Welcome to my journal. Thank you, in advance for reading.  This is a table of contents of sorts just for you.  I hope you will take a moment to browse around through my thoughts and samples of my literary works in progress.  I'm always hungry for feedback and discussion.  Moments in which I get to communicate with and learn from others are the best moments of my life.  If you don't know where to start, you could take a look at my tags.  If you're looking to start back when I first began to take journal-writing seriously, I would jump ahead to around JULY 2010. If you're looking for the real turning point of my life, I would definitely start at the point I call POST-COGITO (what is Cogito??) and work forward from there.

I am Buddhist now.
Writing is becoming harder to me every day, but I will keep doing it.  I know now that it is my purpose to do so.
Otherwise, little had changed, though I think I, of course, have changed.
I change rapidly, constantly more and more rapidly, and I'm starting to feel...relief at the change, at knowing I am a changeable person.  It's good to change, to learn.  I hold learning dear in my heart.

...My dreams are still the same, though I find myself...dampened emotionally.  Dampened by bitterness?  Or by simple acceptance and passivity?  I don't know yet.

With Spring, though, old passions are returning, though already I feel less confused and more...knowing.  I still love.  Fiercely. Just today I felt that old love, which I thought I had lost somewhere, return so strongly I thought I would burst into tears like I used to.  It's good, in a confused way, to know that I still love...him.  I hope I can find my rightful path.

Suddenly I am tired.  Weary.  Still I am a bit neurotic, though I can find it in myself to smile about it.

Anyway, enough for my thoughts.  They are becoming too ego-centric.

I am sleepy, lethargic, a little sick, but good.  I cannot complain....

I've been spending a lot of time these past few days daydreaming.  It's a sign to me that I am...a little down in the part of me that I don't want to recognize...and swiftly picking myself back up otherwise.  Not happy.  Not sad.  Just sort of floating, though I will say that on the outside I feel happy.  What does it matter?  I'm not sure.  Doesn't really matter.  But motivation is good.

My dear friend, my to-be sister, told me on Friday that I should be a creative writing major and pursue writing as a career.  I think, to some degree, she is right, though I have shied away from the title of "writer" for many many years for many reasons, and ultimately my heart belongs to film.  But I do wish to be published.

I have had many more strange dreams recently, though none worth sharing.

I was hoping that if I began writing this entry, something would come to me that needed to be said, but no.  Nothing to be said.  Today it is going to rain, and I can't miss it.  I have to get out there before it starts, so that's what I will do.  It is not quite 50 degrees outside, but that's okay.  If I get good and soaked and then get inside really fast, I should be fine, and I'll just prey that this sickness I feel is just seasonal allergies and nothing that will be exacerbated by the cold and the wet.  But I have not spent any time with my good friend the rain in a long long time.  Today we have a date.

And there I will go.

Someone speak to me.  I'm disenchanted with life.

I don't think I really need to explain Trayvon Martin.
But it started me into signing petitions, every day, as many as I could stand to read and sign, about everything, everything that seemed right.

I am sinking.  I am trying to hold onto hope and optimism, but I'm starting to think that maybe it's stupid.
There's a principle in Buddhism, a pretty basic one, that before you reach enlightenment, you have to lose everything.  That happened to me once, when Mom died.  I think maybe my finding things to live for again, or to believe in, was just an illusion.  Yes, all things are illusions.  All things are illusions.  I'm struggling to see the difference between the things that are true beneath the illusions (enlightenment), but...that's another story.

I've come to discover...that I don't like this world, the human world anyway.  Maybe I don't like life.  I love living, but people (including myself, I'm sure) are cruel and stupid, and my imagination is too wild; my mind is too big to be held in the confines of society, of order.  Society.  The word is sour.  I am sitting in an armchair in the middle of the children's section in the public library.  I feel drumming in my feet as small children run by.  I imagine that, instead, the drumming is something under the earth about to burst through.  I imagine it exploding up from the floor, bomb-like, and ripping apart my legs with its entry.  I imagine not blood but motion, my legs sheered away at the calf with hanging flaps of flesh; they fly off at a speed that would be strange to my eyes.  In that moment my world would be shattered, seeing pieces of my legs separated from my body.  I would see them.

I think these things because I am...sad...scared.  Last night I dreamt, among other things, that I was trapped in a room with Andy Dufresne from Stephen King's "Shawshank Redemption."  His enemy had a gun and was going to, inevitably, shoot Andy in the head.  At some times I was Andy, trying to smart-talk my way out of dying, or trying to wrestle the gun away from him, or trying to run.  He didn't shoot; he was waiting.  He spent a lot of time just threatening me, scaring me.  My perspective switched, and I was a girl that Andy had fallen in love with.  The man with the gun had become a time bomb.  A woman shouted that it was going to go off.  Andy grabbed me and pulled me into a corner behind a wall and shielded me with his body.  The bomb went off.  He died.  I lived.  The dream rewound.  I ran away from Andy so he wouldn't try to shield me; I ran towards the bomb.  It exploded and disintegrated me.  I saw my body turned into a sort of glowing sand and explode.  I felt myself disappearing.  The dream rewound again.  I was a woman who knew when the bomb would go off, and I warned Andy and the girl.  I spread my arms out and stood in front of the bomb so it would blow me up first.  A moment before it exploded, I told Andy and the girl that I loved my life, that my life was beautiful.  Again I exploded.  The dream rewound; I repeated my speech and was exploded again.  Why?  Because I had to make sure I was doing it right, and for some reason I wasn't dying; disintegrating but not dying.  Every time I was so scared, more scared than I can even explain, because I knew I was going to die.  Every time I had to replay the moment when I would commit myself to my sacrified.  When I exploded, I could feel a feeling like my eyes rolling back in my head and my muscles straining, my mind straining.  I kept repeating my speech to myself, about how I loved my life and it was beautiful but I was going to give it up.  I strained very hard, during each explosion, each time I felt my body unraveling.  I was trying to die.

