SHORT HARBINGERS
What to expect: literary magazine - foundation of five short stories, with other submitted media if appropriate, based around a theme every issue.
Estimated Launch: Spring 2011
Looking for: short fiction from new young writers (ages 18-30), 5 to 20 pages. Justified margins. Double space. Times New Roman. Only unpublished submissions to be accepted at this time, sent via e-mail in PDF format. Accepted authors will be notified via e-mail with request for file.
The theme is: metamorphosis
Send your work to: submit @ shortharbingers.com (remove the spaces)
In the meantime...for your thoughts:
Posts
I've been terrible at updating, but I'm finally stabilizing things offline and online, so please come and visit again in a matter of weeks! I am planning to do random posting, with no promises on them, until December, when the blog schedule will apply. I'm very excited to plan the material out for the blog and I hope things will go well.
In the meantime, take care and don't forget to read books!
A last, very important note on this comic: Please take note of the URL - the wrong URL ending will lead you to the wrong site. You have been warned!
Hello, everyone!
Read a wonderfully-written book review on the New York Times website and I hit upon two ideas to write about in a few days, if the schedule can manage. I'm hoping to share my current book wishlist (to read if not to buy) and right next to each title, I'd let you know why I'd read them. The second idea would be to give a glimpse of what else I like to read, in terms of webcomics. After that, I'll see where else it's going to lead.
I already have a deal with myself not to buy anymore underwear this year, since one of my last 2010 purchases rendered my entire unmentionables budget underground, possibly into a few inches of metaphorical monetary permafrost. I have no regrets on this.
I was working on my writing but multitasking. One thing led to another after chatting with Britta about her interest in film, and now here I am, writing of an experience (out of many, but not that much, considering my age) that I know by now is rare within New York City, and rarer still for those that are outside of the Concrete Jungle.
Thank you for reading! I appreciate your attention and wish you a healthy and beautiful new year, filled with positivity. Don't let the 2012 doom-sayers get you down - for one, I believe 2012 is going to be a different story, so make sure your 2011 is exactly what you want it to be for yourself and nothing less, before 2012 comes in the first place.
This year's NaNo was a bust for me, being stuck at 1,142 words, and having started days into November. Still, it was exciting to start FIFTEEN SOULS and I feel like I need to continue it! Now that I have my workstation in the house all set up nicely, I can take my progress seriously.
NaNo is a great thing to participate in, though, and I think next year I will definitely try again, hopefully with plans all up BEFORE the start. In the meantime, there's plenty of stories to work on, big and small. Besides FIFTEEN SOULS, I'm going to have to finish this short story that I started a while ago and then edit a couple of times, then try to submit it to some magazines. No clue where yet, but I want to finish it first, so I am trying not to get ahead of myself.
I know a woman who is working on her novel so earnestly that she decided to deactivate her Facebook so that it doesn't distract her. I'm taking a few leaves out of her book- I'll be sitting out of Skype and AIM for now, then later on from Facebook Chat. I'll leave my account up, since there are days where I don't even check my profile and I don't mind it at all.
In other news, I've had this migraine for two days now, and I'm wondering, when will it go away? But, it's funny that I have it right now, since FIFTEEN SOULS starts with a migraine within the story. Go figure.
So, I decided that BOLLOCKS FIC YOU! will be about what I'm reading, what I've finished reading, and what I'm currently writing. (While I'm always writing, I'm not always finishing. Sadly, there is a difference in my little world.) I also will hint at what's happening on other things I'm working on, but not as much, especially when I finally get everything set up.
I thought I'd start the great USA Thanksgiving Weekend of 2010 by giving a personal review of The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. I watched the film months before and as a result, kept picturing Anne Hathaway as the main character Andrea. Also, in my imagination, her best friend Lily was the actress who played Lilly from The Princess Diaries. Fancy that! Good thing that the book's version of Miranda Priestly was not Meryl Streep but, rather, whomever I wanted to imagine her as according to Ms. Weisberger's writing. I want to steer away from biases like these at all costs, but I really couldn't help it, it was too easy. (This is starting to happen with the Harry Potter series, too.)
