonight. John Rogers, former writer of Blue Beetle and current writer of Leverage, which I keep meaning to watch, suggested a writing exercise. He said you should write a scene from the point of view of supporting cast members, and villains, anyone other than the protagonist, as if they were the main character of the story. It's a pretty obvious idea now that I think about it, but hey, sometimes it takes someone else pointing it out.

Anyway, I tried it with a character from my NaNoWriMo novel. Bernadine Dale. Whom I have renamed Nadine Dale because I like it better. It was really interesting. I found out a lot about her I hadn't known before.

Anyway, here it is:



Nadine Dale was not a jealous person. When Roxie got the lead in the school play, Nadine was entirely sincere in her congratulations. She told herself there wasn't a bit of her that wanted that spotlight a little more. When Grant aced a test without studying, she was happy for him. Even if she'd studied hard all week and only scraped up a B minus. Friendship came before her own happiness.

But this was almost too much. Roxie was dating a superhero? Roxie hadn't told her she was dating a superhero? Some best friend.

Not that Nadine was jealous. Nadine didn't get jealous. Not even a little.

So what that Roxie was the center of attention, and Nadine wasn't? It wasn't like Roxie was enjoying herself. Roxie hated all the attention. Which, Nadine had to admit, was probably why Roxie hadn't told her about her relationship with Golden Sun. Nadine was known to be a bit of a gossip. But she would have kept Roxie's secret!

And Nadine wasn't even jealous that Roxie's boyfriend was the absolutely gorgeous Golden Sun. Who could fly. And had superpowers. That could probably be used in very interesting ways and there was no way in hell Nadine would finish that thought because fantasizing about her best friend's super-boyfriend? Not cool.

But Nadine wasn't jealous. She wouldn't let herself get jealous. Roxie was her best friend, and that friendship was too important to be torn apart by jealousy.

But she could go be happy for Roxie after another minute. First she had to stand under the staircase where no one was likely to see her. She had to crumple the newspaper closed and close her eyes tightly. She had to ignore her terrible track record with a string of boyfriends and girlfriends that hadn't lasted more than a few months, at most. She had to ignore her superhero idolatry. She had to ignore how it always seemed like it was someone else getting the lucky break. None of it was as important as Roxie's happiness.

Nadine wasn't jealous. She was happy. If it was the sort of happiness that made her insides clench up a little, well, no need to tell that to anyone.



For those wondering, Roxie isn't actually dating Golden Sun. The paper misinterpreted things.



I don't think I'm going to edit and publish my novel. There's too much wrong with it, and I think it would be better suited to a comic book anyway. I might try and write a script for it. Wish I knew more artists!