I was trying to die?

...Yes, I was.  But I couldn't figure out how.

My friend says in her Facebook status, "The world is filth."

In Florida a little seventeen-year-old boy is dead, shot in the chest, and it doesn't matter that he's black.  My sister is seventeen.

This song I'm listening to you tells me, "Beauty is within us," and I know it.  I know it.  Life wouldn't hurt so much if it weren't true.  Maybe if we were all ugly and terrible and evil, at least the truth would be easier.

I'm about to lose another home.  Is it really mine I wonder?  Doesn't the fact that for six months my feet have walked through it, that my head has rested on my pillow in my room when I sleep, that my food has been in the refridgerator, that my hands have cleaned the floors, that my keychain holds the front door key, that my breath fills its air...make it mine?  In the end it will be like everywhere else, a temporary resting place.  I have no home.  I have never had one.  Society seems to be telling me that I don't deserve one.

I've been betrayed and lost and left so many times, and there are so many others that suffer so much worse than me.

My friend, the one that says the world is filth...I know she is miserable.

My friend, the other one who tells me that her heart is breaking all the time; I know that she is miserable too.

My friend, my far far far away friend, tells me about his pain and his joy every day, and I am helpless to even reach out to him.

That boy in Florida is dead, and as I sat signing petitions I saw that there are thousands of people like him being killed, raped, abused and marginalized.  Yeah, you're reading these words, but I doubt you really think about it very often, about it would feel like to be gang raped, or what it would feel like to be stabbed with a butcher knife or crushed by a bulldozer or shot or know that you're never really safe or secure because you're Black or gay or albino, or what it would be like to be a chicken in a battery cage with your beak twisted and stuck between the wires, or what it would be like to be a dog tied up and stuffed into a sack, alive, and left in a pile, or what it would be like to be a dying pig in transit to Hawaii for slaughter being trampled beneath other terrified pigs in the dark in the stench of your own feces and the excrement of your fellow captives.  Do you really think about it?  I know I don't very much.  I go through days like these, days where it hits me hard and stays with me for a week, for a month, and then it becomes a dream again, as I'm just trying to live.

What am I really even trying to say?

Things are ugly, and suddenly I'm really scared that they will get uglier.  The world is on the verge of destroying its life because of our wanton industrialization.  You don't think about that very often either, do you?  That within fifty, within twenty years we might wipe out whole species, including our own.  I think a lot about what my end will be.  Will I drown in a hurricane-induced flood?  Will I die of dehydration?  Will I die of some sickness in a future world where medicine has all but died because there aren't enough doctors, enough pharmacies, enough factories left to administer even the simplest treatments?  Stupid it may be to think about the apocalypse, you might think, but it's possible.

I'm in love with someone I can't even see or talk to.

My family has to move again, search for yet another place to go.  Pack up, move out.  Where to?  I don't know.  I never know.  A few more days, maybe a week, maybe a month, and then it's a search for yet another home.  I think my brother is avoiding me, because he's trying to find a way to keep us stable in all this chaos, and maybe it seems easier to him to avoid us while he's doing it.  Or maybe he's asleep somewhere on campus.  Or maybe he's angry with me.  I have no way of knowing.  So I'm sitting alone in the library, in the children's section, worried about what my sister is going to eat, worried about where the money will keep coming from, worried about if things will be the way they were a few days ago, worried about...hating everything and everyone.  I'm so close to hating all people, hating and becoming homocidal.  Of course...that would never happen.  But because of my wild imagination, my formless thoughts, I am homocidal in my mind, homocidal thoughts that are not images but instead are pangs of frustration, of rage, of grief, of fear, of panic, panic, panic and dismay.  It's all very quiet, silent, as only the mind can manufacture things, but I can feel the muscles in my scalp tingling as they only do when I'm incredibly tense.  And I'm in my early twenties but have pre-hypertension.  I'm neurotic, but I'm incredibly stable, because I learned from watching my mother die to internalize everything.  Everything.  Just sit in a chair and turn the music up high, or sit in the silence and let it all boil inside.

Just keep living.

Doc.
I was going to say, "Grumpy, of course," but I think I will have to change my answer to Doc.
As I kid I always liked Happy's...well, happiness, but Doc is probably my favorite now.  He reminds me of me, perhaps.

