Twilight Makes Me Sad

       Here’s where I get to mention one of my favorite blogs, Reasoning with Vampires, again. But that and a series of YouTube videos called Alex Reads Twilight brought me to the conclusion that I probably don’t want to know what Stephanie Meyer’s teenage years were really like. And this past weekend, I’ve decided that I will never read Twilight. I don’t need that much psychological murdering. I might have misunderstood why the Twilight saga was so appealing before, but now I really don’t understand–and for good reason!
      I don’t see how this franchise is an amazing feat of literature. For one thing, the protagonist is pathetic. I always crack up at one of RwV’s tags, which says, “Bella makes me sad” (hence my post title), but I quickly stop laughing because it’s so hideously true. The books could be shortened significantly if you cut out all of Bella’s depression and pining for Edward. And even if you do that, she’s still a horrid protagonist that her creator (yeah, I’m talking to you, Meyer) obviously doesn’t care about her herself. Not only does Bella repress any feelings of hope she experiences (yes, that is in the book!) but she has no personality traits, no defining features, and, well, let’s just say I’m not so enthusiastic about a main character who forgets to breathe! Who does that? Imagine if other protagonists were that amazingly stupid! What would happen if Luke Skywalker suddenly stopped in the middle of his duel with Darth Vader and just said: “*gasp* Hold on, Father *wheeze* I forgot to breathe for a minute!” No! No, you don’t do that! I can’t think of anyone who’s simply forgotten to breathe! It’s physically impossible! But obviously, Meyer doesn’t care about her own protagonist–not even enough to answer Edward’s “questions about every insignificant detail of her [Bella’s] life”. So if the author doesn’t care, why should I?
       Then there’s the biggest problem–big enough to make me see the myriad instances of “un-words”(yeah, I’m pretty sure at least 1/3 of Stephanie Meyer’s vocabulary is made up of words she thinks  are words, but aren’t really in the dictionary) and horrendous writing in general–the whole Edward x Bella relationship. So…Edward is a vampire, and she’s not, so he both thirsts for her blood and doesn’t want to eat her. And of course, this sends Miss Swan into cardiac arrest (literally) because he’s so sweet and charming. Mmkay, I can roll with that (maybe). But not when Edward is a controlling, condescending jerkface who seems to be irritated by Bella’s very presence most of the time. Oh, except when he’s watching her sleep. She’s cool then.  Look, ladies, this is not ok! You can tell by the underlining, italics, and boldface on the type! It’s just not! If some guy treats you like dirt, he’s not worth it. I don’t care how “perfect” he is. And for some reason, Bella idolizes him. He wants to kill her, reminds her of this almost every chapter, and she still likes him. I’m sorry, but not only is this unrealistic, but it’s wrong. Relationships shouldn’t be this way–they’re extremely harmful when/if something goes awry, and they just don’t work. Especially not with a jerk like Edward. 
       Of course with a “stellar” protagonist like Bella, she probably needs someone like Edward, who would be more than begrudging enough to tie her shoes for her. That’s my main beef with Twilight–the unhealthy relationships. Actually, I lied. My main problem with the series is that preteen girls read these books and watch the movies with starry-eyed wonder. This is not ok. This is borderline malpractice in the psychological field. I can’t stress enough how mentally murderous Twilight is. It saddens and frightens me to think this, but I have the most unsettling feeling that these books will one day be added to the canon of classic literature. Yeah, that’s right. Classic literature–right up there with Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. I pity the future. 

From Scratch

      For my computer class I had to make this little beauty (and by beauty I mean “amateurish attempt at computer art”):

      The goal was to make an icon/logo representing a subject important to us students. Naturally, I chose something representing the novel I’m currently writing. Sparknotes version: my novel contains imagery involving the elements (fire, earth, water, and wind, plus two extra elements: light and shadow). The title (technically) begins with a “D,” as does the protagonist’s name. Also it involves dragons, and is heavily centered on both a fire world and an earth-like world. Unfortunately, I have no idea why I thought to make part of the flower vine/stem (call it what you will) a dragon’s tail, but it probably has something to do with the fact that one of the characters is, well, a dragon. And finally, I went for a “blood-red moon” type of thing, to represent the Shadow element. I also really like the background, so light and “sunny,” while the foreground is dark and mysterious. In short, it totally represents my novel. 

      At first, I thought this looked like an eight-year-old drew it so her mom would put it on the refrigerator door beneath a tomato-shaped magnet. Now, it sort of grew on me. Computer art (or drawing in general) isn’t my forte, but this turned out decent. At least, I’m proud enough of it to put it on my refrigerator.

  

      And by refrigerator, I mean this blog.

Something Lighthearted! (and by "Lighthearted" I Mean "Ridiculously Silly"…)[Repost]

I had a bit of an issue with copy-pasting this, so I’m just going to retype it from scratch:

So, I finally finished the task of placing all of my old writing notes into binders. As I did so, however, I ended up engaging in this internal monologue. I would say it was a strange internal monologue, but I know myself all too well to make that mistake. Thus, my strangeness resulted in me deciding to write a Facebook note illustrating this experience in the form of a play. Then, lucky readers, I decided to share it with you.

