Wild: Write a novel in a month (one more bullet)

My idea currently, and the things my head is starting to play around with--

one phone note (written at about three in the morning, as in I woke up and wrote this in a cold sweat of genius sort of moment), reads: "Jacob's Halloween. He was invisible. He has pissed off his King. He is the world.

Duelist. Jacob is a girl... and a ghost."

I think Jacob-the-duelist has a Mulan-style storyline, but that might be overdone, and there are just so many fun and good ideas here it's hard to start. And then today, I stumbled across another of those hacker vigilante videos--and I shit you not, Jacob started knocking on my head like an exit wound.

So it came to me:

What if I wrote a novel about a vigilante computer hacker, fighting for (and against) ghosts? Jacob could haunt him, and that'd be her half of the book, her backstory and meandering through the centuries etc... and he's just this kid with a gift who wants to change the world. Imagine the conversations they could have!

So, this is my idea. I'll keep to the promise, and not start until midnight on Halloween (the best time for writing, regardless).

So.. my Hacker (I need a name) probably moves into a haunted house--has he just gotten into college? That would be a nice backdrop, the modern against the old and angry world of death--he's poor. He's alone, but there's this pretty girl he likes. Nerd friends. Xbox.

Meets Jacob. Jacob warns him of a danger. Jacob is unique, insofar as she can pick up and interact with modern-day things. (People can see her...?)(just got a picture of a grizzly-bear style fellow chuckling and telling the hacker, Jacob is....unique.) The two don't develop a friendship--hacker, is, I believe, agnostic at best, or believes we're "just dust" once we hit the ground--so Jacob is forced to haunt him, charged by some sort of ghost-ruler or council or something.

I think the villain's group of ghosts and the villain his or herself has a machine that can bring the dead alive again, Frankenstein-style. He's bringing back evil ghosts that are wrecking havoc (and of course, I can pick whatever group of evil folks I want for this little party of bad--bloody mary, Jack the ripper, you name it).

The "good" group of ghosts, working with a few live people, can be anybody my heart wants. I think the story will tell me, and that's very exciting. I'm glad my heart is whispering in my ears again, for I have sorely missed it.

I want at least one ghost clown--very talented, now very morose and sad--murdered by somebody on the bad ghost team, when they were alive. It'll be one of the only ghosts I want with *that* backstory, I want the rest to be a fun group of random friends, willing to help and work, etc.

I think the good-ghost leader, Mathias, should be a grizzled-beard washed-up rich man who made his fortune in the gold rush--and died of some terrible disease. Long suit... a big signet ring, so old its faded so you can't make out the symbol. Salt-and-pepper hair. Sun-painted skin, but Caucasian.

I really, really want modern technology in this book. Texting and so on. (I have this idea about hacker cancelling a date or two with his significant other via text)(something else happening in "real time" while he pauses to check his phone etc)

the girlfriend that the hacker will have should probably end up being a bad, bad person. Just for fun. (or should he be bi? should the girlfriend be a boyfriend?)


and...so far, that's it.


Scene where Jacob is ruining a lecture for hacker, and things are flying around, people are screaming, it's a shit show--hacker is trying to convince one of his friends it was just a bad crock of weed, just beforehand--and he screams, stop! I'll do it!

...and all, instantly, is silent. He sees a silent Jacob grinning at him, nodding--but nobody but him and his friend can see... (Good. We're running out of time.) (Fuck, bruv. I don't think it was the weed!)

Scene where Jacob meets hacker. (the sound of her own voice was too loud, startling.)

Wild: Oh, this happened today

Leona • 38 mins

*sighs* I know. 

I know.

I was just thinking a lot about tSoM today....

Jocelyn and Nikolai don't think it'll make a difference if I lose weight. 

And I heard her sing, Katie. She's good.

She sang "hopelessly devoted to you" and she rocked it. She's completely confident. She can read music. She's had lead roles before.

I don't deserve it. I don't deserve that role.

33 mins

Shhh it Nancy

1) You have a great voice

2) you've been cheated out of leads and thats sad

Leona • 27 mins

1) so does she.