Nippon Kodo - Morning Star
Incensemania - Hem Aroma Collection
Ecclecstasy *hand-made, good cause*
Pure Incense and Oil (cones, sticks)
Incense Warehouse

Favorite Scents:

Mogra (Hem Precious)
Chocolate/Cocoa (Hem, ) - Morning Star "Earth"
Patchouli (Morning Star, Hem Precious) - Patchouli and Vetiver
Lavender (Hem Precious sticks, Hem Precious cones, Morning Star, Auroshikha)
Vanilla (Hem, Morning Star, Auroshikha) - Vanilla Rose
Ylang Ylang (good for bp) (Hem, Auroshikha)
Jasmine (Hem, Morning Star, Kayuragi cones, Auroshikha, Auroshikha, Floral World Cones)
Cinnamon (Padmini, Hem, Morning Star, ) - Orange Cinnamon
Frankincense (Hem sticks, Hem cones, Auroshikha)
Myrrh (Hem sticks, Hem cones, Ancient Aromas, Auroshikha)
Pumpkin (candle)
Orange (Hem, Kayuragi cones, ) - Chocolate Orange - Orange Cinnamon
Sandalwood (Hem, Morning Star)
Vetiver (Padmini, Hem) - Patchouli and Vetiver
Lily of the Valley (Hem, Monastery, Auroshikha)

My five-inch stiletto.

I always return to this scene in my head.  The original draft for it must be at least five years old, and since then Alanthiaire's character (along with Nauralice's and Maekrinov's but Alanthiaire's especially) have all developed so much (since that draft and also since anything about them that I have written here in this journal before now) that the original idea no longer fits.  The entire story has expanded.  I'm no longer contented (in general) to have a "Chose One" story, and this one especially was a trial, seeing as Nauralice was always so sickeningly idolized, her destiny pre-determined by a cliched prophecy that shouldn't really matter to anyone.  Today, as I read a certain book, I came up with this new idea for the sequence of events of the final confrontation between Nauralice (the protagonist) and Vamorikon (the antagonist). based on a certain principle.

Bear in mind, first of all, that this is far from organized.  It's a jumble of brainstorming mess, originally intended to be an outline, resulting in more of a conversation with myself, a basic description: me explaining to myself what will happen.  It has some detail, but mostly it's just a straight-forward, dry, half-explained recount of what I see in my head.  All tell, no show.  Many things--like energy synthesis and the "pattern" especially--I didn't even bother to explain in depth, so this is more of a note to myself or to anyone who already knows the more up-to-date details of this story and the magic system.  Also.  For those of you who know this story (or who may stumble upon this in the future and will know the story by then), this contains HUGE, HUGE spoilers.  THE spoiler of the story.  Proceed no further if you don't want the ending of the story to be spoiled for you.  (Though, who knows, I may change it again and again in the years to come as I develop this tale towards its final novel form...if that ever happens....)

( Rough Brainstorming here (!!SPOILER ALERT!!) )

This is just a little something I wrote on Goodreads in a forum discussion (based on the question "Would you be able to see thestrals?") that I thought I would share.

J.D. Wrote:

People have said that unfortunately they would be able to see them. I think that, once you get past a certain age, there's nothing fortunate or unfortunate about. It's not like everybody we know will stay alive forever.
JKR said that one of the biggest themes of the stories was death, and the thestrals show that she's not compeltely negative about it at all. In HP world the lines between life and death are more blurred than they seem to be in real life, and I think that makes things better, easier to understand, for the characters...

I responded:

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First of all, I wanted to say "thank you" to every single person who has ever commented here or responded to a comment I've posted on LiveJournal.  I think I take you all for granted too much; there is nothing more I appreciate in this world than other people sharing their lives with me, regardless of how small the way in which it is shared may seem.  So to all of you, thank you.  I've learned so much because of your presence.

During my vacation from LiveJournal...I learned a lot of things about friendship, about love and about myself and the way I always managed to "screw things up" between myself and the people I care about.  I'm thinking of a particular friendship some years ago, the first time that I perhaps loved someone outside of my family.  I loved this girl like a sister, like a soul mate.  The crash-and-burn ending of that first beautiful friendship scared, hurt and angered me more than I can ever say (still does), and I've just recently begun to realize the way in which my nature has led me to hurt other and led me to lead others to hurt me....

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Here is the age-old question: Where to start?

I am sitting in my room (messy), sitting at my (make-shift) desk, spooning raspberry jam (seedless) on store-bought freshly baked bread (that was fresh five days ago when I bought it, at least; still tastes good).  I've found that recently there has been too much on my mind to ever commit myself to one task or goal.  I go from one thing to another sporadically and helplessly, and I wonder if this will be what I do for the rest of my life.  Perhaps it is my nature; looking back, I have always been this way.

I think.

Perhaps not; it's difficult to tell in retrospect.

I have taken up reading books again.  In the recent past, I could only really get myself to read books by Stephen King or books about Buddhism.  But after seeing a book site that my friend has used, I have found the motivation to read again.  I get really excited whenever I get the chance to organize or keep track of things on the computer.  My disorganization in the real world leads me to want to organize things in the cyber world.  My PC, for example, my 400 GB of stuff, my 10000-song music library, my massive image collection, are all meticulously organized.  My journal here, too, is relatively put together.  Quite the contrast to my room, which is not dirty per se but is littered with clean clothes, stuffed animals, notes on index cards, pens and pencils, bottles of water and, most of all, books.  There are books strewn across the carpet, especially near my computer and my bed.  I cannot decide which book to read next.  My friend recommended to me "Nausea" by Jean-Paul Sartre.  I have an unparalleled respect for the French, perhaps not so personal and passionate as my love for the Japanese; but my opinion of France is high.  So much good literature, so many ways in which their society is different from mine, and better, carefully cultivated over time, a little odd in some ways but all the more beautiful because of it.  For the millionth time, I resent being born American.  I think the only thing that makes that good is that I have perhaps derived some power from it, knowing all that is wrong with this country, knowing the things that are good and beautiful but perhaps badly executed or too fraught with selfishness.  When I leave this place, and put America behind me, I will know, I hope, how to apply the beauty of American ways to a more wise lifestyle.  Then maybe I will be able to help this world, even though I am a stupid, selfish, prejudiced, babyish American.