Oh, and before I get into this, there are two things to know. First, I refer to my “inner me” as “Cali” (short for “Calliope” the muse of epic poetry (the closest thing to a novel). Yes, I googled it. So sue me. Also, if you’re wondering who the robotic cat is, check out my post “Keep Your Writing Notes!“. Now, without further delay, I present:

An Interview With Me

Me: Dang it, whose bright idea was it to write in and collect all these notebooks, anyway?

Cali: Um, yours?

Me: Well then why didn’t you stop me?

Cali: Because there’s interesting stuff in here. You never know what will be useful in the future. That’s the whole reason you decided to keep them.

Me:…There’s a drawing and description of a robotic cat in here.

Cali: I didn’t say everything was golden!

Me: Half of this concerns novels I almost wrote or failed to write!

Cali: Hey, maybe all those “almosts” will combine into a finished product!

Me: Like the robotic cat?

Cali: Would you stop dwelling on the cat already?

Me: Fine. What about these several dozen character lists that are exactly the same?

Cali: You can’t use all of them in one story–as you’ve learned by now. Maybe you can recycle–did you just save the cat note?

Me:…Maybe.

Cali: Why do I talk to you again?

Me: Because you…are…me?

Cali: You know what? Nevermind, just…nevermind. Carry on.

Me: Why on earth did I draw all these maps!? They don’t even apply to any of my solid story ideas anymore!

Cali: Um, because you were bored and couldn’t think of anything else to write? <mutters> Not surprising considering some of the bright ideas you came up with.

Me: I heard that! What about all these story ideas? I never used one of them!

Cali: You did use them, Einstein. You just mutated them into new ideas.

Me: But some of these are great as-is!

Cali: So was the cat at one point…

Me: Why do I talk to you again?

Cali: Because I am you?

Me:…Right.

Cali: Wait. Why are you saving notes from your current novel?

Me: I don’t want to lose them!

Cali:…You saved them on a flash drive. And altered them a lot since doing so.

Me: But if I throw them away, someone could steal them.

Cali: Sure, because thieves are always rooting around in people’s garbage looking for their writing notes.

Me: Exactly. The best thieves are sneaky.

Cali: I’m pretty sure they’d be more interested in a social security number…

Me: Pfft, yeah, right, this stuff’s worth way more than some random number!

Cali: You do remember the cat, right?

Me: Enough with the cat already! It was probably past midnight when I thought it up!

Cali: Touchy much?

Me: Just…shut up.

Cali: If I did, none of this would exist.

Me: And you’re blaming me for the cat?

Cali:…Just…shut up.

Me: Exactly.

FIN

I hope this has been an, uh, informative, in some strange…unidentified way. Next post will definitely contain less insanity! Unless I need to repost this again, in which case I lied. 

A Rant about Reading (and an Ode to YouTube)

I know I’ve mentioned this at least once, but I really don’t have time to read. I’ve got about 25 crisp new books, but not a minute to read them. This makes me sad. I would love to dive into Wicked or one of the dozens of new writer’s reference books I picked up last year, but my timeline looks something like this:

10+ hours of classes and homework
Various weekend hours, which are inevitably spent running errands, writing, or wasting an inestimable amount of time on YouTube.

And those seventy-some pages I managed to stuff into my current novel were the product of several weekends not infiltrated by YouTube. But so I don’t bore/annoy you with complaints about why I don’t have time to read, let me express my gratitude to said online labyrinth of videos for becoming a much needed online library. Honestly, I don’t know what I would do without YouTube. I would say about 60 percent of all my ideas came from watching videos of people playing games (and a few random videos here and there). Probably 30 percent comes from movies and the last ten from books. YouTube is my homework helper, and provides me with inspiration at the same time. If you think about it, there are some great old games that have some decent stories out there. I would even hazard that some video games have better stories than some “bestsellers” (Yeah, that’s right, I’m looking at you, Twilight).

Maybe the summertime will provide opportunities to read all those wonderful tomes I’ve collected. For now, I think I’ll stick to the inspirational goldmine that is YouTube. In fact, if you’re struggling to find inspiration yourself, search YouTube for videos of your interests. You never know what you’ll find–or where your next idea will come from.

Progress? What is This "Progress" You Speak Of?

The holidays came and went–a little too quickly for my taste, and with their end came another semester. J-Term, to be exact. (For those of you not in the know, J-Term is a month-long part of my college’s spring semester. It’s a time where you can cram in an extra class, which should normally take up a full four-month long period, into the entire month of January. Sparknotes version: homework and LOTS of it.)

 But I guess those two weeks of break weren’t completely useless. I did manage to crank out about 75 pages of a first draft–and all the suspicion that comes with the realization that the story and writing seem, well, at least halfway decent. I also stumbled across a lovely little Tumblr blog called “Reasoning with Vampires” (linked in the sidebar to the right). You guessed it: it’s about Twilight. But this blog takes the “best” of Stephanie Meyer and illustrates how, er, shall we say, not to write.

So now my days are scattered with HTML code and other computer-type lessons, and let me be the first to tell you: creating web pages from 4pm until 12am rewards you with the strangest dreams imaginable. That’s all I have to say about that.

At any rate, It’s good to be blogging again after the holidays. Now all I need is a prayer that the actual spring semester doesn’t completely shackle me to the realm of studying!