2) my past doesn't entitle me to a future. 

I'll do the workout thing, but I need to think some more about the sound of Music.

19 mins

Or maybe you don't need to think about it.

Go.  Try out.  Do your best.

Leona • 15 mins

I'm trying to decide if there's a point.

15 mins

If that doesn't work, there are loads of other shows you can do.

Working out is good for your health.

Auditioning help you practice your art

Leona • 15 mins

*sighs* "Art", indeed.

14 mins

When you don't get in you can be vidicated when you switch to rock river theatre guild?

Leona • 14 mins

It won't be a "one or the other" choice, dear.

Both are guilty of what they accuse each other of doing. 

13 mins

Craig has done what's he's angry about to many, many people--students--with no approach to even an apology.

But I respect him. He made those choices for a reason.

I respect Jeannie, too.

12 mins

The fact is, if I'd really blown them out of the water, they *would've* cast me. 

And I have nobody to blame for that but myself...

*shrugs* 

References and casting-couch DOES happen. In every theater group I've ever encountered, there have been unfair decisions.

But the fact is, I can't be sure I have the talent to overturn that unfair decision. So I get passed over, instead.

And I am very tired of that.

10 mins

Give rock river a show

shot*

Give fact another shot.

Leona • 9 mins

Of course. It goes without saying.

9 mins

I may be bitterly disappointed when I don't get a role that I'm right for, but every actor and actress is. I'll still be there. I love doing it.

I'm not going to stamp my foot and throw a temper tantrum like a child, but I have to stop kidding myself that my effort makes a difference.

8 mins

If it were just about talent, I would've been cast much more than I am. It isn't. 

Being good and being there is some help, of course, but... I know better know.

*now

It isn't about fair. 

5 mins

So I can't say that it makes me feel like I'm more likely to receive the roles I want. 

Because I'm working out, at least.

They don't care, and I have to get used to that. I'm not in their little niches yet. 

I may never be, so I have to keep trying.

But I don't see how changing myself is going to help, Katie. The only person who really thinks I'm good is me.

If you were going to hire somebody for a job, you wouldn't pick somebody whose only reference was themselves, would you?

Just a thought.

I'm sorry... I know this upsets you. I won't talk about it anymore, okay?

2 mins

Thank you for not giving up.

Thank you for still trying, for still perusing what you want.

Wild: Not quite Neverland

Rock River theater guild's director is my choir teacher from High School. One of the two people who told me that I had a talent and I should pursue that talent. he'd put me in shows. I have a big range. I can act.

Katie told me that. She went to some party the Shrek-ie's were at, told me how frustrated he was at the situation I'm experiencing with the Sound of Music (and its extremely likely pre-casting, according to the Director's kids: "She says she doesn't precast, but she does, she'll just directly offer you the role").

And I smiled and shrugged and said, I tried to friend request >Hero<. She didn't respond.

And Katie gripped the steering wheel harder. She told me that that request had been ignored; that that person had, in fact, only been paid to be nice to everybody. Katie said her transient interest was hurtful.

And I said.... no big deal. It's her choice. I'm different now, and that's what matters.

"It is a big deal," Katie said, glowering at flawless stars. "You did a nice thing, a big thing for you, and she turned around and proved everything you've ever told me about her. I think that this was very petty of her, and I'm disappointed. I'm a little put out."

Don't let me ruin your friendship, I said. It's nothing.

In the back of my head, I thought: I'm used to it by now. People who search for elusive popularity don't stop after graduation; a few become teachers. I can understand that. I'm well aware how much I had to learn about everything when I was sixteen, and seventeen, and even eighteen... but I'm twenty-three now. You're right, I'm different.

She said, "I won't. But this isn't fair, and it'll take me awhile to get over it."



I hope not.








If there's one thing I learned from >Hero<, it's that everybody deserves friends. It's that snubbing people who disagree with you only hurts them more.


















Nobody deserves that. I didn't, and neither does she.

wild:

It is nothing to be ashamed of, when one believes that magic comes from God. Remember that.