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Since I'm kind of just re-posting everything here that I wrote on Figment, I thought I would post these as well, three poems.  They're amateurish poems, really.  To read my brief disclaimer about my ineptitude for poetry, click here.

( There is such a violence in my mind. )

( Savior of Worms )

( Sickly Human )

So, Sang is the "agonist" from Mirror and the Blood Reader.  I started one day to absentmindedly contemplate his childhood, and the result is this side-project.  The story will eventually be broken up into several sub-stories or arcs that represent major events in Sang's life.  "The Gift" is the name of the first arc, part 1.

I don't know if I really ever intend on publishing this as a serious work or not, but writing it has helped me get more in touch with Sang's character.

Tales of Sang

This poem was born of a game my friends and I played  during a small Christmas party.  We all contributed our favorite words to a vocabulary list, not knowing that we would be required to write a poem using each an every one of those very words.  Some of this may seem a bit odd, a bit "random," and it is, because we had to incorporate a list of random words.  The 18 words from the list are in bold.  As a disclaimer, I've never been much for poetry.  I just don't have the patience to stick to any form, to come up with rhymes that are so often overused and awkward.  Poetry to me is a sort of catharsis, really.  Any poetry I write is a more raw portrayal of my emotion than my other works.  They're usually free-verse, not very rhythmic and generally sporadic.  Enjoy!
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Once again the story is too long for posting inside this entry, so I've uploaded it here, as it also is on Figment.com:

Mirror and the Blood Reader

Dear lord, if I were to tell the background for this story (where it came from, how much it has developed since I first wrote it back in September 2011, the explanation would be nearly as long as the story!  For now, here is a brief summary of this story's origins as seen on Figment.com:

In six days I wrote this as an entry for the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, discovering that it was a huge blunder to speed-write something of this depth and magnitude in such a short amount of time (and with so little planning). With the 16,000 word limit, I could only write the first half (perhaps third) of the story stored in my head. So here is the result. Now I am in the process of rewriting the whole thing as a potential novel, but here is the original draft with some casual edits for clarity. I never could come up with a proper title for this, so I kept it simple.  I wrote Part 1 in late September (2011), and the scenes from Part 2 I wrote some time in October (2011). As you can see, my voice for this story had already changed a lot by then, and the characters had deepened significantly, which gives a hint of why I want to start over from scratch.

The story is too long to post here (it exceeds the size limit), so I'll do what I used to do and upload it elsewhere, then post the link here.  Thus I present to you my child, my pet work.

The Baron's Odyssey

Two Non-Chronological Scenes from Part II

Here is a short story that I wrote in response to this prompt:

A character realizes that he or she has just outgrown—emotionally, physically, spiritually—something or someone that was once very precious.

The story is inspired by this piece of artwork by Erin Kelso.  I admit this is one of the few short stories I have ever succeeded in writing (meaning I kept it short, finished it, felt it was complete and was satisfied with the end result).  This story is also posted on Figment here.

( Click here to read it.... )

So...here I am, feeling I am obligated to give an update (for no one in particular, for no particular reason).  I look back on this blog/journal now and almost feel as if I have outgrown it.  I have begun to write again, and I write steadily and daily.  I think I've found a new place there, in writing, that I never knew before.  It stresses me sometimes now.  It torments me.  It brings out too many things that I'm afraid of and too many things that still bother me.  But still I like to do it and hope to improve.

I have so much on my mind; I wish I could launch into massive rants here like I used to, but somehow I've gotten over the desire to rant.  My ranting is in my stories, in a particular new piece especially.  I think I said before that I find talking about myself...tiring.  Vain and futile; it leads to nowhere.  Well, that's I lie; it certainly leads somewhere (that's why I did it), but it doesn't lead where I want anymore.

Ah yes; now I remember why I am returning here.  I wanted to sift through said rants and see if there were any good starting places for a good personal essay.  I've written and thought about so many things here that there must be SOMETHING.

In any event, here's an update that is a lot more dry and meaningless than I intended, and now I will go write some more elsewhere.

I need to take a break from writing.  I've just begun on a very interesting new path.  I find myself thinking more and more that Buddhism is my path, that it is the one way to look at the world that makes sense to me, that can lead me to understanding things truly.  So, there is one plan.  Beyond that, my mind is too tired and confused (in a good way!).  I'm just not ready to write again, not quite yet.

For some new works of mine (not great works, but just what I've been doing the past few months), I have a Figment now that I'm trying to get into and learn how to work with.  Slow progress, but some progress.  I need it so that I can get some feedback on my work, even if it's not particularly stellar feedback, even if it's not particularly stellar work.

Piano Sonatas No.8 "Pathetique," No.14 "Moonlight," No.15 "Pastoral," No.24 (performed by Wilhelm Kempff)  (bought!)

Toccata and Fugue by J.S. Bach (performed on organ by Peter Hurford)  (bought!)

Tokyo Ballet by Masumi Tsuchiya (CD, Vinyl)

Terminal by Michirou Endou (found!)