Either way, all mental pictures aside, the book's version of Andrea and Miranda Priestly felt developed for what it was: a simple, almost "popcorn," read. I had both empathy and sympathy for Andrea, especially after having had a glimpse of the fashion industry within the last year myself. Her thoughts of getting through her year-long term with the fictional magazine Runway consistently changed with the progression of the book. I thought that was a really good thing to do- I saw the progression of Andrea's personality go from someone who was unaware of the big city life and too innocent of what she was getting into to a person who was on her way to being a worldly human being, but definitely was still far and away from it at the end.
The antagonist Miranda made me laugh. Her demands were so absurd and her personality was awful. I loved it, she was definitely a great villain to have in a story. It's too easy to create a villain and just have them throw one bad thing after the other at the protagonist without justification. The background for Miranda also gave Andrea a foundation to find out what she wanted out of her life and rounded out Miranda just a little bit. I liked the timing of revealing the meaningful bits through the research in the beginning, chatter between characters, and even Miranda herself admitting what a shadow of her former self might have been. I say "might," since the conversation with her admitting this happened to be when she and Andrea are together alone in a car and she is still cold and inexpressive, according to Andrea's observations of the event - a bias that the book understandably has, considering everything has been written to be in Andrea's point of view.
Supportive characters were important in this book, too. Andrea's immediate family kind of served as a contrast to Miranda Priestly's own, and appropriately, they showed up less and less throughout the novel as Miranda's role in Andrea's life expanded more and more. Alex the boyfriend was O.K. but I think even without him, Andrea functioned well and was still a good character. If anything, I think Lily was the better of the two non-familial people in Andrea's world to both interact with her and be a catalyst to Andrea's major decisions.
Having recently moved away from New York City, The Devil Wears Prada made me miss it a little bit, since the bulk of its action happened in Manhattan. I had an opportunity to see both the Hearst and Condé Nast buildings at one point, very briefly, and kept filling in mentally that the Elias-Clark Building was a combination of those two plus some other offices, but even if you haven't seen those buildings I mentioned, Ms. Weisberger describes the layout of Elias-Clark with enough precision expected from someone who only works in it and not having had anything else to do with its appearance.
I think it is an easy read, took me a total of a day to get through the entire story. I kept going on and off while reading, so I didn't just start on it today. I would recommend it for anyone above age seventeen, since some folks at that age tend to have a grasp of how post-college life might work, due to research about post-high school life or by questioning those that have already gone through college. Since this book happens to be about a woman who is coming into her first career after graduation, I would think anyone younger than a college-bound person might miss out on references or think less of what's going on between characters.
Above is the URL I mentioned in my previous entry. What's with the name? Well, this has everything to do with the upcoming online (for now) publication I've been planning. I would like to do a kind of literary magazine, the bulk of it to be concentrating on short stories, with spattering of poetry- a genre of literature I'm not very good at being picky and critical over- and, hopefully, some photography, especially those that can tell stories with the series of images, whether literally or if there's a theme going on. I figure it would be a learning process all around. So, the short stories bit is where "SHORT" comes into the name.
So, I have returned. Sorry for my delays. I have nothing to say about my delays.
What can you expect for the next few months from me on this blog? Quite honestly, I will be working on a number of projects by myself as well as with a few friends. In addition, I mentioned on my Twitter that I would be launching a publication. I would love to say more but I am still planning the heck out of it. Also, I have purchased a domain name and may be using it within early next year, which could mean that this blog will either get a new address or a different focus!
I am pleased that things are moving along and will provide more substance soon than just some almost-random entries on this bit of blog.
Damn Polyvore site...some of the pics I wanted to use for a set just keeps fucking up.
So, I copy and paste here the damn text I wanted to use for the set. But, it doesn't mean as much when there's no pictures of the reference. (BUT there's always Google and if you know who Keira Knightley is, then you can skip the Googling step.)
---
I thought I'd make a polyvore...reminding myself of how awesome Keira Knightley is as an actress and as a model. I admire her portrayal of her characters, and I can't wait to see her in NEVER LET ME GO, a film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's book of the same title (which I love!). It's a pity that when I first encountered the news on the internet, the synopsis clearly states the entire movie.