Wild: Big, brave world

"Oh brave new world/is new to thee"



There's so much to see in this world. Salem, New Orleans, the whispering shores of Mexico's gulf, Hungary (Transylvania!), Egypt (ancient and not), Iceland, Greece, Britain...

Hot sun and cold sun, ice and fire, big blue sky, a king's ransom of the thralls of men. Flags and people and airplanes, horses and cars, endless oceans.

You see those movies where people travel, and you tell yourself, I could do that!

I could, too. I'd love it. I'd love to put my fingers to the ancient stones that wild-men drug over to the empty fields, that we call stonehenge--even if I wasn't necessarily supposed to. Magic would bring the dancing and the screaming, sacrifices to my ears--or a market--my heart could solve the mystery.

My heart could tell you what it would be like to be buried in a mountain of new-hewn stone, and watch it decay as you did, watch time decry your immortal monument to the heathen Gods. My heart could tell you what it was like to hunt and be hunted, to search for Satan when all you had was ointment in your pocket and a prowling cat in your poor little yard. To watch consuming flame ruin magic forever for a city of people, because they were afraid and prejudiced against something so basic, so necessary as magic is to God.

The hungry moon on pale white sand as your feet touched water that may've seen thousands of things you'll never know, that man will never know. Crabs sneak over it, leaving indents in that sand. Wind whispers through the thin, dry grass as you close your eyes and feel it.

The rearing crags of Scottish castles, looming as they breathe old air on you. Ghosts hiding in the corners while people take selfies, pale eyes gleaming in the shadows the tourists ignore. Tombstones of troubled kings and mischievous barons: my heart would shake their hand, and warm their welcome. My heart would know, as soon as my feet touched the stone and my hands met the hearth, what it was to live there, what it felt like.



I have always wanted adventure. I notice that all the pure-bred ladies we study now, and admire, have that in them--it is not so shameful to dream. And that is good, for I so dearly love to dream and hope and wish and touch.


One day, I'll take my Kingdom, and we'll travel 'round the world, with God as my companion, and magic laughing in my wild heart.

"Oh brave new world/'Tis new to thee."

wild: work (hi-hoooo! hi-hooooo!)

I get conflicted about my job. I'm clearly spoiled here--free coffee and wifi, coin-clapping-ly cheap snacks, time for youtube if I work hard enough...

but I'd trade all of it in about three seconds if Andrew and Jon could be here again, if poor Kirk wasn't buried in things I can't help with. I worry about Kirk an awful lot... I wish there was more I could do, aside from offer pretty frequently (a new habit I'm trying to pick up on).


Here's hoping the world is lighter on his slim shoulders today.

Wild: Youth

"We lost the excuse of youth at 18."

Somebody said that to me once, and it stung. It stung for the situation much more than the content, but there it is.

Are you insane?

We may not be children at 18, but we are still young. We make mistakes and we learn from them, because we are young. It isn't some magical transformation between 17 and 18; we don't suddenly become mature and responsible adults. It is a process, tailored to the experiences and inner workings of the individual in question.

So, for example, ignoring a person when they're trying to apologize to you, because they've recognized that they have a very serious problem and need to work through it--insulting that person--because you think you're mature... doesn't help fucking shit.

I tried to make amends and I watched you spit on me, I heard what you said about me, too, from the people that were once our friends and are now nervous around me. I had so much growing up to do, and I was miserable--but I didn't see it as a choice. It was who I was and what I was, it was why I existed and it was beautiful.

Katie wasn't the only person to have my Kingdom laid at her feet. I loved and treasured you, and, when I tried to tell you the truth--when I worked out what the truth was, when I had every intention of making amends for what I had done, and then understood to be wrong--you cut me bitterly.

You're right, Liz. You didn't deserve to be thrown into the sea of lies I made to keep myself sane, and feel important, and beautiful, and not alone anymore. You're right--you didn't deserve that. You perceived it as a lie, and you most certainly did not deserve to be lied to. I understand what I did was wrong, and my apologies, every one, have been sincere.