The Four Seasons by Vivaldi (New Philharmonic Orchestra/London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski) (CD, vinyl, iTunes) (bought!)

Boys and Girls by Bryan Ferry (found!)

It always happens this way.  I either look up and it's September 10th, or I look up and it's the 11th and I've missed the tenth.  Today is Mom's birthday.  That makes me really really sad, for obvious reasons...and for not-so-obvious reasons.  Mom really hated her birthday.  She had a really terrible childhood and an abusive, spoiled brat father who hogged so much attention that the kids' birthdays were more about him than them.  So Mom always grew up dreading her birthday, seeing as she also had seven bully older siblings to ruin it as well.  I always wanted to...you know...try to make Mom's birthday special, but she didn't really want that, and it's right when school starts, so we're so busy we usually miss it.

I still find it terrible that last year Mom died six days after her 38th birthday.

I also realized that some years ago on September 4th she miscarried her baby that she really wanted to have.  That also made September a really bad time for her.

Sometimes I look back and just wonder why so much terrible stuff happened to one person, and why those terrible things seemed to happen in such an ugly, coincidental, curse-like way.  It's terrifying and really really...sad.  This morning was one of the saddest mornings I've had in a while, just from thinking about Mom and how it all ended...and how incredibly unfair it is.  Memories from last year are still fresh, and I think they'll be fresh for the rest of my life.  I wonder if her birthday rolled around last year and she knew she was going to die.  I wonder if she thought that God hated her enough to make that already-terrible time in her life even worse (unimaginibly worse) by making it the time when she suffered the most before finally losing her battle to survive....  I...can't even think of what else to say about it.  It all hurts too much too really describe, and it hurts in ways I can't really describe, so I'll just leave it with saying, again, that...things were just really unfair for her...and it makes me wonder exactly what's wrong with this world and what's wrong with people so that some have to suffer so much and think that God hates them and they are cursed while others seem to be perfectly fine.  It's just wrong.

Just got "胎児/SMELL" single by Atsushi Sakurai and heard the non-live version of "Ameon wa Chopin no Shirabe".  I had only ever heard the live one, and the one on the CD is so different, I became obsessed with the song.  It's really beautiful, even if Atsushi didn't write the lyrics this time.  ;-)  So I thought I'd post the lyrics here, like usual.

Original lyrics: Gazebo-Pierluigi Giombini
Translation into Japanese: Matsutouta Yumi
English Translation: Lola

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English Translation:
The sound of the rain is like a melody of Chopin -I like Chopin-

I block my ears but the sound passes through my fingers
A sweet melody that numbs my heart
Turn off that Chopin
Can I never meet him again?
I can't block out the sound of the Rainy days
Please stop beating against my window
My consolation on Rainy days is opium Ah-

You rested your cheek on my lap
And murmured 'I love you' to the melody of the rain
Stop the Chopin
I don't need it when it only brings memories
Until I die I will think of that special person on Rainy days
Coded piano on Rainy days Ah-

I can't block out the sound of the Rainy days
But if I look back at the shadows
In a twilight room on Rainy days Ah-
That special person lives in my heart on Rainy days
Surrounded by a duplicate of Chopin on Rainy days Ah-

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     He stood there watching the little boy in the reflective vest jumping about on the stone steps.  He watched him spin and utter high-pitched noises, imitating karate he had no doubt seen in an old martial arts movie, and all the while his eyes glanced to the red-bearded man, waiting to be noticed.  Kahn stood strangely riveted, as he always was.  No matter how many times he saw it, he never felt any less irritation and surprise at seeing a neglected child.  This one, to him, showed every sign of being the product of two adults never meant to have children.  He danced around in his light blue, plaid shirt that was crooked, with the florescent, highlighter green vest over top.  His hair was shaved to a short mohawk, a light brown stripe down his small head.  “Hey!  Hey Doug!” he called to the man who must have been his father.  “Doug, look!”
     So he calls his father by his first name, Kahn thought grimly, though he’s only six at the very most.  He had seen it before, though something about this kid was different with his mohawk and his attention-starved performance on the steps, with his father who never glanced at him once.  A car passed by, and the curious little boy toddled towards it, only half paying attention.  He came within two feet of it as he passed by.  Just a few more steps a few moments earlier and he could have very well been hit.  His father didn’t even glance at him.   After all, why else would the boy be wearing a reflective jacket if not to say to passing vehicles, “Look out!  I’m here; don’t hit me,” as if he were no more than a traffic cone, as if the red-bearded man had no intention of lifting a finger to protect him beyond slapping a reflective vest on his body and letting him run wild.  And his father had a baby girl harnessed to his back.
      He has two.  Of all people, this man.  This sorry, disgusting man…. Kahn hissed in his head, his eyes narrowing, and then he thought, If only I could get both of them, before he had even decided for certain that he would take the little boy.  But from the moment he had realized he was standing engrossed, watching that unfortunate child, deciding to take him was an unspoken, fore-gone conclusion.  It was instinct, a need.  He couldn’t leave him.  He wanted to hold the little boy’s hand, to ask him his name, to give him attention so he wouldn’t have to call out and put on a show to be seen and loved.  He wanted to play with him, to hug him, in case he had never been held tightly before, or kissed.  Again he felt that longing to say, “Are you sad?  I’ll make you happy,” and see little bright eyes looking up at him with hope.
     So he followed the red-bearded man from a distance, waiting for the right moment.  Two things had to be done.  The first was simple; Kahn just had to wait until the man wasn’t looking at his son, then lure the little boy away for a little bit, just a moment, long enough to give him the invitation.  The second thing took time.  It always took time.  He had to wait for the child to be willing to go, meaning he would have to be sad, angry, upset; he would have to be hurt enough by his father to be willing to turn away from him.  All children loved their parents.  They had no choice.  Kahn had to wait until the moment when the child doubted that his parent loved him, then jump in and offer true love in the moment when they needed it most.  Then this boy would be his forever.
( Read more... )