As a writer, I admired the brevity of the summary. At the same time, as a writer, fan, and reader of Kazuo Ishiguro's work, I was really miffed at finding out the entire movie's story laid out like that.
ANYWAY! My favorite images of Keira Knightley are here, especially with her in the green dress from ATONEMENT, one of the best stories I've ever read/watched. I was trying to find the picture of her from an editorial where she wore so well a dress from Vera Wang's S/S 2010 collection...but I can't. Oh well.
I'm feeling like there's been a lot of failed relationships lately! How could some of them start back up to the same way as they were before?
I think I've ruined a lot of my own myself. There's plenty of acquaintances that could have been friends eventually. There are friends who could have been 'Besties,' and the 'Besties' into FAMILY. And FAMILY itself is another level. But, I think I'm coming to terms with a lot of the failures, if only because I am very aware of how the next several months can be like if it goes in the direction it's going in right now. (being cryptic on purpose
I don't regret having certain failed relationships, because of the learning experiences...but I do regret having lost time with those I still want to keep in my life. But only for a moment, because I might lose some more time if I dwell too long.
I was born on the 10th and I always thought, since I was an even younger girl than I am now (start your giggles), it was a great number.
Right now is my 2nd anniversary of being a Moo! It happened to fall on the 10th, because he decided that he shouldn't ask on the 9th since I was expecting it.
Clever of him to, since it was one of the most pleasant surprises of my life!
I have to say that the universe is watching out for me, keeping me employed in such a nasty economy, which is getting better slowly, many are saying. But, of course, it's not the same as before for me, as well as for everyone else.
As ridiculous and as "under-a-rock" as I can sound, Happy New Year! Seriously, this is my first blog entry here since 2010 started, so I only think it's proper to greet with that. I also celebrated Chinese New Year (though, not as serious- I don't know enough about it yet), which makes my greeting valid, especially since many people throughout the world are still celebrating the joyous Lunar New Year!
I was at my parents' last night. I looked for my music teacher's required material, and found it, plus a lot of other music material I had either played or planned on playing in the past. Most were kept in plastic boxes that I had obtained from a Japanese products store that was opened near that house years ago. They're gone now, but there's always more of those types in Chinatown. Anyway, the point here is that while I looked for and through the music materials, I started to think about writing on paper again, and used my time to look for all the blank books that I had amassed over the years, some bought with the sole intention of filling up for a particular story, other ones were gifts from family and friends.
I've been ignoring writing in this, only because I got out of my writing groove between graduation and a few days ago. Why couldn't I update lately? Let's just say I had to get some items done fast on my to-do list that is the length of forever. (To me, to me! I'm not going to live forever in terms of you.)
So, yes, hello there again.
I still didn't do the blog about my vacation in July. I didn't upload any pictures concerning it. But I am getting back into this groove (as previously mentioned), so this may all change within the next few weeks.
What kind of stuff am I reading lately? Fashion magazines, especially Elle because of a number of its smarter articles, and re-reading the last volume of the Harry Potter saga. I have a nostalgia for the latter, and as for the magazines, I've been finding I need new fodder for thoughts, characterization and they give advice that I can't seem to ask for...yet. I don't think the right people have come along for them, or maybe just not the right times. I've yet to figure this out.
Then there are comics. I grabbed a translated version of Clover by CLAMP, all four volumes clad in paperback and with colored cover and extra art the group did for it. (I have the Japanese ones, except for ONE volume, but I have a feeling I'd never read it properly. I did, however, figure out words I was translating on my own by drawing my conclusions from it, in my reading the English one...) By way of recommendation from a Twitter user who also has a blog, I started reading Ikigami, but with the 2nd volume, because that was the only one available at Borders near work.
I'm trying to write a fiction story that I deliberately put myself and my boyfriend as characters in, and so far, I keep having all these neat adventures to write about...but only in my brain. I am terrified of putting anything down on paper just yet. (Read: Just really SLOW about it.)
Not really a highlight but it's all good.
Someone asked that I post my recommendations up. So, here they are, without my descriptions or reasons for why. :) Next post might have them!
- Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose
- Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
- Coin Locker Babies, Ryu Murakami
- American Gods, Neil Gaiman
- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami
- Suppli, Mari Okazaki
- What Dreams May Come, Richard Matheson
- Atonement, Ian McEwan
- Unabridged fairy tales, Hans Christen Andersen
- Ramayana
Sorry about the fairy tales, but there's one version of it with these beautiful pictures. It'd be an oversized book at a bookstore. Personally, I read this when I was much younger and took it out again for one more read from the Fort Hamilton Brooklyn Public Library Branch, before moving from Bay Ridge to Bensonhurst. I don't think I'll ever forget it.
I'm serious about this list. It's a big list.
I'm in the middle of cleaning my living space, and lo and behold, I come across papers of some importance. But, before I chuck all of these papers that were on the left side of my desk, I'm typing up the book titles that I have highlighted on them. The deal with these papers is that they were from classmates in a fiction writing class I took last year. They contain book recommendations that our professor said we should bring in on the last day of our class. I looked at them again just about an hour ago and decided I should write down the highlighted ones for my own future reference. Hey, you can use them, too. If you have a review of the stories behind the titles, please feel free to comment. I'd be more than glad to see opinions from you.
- Close to the Knives, David Wojnarowicz
- Geek Love, Katharine Dunn
- Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
- Vow to Poetry: Essays, Interviews, & Manifestos, Anne Waldman
- Nightwood, Djuna Barnes
- The Writing Class or anything else, Jincey Willett
- A Colour Out of Space, H.P. Lovecraft
- No One Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July
- House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski (This has been recommended to me by those outside of the class.)
- I Capture the Castle, Dodi Smith
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks
- The Stranger, Albert Camus
- The Trial, Franz Kafka
- Dune, Frank Herbert
- The Godfather, Mario Puzo
- A Complicated Kindness, Miriam Toews
- All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
- The Mystery Guest, Gregoire Bouillier
- The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
- Ham on Rye, Charles Bukowski
- The Complete Poems of Edgar Allen Poe (Really, do I have to put an author?)
- Hazmat, J.D. McClatchy
- Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer
- The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
- A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Mark Haddon
- This Way for the Gas, Ladies & Gentlemen, Tadeusz Borowoski
- Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Factotum, Charles Bukowski
- Women, Charles Bukowski
- Fortress of Solitude, Jonathen Lethem
- American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
- Less than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis
- The Cold Six Thousand, James Ellroy
- American Tabloid, James Ellroy
- A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace
- Tenderness, Robert Cormier
- Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson
- Drown, Junot Díaz
- Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
- The Friends, Rosa Guy
- The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
- Love Medicine, Louis Edrich
- Anthem, Ayn Rand
- Jasmine, Bharati Mukherjee
- I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Joanne Greenberg
- Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson
- The Liars' Club: A Memoir, Mary Karr
- The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
- Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (Though I think my brother hates this book? What? Maybe I have that information completely wrong?)
- Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
- The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
- Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse
- The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
- The Girl Who Owned a City, O. T. Nelson
- The House at Riverton, Kate Morton
- The Art of Fiction, John Gardner
- Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Tom Berendt
- Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond
- Gödel, Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas R. Hoffstadter
- Ishmael, Daniel Quinn
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
- Sherlock Holmes, Assorted short stories, Arthur Conan Doyle
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
- At the Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft
- Salem's Lot, Stephen King
- Good Omens, Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
- The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, McCullers
- The Road, McCarthy
- 1984, Orwell
- Various Novels by Sarah Waters
- The Passion, Jeanette Winterson
- Native Son, Wright
- To the Lighthouse, Woolf
- Bastard Out of Carolina, Allison
- Desperate Characters, Fox
- The Price of Salt, Highsmith
- Song of Solomon, Morrison
- Othello, Shakespeare
- The Color Purple, Walker
- The Age of Innocence, Wharton
Okay, as shameless as this is, I want to post them the way they are, so I can show you a bit of my writing style in both languages. I feel foolish about German, though, since I am still learning. If you are a German-born person or are very much advanced in German, and if you would like, please provide some constructive criticism; but before you do that, please comment first that you would, and we can come to arrangements.