But I didn't deserve to be hurt by you for having severe, psychological issues and permanent emotional scars from four years of abuse in that place--that school--that you never even saw. Thank God. I wouldn't want you to have done what I did, Liz. I spent four years trying to fit in and be right, and I'd earned a stigma that I couldn't get rid of.

I was too busy drowning in magic and writing stories and singing old songs to realize you were in love with me, even though it was for a brief shadow of a moment, a passing hour on the clock of time--and by then I'd realized how much being around me could hurt you. I was such a fucking mess back then, I knew that much, if I didn't know much else, if I didn't know why.


The worst part of it--my "youth", that you say ended at 18--is that I will never have my apologies accepted by you. I keep trying to explain it to you, but I don't think you care. You don't care because you thought I was using you, taking advantage of you, lying to you to hurt and deceive. You don't understand that this time, for the first time, when I said I was different--I meant it. I worked so hard to mean it, to change, to accept and be different--normal--but still magic. I've worked so hard, for people like you, the people who kept me away from the edge of the knife...


and you will never know.


Maybe forgiveness doesn't come easily to you. I know how angry your wild heart was, once, long ago. It does to me. No matter what you tell me, or how you choose, justifiably, to hurt me now, I will, and do, love you, Elizabeth. You were my friend. I understand that I compromised that friendship to save myself. I understand that you would've handled it differently, normally and maturely, right.

I didn't. I can't undo that. I can apologize to you until I'm blue in the face, I can show you that it was very painful to learn that understanding what I did was wrong, spend my life making amends to you... but no more. I can only offer you what you will accept... and you will take nothing. I've tried three times now--once for each count--so I reckon that I won't ever hear from you again.

I've started to write countless messages and letters in my head, maybe send you a gift, like the old Payton would've. The old Payton wouldn't have left you alone, because I love you endlessly. Because I trust and respect you as a young woman, and you were the best and first companion of my heart.

Now I know that I can still love you, and you don't owe me a single damn word. You don't owe me anything, you don't have to accept what I offer--even if I do want you to. I want you to realize that I was telling the truth this time, and let me be a friend to you like you were to me once. I want to repay you.




I don't think you'll let me, so I cannot make it right.



















I hope, so sorely it hurts me, (I'm still a dramatic little bitch, haven't quite grown out of that yet), that I am wrong, Elizabeth Wood. I hope you can forgive me one day. I want you to know, that if you ever need me--for anything--I'm always going to be right here. I'm never going to stop feeling as a friend would to do you, as a sister would--even an estranged one.














I love you, Elizabeth Wood.

Good-bye, Elizabeth Wood.




























I'm sorry.

Wild: Evil

I'm a big fan of the television show Once Upon a Time. Many potential watchers have dismissed it, calling it transparent and even boring, but I couldn't imagine a less true opinion.

Let's take a look at Regina Mills. Yes, yes, she's gorgeous, her interpretation precise and her tone excellent--as an actress myself, I would be remiss not to mention that. The character has great one-liners, powerful magic, beautiful costumes, and she's played by Lana Parilla. All of these things are important--but that isn't who Regina is. Regina is the woman who has been evil in the past, who stumbled into it like a person through a bramble. She really picked up some scars in that bramble, and they changed her--and the subtle efforts she made to find acceptance, and love, and some peace in the end didn't help.

But they were still there.

An evil character with that much backstory, that depth of emotion and feeling, is nothing short of amazing. Excellent writing. Like the other characters of Once Upon a Time, Regina Mills' character is exemplary--who among us hasn't been rejected? Who among us hasn't found that trying to be good didn't push us forward, and been tempted by the alternative? Regina has the strength to have made that choice--not once, but again and again, even with finesse...

and still regrets it. Still regrets doing the best she can do. Mayor Mills is continually buried in a sea of tumultuous energy and bitterness and fury, but love is still kicking her in the head like a knife in the ribs. She is hated and knows it, must force herself to move forward, each and every day of her life... and only we, the people who watch the show, truly understand that. Appreciate her and care for her and even sympathize (insofar as the muggle-style American can, I suppose).