So, this scene (which I will maybe try to write soon) kind of just hit me while I was walking to work today (a lovely 50-minute walk).  I never got to elaborate on one of my greatest ideas, the thing that makes Alanthiaire...well, Alanthiaire.  It may take a bit of explaining, so I might just let the scene speak for itself.  This is going to be messy, because I didn't really get this scene in word form.  It appeared to me like a movie, with visuals and sound, hearing Alanthiaire's voice and seeing the actual events in my head.  So this, what I'm about to write, will be a hap-hazard approach to capture the scene in a messy, anyway-it-works sort of way, probably ending up half screenplay and half prose.  So this is more for my getting the details down than for a person to read it expecting a complete and finished piece.  It is by no means that.  xD

So, here's a little backstory to this scene:

As an adolescent, Alanthiaire aided a military general, Marsareius, in a battle, using his "sixth sense" for a lack of a better term, and his foresight to give Marsareius advice on how to win the battler.  Marsareius, with Alalnthiaire's help, wins the battle.  Needless to say he's intrigued by Alanthiaire's ability (as Alanthiaire is only forteen) and is very grateful.  Before he and Alanthiaire part, he tells Alanthiaire to come to him if he is ever in need of a favor in return.

Some years later, Alanthiaire's home country is involved in a very bloody, one-sided war.  As enemy forces near the place Alanthiaire grew up,  his family/childhood acquaintances, who are aware of his rise in power, go to him for help.  By this time Alanthiaire does not even live there anymore, and he has severed all ties with his home, for many personal reasons (including maltreatment and ostracization as a child).  He agrees to help save his people not for his family or old acquaintances but for the innocents that he does not know, the children that he does not hate, and for the sake of stopping the genocide of the opposing nation before they are allowed to obliterate his people and others as well.  It doesn't take long for Alanthiaire to realize that the forces of the opposing nation is huge, beyond his abilities alone.  When all of his ideas are spent, he turns to Marsareius and asks him to use his army to crush the invaders.

( Read more... )

continued from part 1

     He bit down on the edges of his tongue as he steeled himself.  Even after weeks some instinctive part of him couldn't help but recoil at the sight of those things, and yet his face was calm except for the subtle clenching of his jaw.  His handsdidn't shake as they once did but were instead lax at his sides.  Before him stood two beings, two things.  Each of them would have been about six feet tall, but their hunched posture decreaed their height by several inches.  They were pretending to be human.  They shape and build was almost human, but their arms were too short, their legs too long, feet large and hoof-like and faces that were nothing even remotely like any creature Houldsworth had seen.
     They had heads like eels protruding from their shoulders.  The long, mottled, rough-looking tube of the neck was stiff, as if jointed like an elbow instead of flexible like a spine.  Houldsworth had seen cartoons as a kid where a snake would hypnotize its prey by swaying back and forth.  The restless motions of these beings were similar but hardly so fluid.  Sometimes, when in certain moods, their necks jerked about as if held together by four loose hinges, and all the while their eyes were fixed on you like compas needles pointing north.  Those eyes were brownish-white and as dull as a dead fish's eyes but with one gleaming pinpoint of yellow in the very center that was filled with light.  Their mouths were small.  If Houldsworth were to touch his index finger to his thumb, the "O" they made would be about the shape and size of one of the being's mouths, but those little mouths sometimes stretched, and when they stretched so did the rest of the being's face, and the being would scream and scream from a six-inch fleshy maw filled with long, dull, yellow teeth.  All the while those dead eyes would stay fixed on you.
     And yet their looks alone hardly made the beings terrifying.  Even worse than their looks were their voices.  One would not think that these creatures were capable of speach, but they spoke a great deal, sometimes babbled and chattered on and on without even moving anything more than their bizarre, flapping necks.  They sought to speak English to Houldsworth, and they spoke quickly and insanely, often repeating and reiterating a single sentence many times in a way that would being to brainwash you into succumbing to complete confused terror.  Their little, shining, "O"-shaped mouths could do little more than dialate and contract over their yellow teeth, so their words were a slurred jibberish of a sort of "howm owm owma-owm" when spoken from the mouth alone.  That's when their horendous other voices would fill in the sounds that their lips could not make, and the sound of that second voice seemed like some panic-enducing combination of buzzing and smothered moaning punctuated by wet smacking and glossed over by high-pitched ringing.( Read more... )