The original short story that this assignment had been based on was "Der drei dunklen Könige" by Wolfgang Borchert. Somehow this story really made me pay attention to German and I told my professor this. She's letting me have an indefinite borrow (so to speak) of her book of short stories by him. I'll write about my readings of his other stories eventually, but in the meantime, here's my...take on one of his characters, der Soldat ohne Hände, or the soldier without hands.
A note about my German: I am at an intermediate level and slightly struggling to memorize all that I can, all the time. I am learning to be patient with myself in terms of German. So, my work is not as elaborate because I do not know it as well as I know English.
---GERMAN
Nach am Ende von Krieg, wir wollten zusammen nach Heimatstadt kommen. Wir wollten sehen, ob jemand von unser Familien war noch da. Wir hatten ein bißchen Hoffnung auf ein Chance, dass wir jemand fanden, irgendjemand.
Es war ein warmer Herbst, dass wir leicht reisten. Wir waren sorgenlos, weil der Stress weg gang. Der Krieg, es war zu Ende. Aber vielleicht waren wir so optimistich. Wir dachten, vielleicht mehr Soldaten wie uns wurden in gleicher Richtung reisen. Wir erwarteten das. Personlich hoffte ich, dass jemand mit einem Auto uns aufheben konnte.
Aber wir gangen zu Fuß und hatten wir Pech. Wir abhanden zu viele Zeit gekommen. Viele Straßenschilder waren nicht da oder unleserlich. Immer schlecter waren falsche Straßenschilder, die niemand nicht korrigierten hatten. Es waren falsche zu austricksen die Feinde. Auf einmal wurde das Wetter sehr kalt. Wir sollten es besser kennen, wir begannen durch dem Anfang des November.
Denn hatten wir etwas unglücklichen und wichtigen Sachen. Melchior, ein sehr gute Schnitzer war, verlor seine Handschuhe. Melchior hatte ein Esel für ein Kind, von seine Träume- er sag. Balthazar, ein Arzt war, verlor seine Nervenmedizin. Ich mochte sie helfen, so gab ich ihnen meine Handschuhe und Zigaretten. Ich mochte, dass Melchior den Esel für das Kind beenden und Balthazar besser jeden Tag fühlen. Damals ich dachte mir glücklich- ich hatte nichts verlor. Aber ich hatte kein Auswechslungen und denn hatte ich mein Pech.
Ein Nacht in Anfang von Dezember, wann wir in der Nähe die Heimatstadt, ich fühlte nicht meine Hände. Balthazar sah, und sein Gesicht sag, dass es meine Reihe Pech zu haben war. Ich sag ihm, ich vertrauen ihn, aber bitte, tue es schnell. Für meine Hände, es war zu spät. Er stoppte gut die Erfrierung.
Meine Freunde halfen mir gut und ich vermutet, dass Melchior mir seine Essen gab. Er hatte Schwellfüße. Ich wollte, dass er Essen hatte, aber er wurde nichts hören. Es ist eine nicht gute Idee, er sag.
In der Mitte von Dezember traffen uns in der Stadt. Die war sehr ruhig, untergehend und sitzengelassen. Zussamen besuchten wir nach Hausen, und ich sah, niemand legten tot an dem Boden.
Wir blieb in der Stadt und machten die Hausen sauber. Ich hatte keine Hände aber ich trat den Abfall, und ich hatte noch meine Augen. Weil meine Augen, dass wie wir das Kind fanden in der Nacht.
Es war sehr kalt und immer noch hatten die Stadt bewegte. Wir fanden mit Glück ein Pappkarton mit gelben Bonbons, und bald hatte wir mehr Dinge fanden, die Melchior in seinem Sack gelegt hatte. Balthazar mochte ein Zigarette. Er rauchte und bald er ging zurück. Er hatte gesehen ein kleines Licht in einem Haus.
Wir hatten fanden ein kleine Familie mit drei, ein ein Kind war, er sehr jung aus sah. Die Eltern sah ängstvoll aus, aber Melchior hatte Ehrfurcht vor das Kind, und gab das Holzesel. Direkt gab Balthazar die Frau zwei gelbe Bonbons.
Ich war sehr nahe zum Kind und er lachte. Nach immer fühlte ich schön. Bald wir sind zurückgelassen, aber wir fühlten dankbar, dass, ebenso die Familie war in ein schreck Platz, die hatte viele ihre Glück und Zufriedenheit.