Good Lord, Evil is a complicated issue.



There is real evil in this world, and it is awful. I mean, truly terrible. And then there's this other evil that humans have constructed, to comfort themselves or try to tame that terrible bit--this evil that leads us to characters like Irene Adler and Regina Mills, and Rumpelstiltskin... A unique and equal-handed brigand sort of person, with these amazing histories and so on. Part of me wonders if writers have villains purely to decide how they would handle being evil--and it makes me curious how many of those writers felt about what they found. How many were tempted, or repulsed, or amused.

How many decided that the idea that humans have made to live with Evil, to soften it, to tame it, is nothing like the real Evil in this world.... and don't care.








Just a thought.  

Wild: weird girl

It's been a long time, a very long time, since anybody called me weird. Last time it happened, it wasn't in a nice way, although it's happened so frequently that I admittedly find it difficult to keep track of the when's and the who's and the why's. It just happened. Back then, the world thought I was weird--and you would've been too, after being socially isolated for four years. After being put into a box and neatly labelled as something you weren't, no matter what you did, or how hard you tried to get out of that box.

2008-2011. One box. One me. I was different, I was changing--and it never, never made a damn bit of difference. To the people I spent time with then, I'm STILL in that box, even though they didn't (and mostly don't) know the first thing about me. About why I am the way I am, or what I did what I did. I've grown up so much. I've made friends...

I've spent all this time trying to convince myself that I'm not weird anymore. In my head, because I've had experiences and settled in my skin, used my strangeness like armor, I am not something to be feared anymore. I am new and different and magic.... words I barely think on anymore. I am those things, no matter how much I struggle with them. I think I struggle with them because I value them so very highly, I fail often to see how far I've come. How much progress I have made, as a person, as an author, as a budding Queen....

The applause of the elderly theater goers and us is deafening as the Poet runs back onto the stage, his jacket askew, the tight muscles bulging, eyes glittering with love and admiration. I was among the first to rise to my feet, and not only for his amazing performance--but because it was mine, my story too.  I was Homer once, blind in a corner and dreaming of a big, wild world. I was the Grecian Queen, who watched ten thousand ships sail for the name of her beauty. I was the man screaming his story at an audience who was too blind to open their hearts too it. 

I was a Queen again. My every step lighter, faster, the world whispering magic in my ear... and I was too busy thinking about great art to notice it. 

That will change.

An actress, a human being, a lady, a diabetic, a comedian, and the things I don't think about regularly.

But it doesn't matter.

Tried to make a funny post on Facebook today. A joke about vaccinations, because it was mildly humorous to find myself brave about needles when so many people were nervous or skittish. Even though I would never so far as to be unsympathetic, I smiled to myself and made a Facebook post. That's it. That's all that was going through my head.

And then (as you'll see, the post is copied at the bottom) the blow came. I know, with an almost overwhelming certainty, that she didn't mean it to hurt me.... it's just what she means. So true it's obvious. So true she doesn't have to explain it.

Self-preservation kicks in with more pain than I want to admit, and shame, and anger--at myself. That I haven't changed at all. That for all my progress, all my work, it has only made me acceptable. Palatable, like aged wine that's sat in the barrel long enough to be considered a delicacy.

There's a little anger at my friend, too, who I love very dearly, who I have grown to respect and admire. As obvious as it is to her that I'm--weird--it's just as evident to me that telling somebody that isn't a thing that you do. There's a reason I'm not self-deprecating in the humor section anymore--it's because I am attempting the huge task of accepting the vast amount of pretty damn unwarranted type-casting I've been subjected to. Both as an actress and as a human being, with feelings.

And now I'm here again. Am I catching the beginning of a thread, straight from Ancient Greek's tapestry of Fate? In a few years, a few shows, am I going to exist solely as a freak in them? Am I always going to be cast as the roughly-my-age-and-body-type.... weirdo?