     “I want to help him,” Mr. Sellabaun said, his pale eyes looking at her through the rear-view mirror, and then his voice lowered empathetically.  “Just like you.”  He glanced back down ahead of him as he parked, but his eyes darting back to Lauren every few seconds.  “The only difference between you and me is that I know more about this.  I can imagine you’ve always waited and hoped for someone who really knew what they were doing.  Then you would know in your heart that he was in good hands, and you...well, you could return to your normal life.  After all, it must be very hard.”
     “It isn’t so bad,” Lauren said.  Mr. Sellabaun laughed, and Lauren watched him carefully through the mirror, observing his eyes wrinkling at the corners.
     “Of course it is,” he chuckled.  Then, seeing Lauren’s face grow displeased, he stopped laughing, finished parking and met her eyes evenly.  “You’ve done remarkably well,” he told her quietly.  “I can tell you’re a very selfless, caring person—”
     Lauren frowned, and inwardly she cringed.  There you’re wrong.
     “—reluctant to relinquish your responsibilities—”
     Lauren narrowed her eyes.  You’re so wrong, she thought again.  You’re lying.
     “—and I admire you for it.  But you don’t need to suffer any longer, Lauren.  You’ve done all you can.  Let me shoulder that weight you’ve been holding for so long, and you’ll both be happier.”
     “No,” Lauren said immediately, quietly, holding his gaze through the mirror.  “Even if all you’ve told me is true, I still have no reason to trust you.”
     “Haven’t I helped you?” Mr. Sellabaun asked.  “No one else has.”
     “Others have,” Lauren said evenly.  She looked out the window the dark and silently thought about the past.  “Many people along the way have helped me.”
     “But still, you’ve always been alone.”
( Read more... )

To look after my mother better, to learn to work hard whether I wanted to or not (whether I was the best or not), and to stop to listen more to what my siblings had to stay instead of only caring about my own opinions and selfish impulses. I'd also tell myself to stop overreating. =P

 
( see more )

I'm going to be dumping pictures here that I'm going to use on Polyvore.com.  :3  Ignore them if you like.
( Read more... )

Ugh.  I just...can't focus.  I can't do anything.  I keep trying, but I'm tired, and for some reason I'm scared, and my mind is just full of troubled thoughts that I can't seem to be rid of.  No matter how hard I try, I can't find a distraction or an outlet for all of this pent-up...misery.  I wonder what my problem is....

Maybe I just need to write something really violent....

BAH!  I just remembered something, and now I need to post an update on my life.  I'm all ready to read my friend's stuff on figment, but I was just thinking, "Gosh, it's so hard to get into something like this at work."  Things are quiet right now, as usual, and I'm not really doing anything else, but it's too bright and there are people around me that I don't feel 100% comfortable with, and I've gotta be ready to answer the phone or do some project at any time.  So I was thinking, that's okay.  I'll just wait until I get home, and then I'll have all night to read and write and just relax.

BUT I DON'T HAVE INTERNET AT HOME!

Here's the deal.  I've been moving around a lot lately.  Ever since Mom died, things have been down-right crazy.  They were crazy before, but she was usually the one worrying about it and taking care of it.  Now, well, at least a third of the worrying goes to me.  :P  My siblings and I have to figure out things on our own.  As of now, housing in this area is tight.  It's a college town, so that is to be expected.  The apartment we were living in has its problems, but I was comfortable with it.  Three weeks ago we had to move out, because the whole building is actually being demolished.  For three weeks we lived temporarily in an on-campus apartment-dorm in which there was a shared kitchen and den with four attached rooms.  For those very comfortable and lovely three weeks (more like two and a half), my siblings and I each got one of the four rooms, and the forth one stayed empty.

Just yesterday we moved into another place.  I didn't know what to expect at all.  The truth is, it's a lovely place, pretty well-sized, very comfortable.  But it's not run/maintained by the college, so there's no phone service yet, no internet (wireless or otherwise), and not a scrap of furniture.  So no internet.  No blogging at home.  In fact, for now, I'm sleeping on the floor.  I don't exactly have the financial means to think about buying furniture or even moving furniture from our old place (a few states away) over here.  I don't even want to pay for internet, cause I'm just that poor.  Lol.  So it's rather depressing.  My brother and I aren't going to get to be at home too much, since we need internet and have classes and work.  So it's generally a depressing setup, and being in an unfurnished apartment brings me back too vividly to the past, memories that, in some ways, are very sweet and are otherwise exceedingly painful....

No wonder I'm in no real hurry to go home....

Experimentation is my greatest personal joy.  Monotony has a way of stressing me out and depriving me of all inspiration.  So, I've decided to try something new.  I'm finally getting around to looking at some work by a dear friend of mine, and one place I will be visiting to do that is figment.com.  I'd never heard of the place.  It's a lttle too bright and Christmas-colored for my taste...and yet it does have a certain appeal.  I like how you can pick a cover even for a poem or a personal essay, giving every piece a book look and feeling.  I so often immerse myself in dark when I write (look at my journal; I need it to be dark sometimes to work).  Either that or this unappealing black-and-white-with-other-random-colors setup of the LiveJournal editor.  Not very inspiring.  We learn things by trying something new.  First step is to read this writing my friend is sharing with me, and the next step is to maybe try out figment for myself.  Of course I will re-post it here.  I've invested too much time and love into this journal NOT to re-post every little thing I write or find interesting here....

Promoting empathy is the solution to just about all problems....  If we all expected each other to be empathetic and less self-centered, as a social standard, that would stop bullying and just about every other big social issue in existance.

Truth. You can always just lie, and no one will know.

More Notes on Story X (Part I, Part II)

What makes Nauralice important to the story?  What makes her the protagonist?
The answer is, it isn't really indicated.  She is the subject of there story, and there's no more reason for that than there is a reason why you are the subject in your story.