---ENGLISH
My name is Kaspar and I was a soldier in the biggest war so far. But now, I am a very old man. My three grandchildren are running, while I am writing on a typewriter, though I have no hands. I have much good luck in my life, and I would like to tell you about it.
But I found solace in two fellow soldiers, named Melchior and Balthazar, who came from my hometown and were in the same unit. We consoled each other and grew to be close friends. I found we went to the same elementary school and knew some of the same people in our childhoods. Personally, talking to them caused me to have a reason to fight- I wanted to show I was just as capable as a soldier and a man as they were, though I was younger than the two by a couple of years.
After the war ended, we decided to travel back together, to see if there was anyone from our families who could have come back, too. For some reason, we had a small bit of hope that there was a chance we would find someone waiting for us, any one.
It was a warm fall the year it ended, so we travelled light. In a way, we were carefree, because the stress was gone for the meantime and the war was over. But we were slightly too optimistic- we thought that maybe there would be more like us travelling in the same direction. We expected to be able to cross paths with others who might be travelling the same direction. I personally hoped we would get to ride with someone, somewhere.
But we did not have so much luck and we were on foot. We ended up getting lost too much. Many signs on the road were either blown away or unreadable. Worse yet were the false signs that were meant to confuse any incoming enemy. They were not replaced with correct ones yet. Our luck became worse because of the sudden cold weather. We should have known better, we did start out in early November.
Then we had some important unlucky things happen to each of us. Melchior knew how to carve wood very well, and I always admired him for it. He was trying to finish a project he started while we were still deployed. I think he said that he was doing this for a child and told me that he had been inspired by a dream. At night, while we rested and it was his turn to be a lookout, he would carve it. When the nights got colder he worked with gloves on, but somehow he lost the pair. Balthazar was a meticulous medic, but somehow he actually lost his personal medicine for his nerves, though it was normally placed with his regular medicine. I counted myself lucky- I lost nothing at that point, but I wanted to help.
I gave my gloves to the carver and all of my cigarettes to the nervous one. I did all of this because I thought I could get along without them. I wanted Melchior to complete his dream. And as for Balthazar, I noticed that cigarettes calmed my nerves but really wasn’t so bad as his, so I thought he could use them better. I did not tell them I had nothing else to replace either of these things, so they would not refuse me.
One night in early December, when we were so close to arriving back at home, I felt nothing on my hands, and had Balthazar look at it. His face told me that it was my turn to have bad luck. I told him, I trust you, please be quick about it. He stopped the spread of frostbite and made sure I lost nothing else, but for my pair of hands it was too late.
Still, I think I was lucky to have them as my friends. They always made sure I was eating and cleaning my wounds. I can’t help it, but I suspected at the time that Melchior was having less to eat because of me, and eventually his feet became swollen out of hunger. I insisted that he eat my portions but he would hear none of it- to travel while injured, he said, is already a bad idea but it was something we had to do, so he wanted to minimize the damage.
By mid-December, we came to our destination. Our hometown was quiet. There were many ruins in the main part of town, and on the outskirts I saw more whole buildings but abandoned. It seemed that there was no one around. We came to visit at each of our houses, together. We all saw evidence that our families abandoned the places and no one lay dead on the floor.
Saddening as everything was, we still stayed put and started to fix things. I had no hands but I kicked rubbish into piles for the others to move, and I used my eyes to find things out. Because of me, that was how we found the child Melchior dreamed about.
It was one of the coldest nights, yet we were still busy moving around. Somehow we had been lucky enough to find a cardboard box with some bonbons, and carried that around, hoping there would be more stuff. Melchior had a sack with him and soon we were filling it with basic things we needed. Then we took a break, in which Balthazar stepped away to have one of his cigarettes. He came back a minute later, saying he spied a light houses away.
We followed this tiny light and found a family of three, one a baby who looked very young. The parents looked fearful of us. We still had our uniforms, but they were becoming worn out. I think that we looked dangerous as well as shabby. Melchior was awestruck but I saw that he made no hesitation to produce his carving, and Balthazar promptly handed over two of the golden Bonbons to the mother.