I want to devolve here. I want to write bitterly about how I thought I could be Fraulein Maria, but then this happened, so my friend will never cast me in a bigger role...

But that wouldn't be right, would it? It wouldn't be fair. I'm not trying to be a dramatic little bitch trying to crawl her way up....

It is Panic. I couldn't bare to be who I was then again--not to me. To the people around me. I couldn't stand the glances and the subtle steps away from me. The long silences after I spoke. The whispering and the pointing... Staring at my books and notebooks like they were too interesting to talk to imaginary friends. Smiling at stranger's lockers when they had pictures of friends and school-sanctioned activities on them, so I could belong. Whispering magic to make them happy, keep them safe. Answering every question I could, singing to myself, due to the vague fear that if I continued not to speak for hours at a time I would revert into a monster. Burying my head in a script because I was sure I was good at it, even when the world was too busy calling me a freak to notice. After high School, the transient excuses at failing to show up for parties and hangouts. Watching former classmates cross the street rather than talk to me. Meeting up with a boy at a McDonald's who apologized for how he treated me--he wanted my phone number, and I was so utterly enchanted that I gave it to him--only to mock me, via text message, to the point I literally cried.

Pain. So much pain.  I know that sounds dramatic, but this blog has been around that long--you go ahead and look through this damn thing. I wrote it all down as it happened, so either I've been an inspired fucking liar for my whole life or it's true.

EVEN MY FUCKING TEACHERS MOCKED ME. Once it was so bad that another one of my teachers actually apologized about a staff meeting where I had been verbally defamed by a few staff members, where I had been mocked ruthlessly--even by a teacher I had come to particularly admire. I literally had this conversation from one such teacher, who felt quite guilty about what had been said behind my back--when I was defenseless. A depressed kid who didn't know the meaning of self-worth.

What about the time I went to that "diversity meeting"--what a joke--and was put in a group where we all talked about our "high school experience". Well, I told them about mine. And they just... stared at me. Meanwhile the guy they'd hired to council us or whatever, sensing the kill, had me tell me story to everyone. I told them how much I wanted to love everyone and get along with everyone, and my director of the plays was there... she hugged me. Everyone promised, blood in their eyes, that they'd be different, that they'd talk to me.

And then they all promptly fucking forgot about it.

Amazingly, I think, I have done my best to overcome that that happened. I really have striven to not let High School limit me, and Katie rolls her eyes when I bring it up... but she has no idea. Most of the people who whine: 'Oh, I was all alone in High School, I was so complicated and different and nobody understood me!'

They have no fucking idea what it's like to really be different. Not special, but different, wild and magic and caught and too human to be human. Smart, but not smart enough to fit in. Talented, but it didn't make a damn bit of difference to the people who were too busy whispering and laughing at you to notice.

And now it's happening again. I don't have the skills I used to have, the little freeze-frame recognition of where I went wrong... does that mean that everything I've done has been strange? Where did I go wrong? Why am I here again?

What did I do to deserve this?


Funnily enough, the people who don't read this will assume that I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. You don't understand this, I am in solid fear and pain. The old hurt, feeling aloof from the people I cherished, is digging himself out of his grave. If one day lead to a four-year reputation, one comment can spark a revolution. I remember that two of the four people I last ate with in this group left without saying a single word of goodbye to me...



I don't know what to do. It's ridiculous--as a twenty-three year old, not a fifteen year old, I recognize that--but it is no less hurtful. Even if it is substantially less deserved. Even if I am different now--the pain is still the same.








I don't know what to do.

Me:

a turn o' glass ago · 

So far today, I've been trying to convince one of my friendly office superiors that we need "surprise" flu shots, so nobody can freak out or get anxiety. It involves me jumping out from behind a corner and stabbing your jugular with a vaccine.

I am selfless.

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Friend and Director (but mostly friend): And weird. Don't forget weird.

Like · Reply · 1 hr

Me: ....I.... maybe you meant "health-conscious"? (Nope. I'm weird. So weird... and awesome. Mostly awesome.)

Like · Reply · 1 · 1 hr · Edited