Is there a prophecy about Nauralice that says she will become something great?
The answer is, no.  Alanthiaire literally just chose her, just knew that there was something about her.  No one told him anything.  No one expected her to be great.  All his life he was keeping a look out for something, and she just happened to be the one he was looking for, he thinks.

Some important things to know about Nauralice's feelings:

• Alanthiaire does not tell her explicitly that she has any sort of divine purpose.  Nauralice is kept very much in the dark about everything, especially about what Alanthiaire seems to have in store for her.  Alanthiaire is very cryptic, and a lot of the situation is left up to Maekrinov to explain.
• Nauralice has no desire whatsoever to leave her family behind to go gallivanting off in some fantasy world(s).  As much as the idea would seem appealing, she is tied to this world by very real things, by love and by fear and by responsibility, as any of us would be.  She's a human being, not a person in a book.  If someone stepped up to you and said, "Leave behind everything you know and love," I doubt that you would just pick up and go with them, if you're honest with yourself.  That's just wishful thinking made by fantasy authors who dream of "getting away from it all" and don't have a mind of actually thinking about what it would be like.  I've done a lot of picking up and starting over in my life, and it isn't something you would willingly choose to do on the spur of the moment, and even when it's fun it's scary, so being given the added detail of "no one can come with you" changes it from an adventure into real-as-day terrifying.
• Nauralice depends very heavily on Maekrinov and Alanthiaire.  There isn't much room to be selfless when you're completely uprooted and have no idea what's going on.

I was going to write an outline about the first few chapters of the story, but instead I'm just going to jump in and try to write it....

Once again I've fallen out of the habit of writing.  Work is killing me.  It too is a great caus of this tension I just can't get rid of no matter how long or how hard I try.  I've given up Vindictus, but work seems to make things just as bad.  Sitting in the quiet day after day...uncomfortable...unable to go outside, unable to spend time with the people who matter, always pushing my mind to get my tasks done faster faster faster so I can set asside time to relax, but during that down-time I'm just fretting about things that I feel like I should be doing or things that will come up, or I'm watching the clock waiting for 6:00 to roll around so I can go home and be with my sister.  I will never work at a job like this again.  I will never ever have a desk job or a phone-answering job again.  The money doesn't matter.  The money I get here is not very well-earned if I have to be cloistered in a room all day missing out on the world beyond.  I am never foing this again.

On nights like tonight I feel very lonely, even when I am not alone.

I think I nearly hate you.  I'll make my way in the world on my own...without your help.

        I think I might have mentioned that I'm trying very hard to re-vamp Alanthiaire's characters and the other characters as well.  Story X is very old, a project spanning some five or six years.  Some of the content is very...outdated, and many of my old ideas are childish and simply/one-dimensional in hindsight.  That's why I've had to spend so much time reconstructing it.  So, here are my current thoughts on the characters, especially Alanthiaire and his past/childhood.  When talking about Alanthiaire's childhood, I'm crossing over into  Story λ, which is Alanthiaire's spin-off story about everything that happened before Story X, plus some of his perspective of important events in Story X.
        Let me say in advance to please excuse typos, especially with the names.  The characters in this story have complex names, and they're tricky to type sometimes.



On Maekrinov:
        There must be a TV trope for Maekrinov.  (For lists of tv tropes, etc., click here.)  He is, for all intents and purposes, Nauralice's guardian.  Up until this point, he has had no personality other than a constant need to protect Nauralice no matter what costs.  In that sense, he's always been pretty boring.  He "loves" her, but in a very non-copmplex way.  His interactions with the other characters never went beyond his epression of loyalty to Nauralice, his speaking to others about protecting Nauralice, and generally talking about something for Nauralice's benefit.  This needs to change.( Read more... )

Hopefully no one from these communities will see this and take offense (that is unlikely, as few people ever drop by here), but this is my personal space, and I'm just speaking my mind.  I've forgotten how much the communities 2_lines and sixwordstories depress me.  It makes me realize anew why my Mom was always so upset about trying to create her place as a writer in the modern world.  People have no imagination.  I go to these communities an just look for something, one entry that grabs my attention.  If I find one out of a hundred that's different, I'm lucky.  People are all too contented to write about their mundane work experiences and vacations and daily errands to embrace the beauty of writing about something deeper or meaningful.  It shows just how narrow-minded and self-centered people are.  I just don't understand what the purpose is in writing something like "I'm getting less and less tolerant of my job lately," or "I need to be back at school with my friends," or "I don't know if any of you know what turkey mites/chiggers are, but I have them and they suck."  It seems to me like thousands of people just wanting to get attention for the sake of themselves.  If you're going to write, it's because you have something you want to share that you hope people will learn from.  This is the equivalent of a person giving a speech to be seen instead of actually writing a speech that has a purpose and conveying it to people with the intent of opening their minds/hearts to something.  I go to these communities and I just see a bunch of people writing about nothing.  Not that people's lives and the mundane aspects of them are not important!  It's just that...there is no purpose in saying, "I had a peanut butter jelly sandwich today," unless you offer some thought, some elabroation, some piece of yourself that shows its importance.  There is nothing in producing a random image or event in words.  You have to capture the depth beneath in order to have something that is worth sharing with others.  You at least have to try....  Don't be satisfied with just slapping any old thing down "on paper" and calling it "writing."  Gosh, pursue something more.  Demand more of yourself than that....