We looked closer at the baby and he started to laugh when I was the closest. It was as if he was happy we were there to visit.
We soon left but were grateful that at least, even if the family was in a terrible place, they were blessed with some of their own good luck and happiness.
I am saddened that I could not write to the full extent in German that I wanted! VERY ANGRY with myself, but what am I gonna do. I'm going to wait for my comments from my professor to really work at improving what I left out, but in the meantime, my progress...will be...posted. SOMEHOW. ARGH.
I'll figure this out...
After several years of contemplating on the same stories and ideas, I decided to own up and create for myself a cycle. I'm not even sure if the stories are going to qualify as short stories or novels, or just fragments after a while.
The cycle is somewhere close to the realm of reincarnation, but not so much as the dying and rebirth idea behind it, but for the second-chance aspect that it seems to grant. I'm not saying that every particular rebirth means a second-chance at something, but there is the idea that there's something to make up for from a previous life. I like that very much.
I'd have to say that a book was the cause for a budding interest. In high school, I started reading Richard Matheson's work, and one of those was What Dreams May Come. It left a very strong impression. While I was at Adelphi, I even started to do research about it. Of course, researching all that, I didn't really have much else to talk about and I think I was pretty bad at coming up with palatable conversation topics. And now, I want to write much more about it? My friends will get more death-related talks than they ever want, maybe.
However, I don't remember exactly what sparked that particular topic to keep popping up so frequently. I think it can remain a mystery, anyway, and I am quite excited to actually embark on this writing journey, now that I'm comfortable with it. Stories that I can safely include in this cycle are The Puppet Project and Fifteen Souls, titles that I am comfortable with for now while I'm working on them. Who knows if I will ever come up with something better? I am certain that The Puppet Project will be a novel, while Fifteen Souls might look nice visually, if I could find a partner to help me in that aspect. In the meantime, it's in a planning stage that kind of makes me feel like I'm going crazy whenever I write down stuff about it. It's this story that also makes me NOT want to read anything else while I'm working on it, so that aspects of other work does not affect it.
I understand that I'm writing about these stories without any specific details concerning them, so I will attempt to summarize with one (awful) sentence for each one.
The Puppet Project: A family, unwilling to be the way they turned out from a recent tragedy, adjusts to another, sudden unwelcome addition, who has to earn his way back into having his own skin again.
Fifteen Souls: A young woman finds out that what she thought was multiple-personality disorder, wasn't.
My gosh, those summaries...are kind of lame. Oh well, that's all I'll reveal.
In related writing news, I am planning to use next month to finish up “The Little Girl Who Ate Nuclear Warheads.” It's been two plus years since I started that story, and only last year did I start to fix it through workshop classes. It's so close to completion, but it's the end that's jarring me. I want to make sure I have everything consistent in the flow of the story and characterization. I'm very excited! When I finish it, I will create a file of it that can be distributed on the net, so everyone can read and see if they like it or not. This short story is about a little girl with an acquired appetite.
Hallo there everyone, I have some downtime before I get back into studying. So, I choose to write a long-awaited and long-owed entry.
My friend Shakti actually responded seriously to a note on my FB above five things that I should talk about on a blog entry. So, below is the list with her requests, verbatim! Thanks friend! :)
We talked really briefly about your interest in German and orchestral music, but I'd love for you to write about it here.
- German: My interest in this was practically late in adolescence. I was in orchestra classes from 2004 to 2006, while I attended Adelphi University, and in those classes there were German songs selected by singers. The professor/conductor (one and the same person!) would let us know about details about the song's background and language, which I found myself getting more curious about. Then, there was this classmate, a flautist named Sara, who was taking German at the time. She taught me and other orchestra mates how to say "excellent" [ausgezeichnet!], and we'd have our laughs about it because of the way we used it everywhere. After I transferred to Hunter College, I saw that I had to take a language for a requirement, and picked German because not only was it available on their list of offerings but it was something new that I wanted to try because of the past from Adelphi.
-Orchestral music: I was about five years old when I started listening to classical music, on the radio. Around third grade to fourth grade, I started taking piano lessons. I eventually stopped taking piano lessons but, courtesy of school, there was still the recorder (hahaha gotta start somewhere), chorus, and a year on the trombone. Eventually, during high school years, I got into playing the violin (though my initial interest was in the viola, that did not work out in my favor because my mother bought a violin from a Philippine store that did not carry violas). That was when I actually had a good time- all four years were musically-filled. In short, I'd have to say that this all started due to elementary school- there were many music-type of trips! Plus, as I got older, I'd have to say that the orchestra as a body of musicians working together is just plain attractive.
what sort of fiction do you write? amazingly, we haven't spoken about this!
I write whatever comes into my head, so I'm not really into one particular genre; but I can tell you that I cannot write military fiction, nor do I want to attempt to do it. I think I would generalize what I have finished in the past as modern fairy tales, in their own ways. I like making my own worlds in the stories. I think I would say that short stories are my thing for the past several years, though I've been working on a few novels whenever I have the chance. I hope this answered your question!
list your fandoms. ones you're in and ones you wanna be in. i would LOVELOVELOVE to eventually share one with you.
:)
-Current Fandoms I'm in- Scrubs (Up to Season 6!), Chuck (finishing up current season using the internet- please don't cancel this series, NBC!), Perfect Girl Evolution (The Wallflower, a manga), Koukou Debut (another manga), Studio Ghibli film offerings, Life on Mars, Dr. Who, Coupling, Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries (the books, not True Blood storylines)
-Fandoms I'd LOVE to be in! (lack of time, have not started yet, etc.) - Battlestar Galactica, Hana Yori Dango Japanese live action, Goong live action
There's definitely more but I have to say that these are the ones on my mind lately. Always subject to change, right?
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WHEW time to nap before prepping for German class! Posting again soon!
Updates
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@SilvanaLovin How is Melbourne? Are you there for the Easter holidays? I'm relatively close to L.A. for the time-being, doing ok! XOXO!
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@dongomezjr Man, that's terrible news. I'm sorry for yours & others' loss of this person from your lives.
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RT @dongomezjr: An NCO I respected very much killed himself this week. He was a true warrior - a word I don't like to use - but he was it.
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RT @dongomezjr: Suicide can happen to any of us still serving or back in the civilian world. If you see something, say something.
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@SilvanaLovin Hi! Saw that you're on Twitter & started to follow. Love your art! Used to work in NYC at Code. Stay amazing, Silvana!7 weeks ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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My life lately is God, behavior analysis, & sexuality. I have some bad days, but I wouldn't have it any other way. #education #editor #fb
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3 of 5 stars to Goldengrove by Francine Prose http://t.co/jjX8N9lv5Z
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@QuothTheRavings I could see that. The last time I used it it was on my laptop and that will never be running more than XP at this time.
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RT @nintendolife: Harvest Moon Heading to North American 3DS eShop in Late April http://t.co/emRJ0LEjuK #eShop #3DSeShop #UpcomingReleases
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@QuothTheRavings Did you like the programs? I found them lagging after a while when I used them on Win XP about four years back.
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@QuothTheRavings And there's a lot of limitations. In regards to free stuff, I've used OpenOffice and Libre Office programs. Not too bad.
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@QuothTheRavings Not all systems can use it, either, according to their info. https://t.co/U47wwj4NH3
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@QuothTheRavings You can actually go use it while offline, but it's Chrome-dependent & set up requires some steps.
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RT @ErikaMoen: Anything That Loves, the queer sexuality comics anthology I'm in, has launched their Kickstarter! http://t.co/0x4YkPg0Ih
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@QuothTheRavings ...but I'm enjoying the preview while it lasts.
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@QuothTheRavings I guess it's a toss-up, then? I know I'm probably going to end up with Google Docs because it's free...
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@QuothTheRavings Office 365 isn't too different from their past version so people making the transition will probably have a sigh of relief
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@QuothTheRavings Only because MS has these templates & formats that people can use on their software (as far as I know about it...)
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@QuothTheRavings Yeah that's the only blah thing about it. I think MS can go head to head w/ Google Docs on this editing in the cloud thing
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@QuothTheRavings Another option on the files in the cloud is Dropbox- kind of the same, too, but more about files in general, not docs, tho