NaNoWriMo: A Reflection

So today, November 30^th, is the last day of National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo, otherwise known as November.  I first heard of NaNoWriMo in early 2011, and tried my hand at it last November.  I ended up opening a word document on November 1^st, typing the sentence “I am writing a fucking novel.” And then did nothing else for the rest of the month.  So really, almost anything would have been an improvement on last year’s performance.

In fact, all in all this month, I have written 33,246 words.  It’s not the generally accepted NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words, but it is still sooooo much better than I ever thought I would do.  I mean, it’s 64 pages.  I have never written 64 pages of any one document, ever.  The closest I’ve ever come was 43 pages of a YA novel for my Young Adult Fiction class in college, and I was impressed with myself for that.

NaNoWriMo kind of crept up on me this year.  I only remembered it on like the last day or so of October, when I got a reminder email from the NaNoWriMo website, and thought, shit.  I had intended to do some more preparation beforehand, mapping out some story ideas and whatnot, but I obviously hadn’t done that, so I’d just have to dive right in.

My first year, I intended to adhere strictly to NaNoWriMo’s official rules: Write all one story, in order, no skipping around, no revisions.  I think the pressure of sticking to the rules overwhelmed me and stopped me in my tracks.  This year my goal was less specific: just write.  Write every day, if possibly, but at the very least write a lot.  Write as much as you can.  Write anything.  Just vomit words onto the page.  Even if they don’t make sense.  So that’s what I did.  I had some different story ideas, and wrote out some different scenes and short stories and analyses and anecdotes and dialogues, etc.  I even included some blog posts and super-long emails, for good measure.  Because writing is writing, dude.  And I didn’t want to put myself in the position of choosing between writing a blog post and keeping in touch with my friends, or writing crap just to write.  So I counted that writing towards my total word count.  Because I do what I want.

It was also freeing to just write without worrying about it being perfect.  I wrote entire scenes that were just dialogue, without worrying about inserting the annoying, “She said, wearily.” and all that nonsense.  I changed pronouns and tenses midway through a story.  I changed character names (which I have, admittedly, been known to do in the past, and then forget to go back and change it, causing much confusion for teachers/professors grading my papers.) and other general details.

So how do I feel now, at the end of the month?  I feel good, I feel accomplished.  I wrote a shit-ton of words.  I proved to myself that I can write, whether I feel like it or not, whether I’m in the mood or not, or whether my muses are speaking to me or not.  I also proved to myself that I am capable of just producing that amount of writing.  It seemed impossible, on November 1^st, to write anywhere near 50,000 words.  Just an impossible feat.  And yet, at 33k, I know that if I really applied myself, I could definitely do it.  Which is just bonkers to think about.  Writing at length has always been my problem.  I dream of writing the Next Great American Novel, and yet I am the Queen of short Stories.  But here I am, at 63 pages.

But I also learned some other things. I learned that although all the writers say that you have to write every day, whether you’re feeling inspired or not, the stuff I write when I’m feeling uninspired is, frankly, crap.  And it does not come easy.  When I’m in a writing muse, and feel inspired, I just keep writing and writing and before I know it I’m at 4000 words, and it seems like no time has passed, and I still have so much more to say.  Whereas when I have no inspiration, I check the word count every other sentence, and one paragraph can take me 2 hours.  Ugh.

But I have proven to myself that I can be a writer.  I can sit down at my desk, and plug away for a few hours each night, and create something.  Now that the month is over, and the late late nights and word counts are behind me, I hope to be able to continue to be creative on a regular basis.  To blog, to write short stories, maybe try at a novel, and continue some projects I have left unfinished.

I look forward to next year’s NaNoWriMo.  My goal for that will be to stick to one single story, but that will require some more forethought on my part.  We’ll see.  I hope to be in a different mind space and different physical space this time next year, so hopefully all of that will be more conducive to writing.  We shall see.

Anyway, thanks for bearing with me this month, and listening to my boring writing talk, and my word counts, and dealing with my daily tweet updates.  When I write my first best-selling novel, I will be sure to dedicate it to each and every one of you.  Specifically.

Thankful

So, this time of year, especially today, people like to make a big show of sharing what they're thankful for.  It gets annoying, because it ends up (if you're bitter and cynical like me), reading like a list of accomplishments. Like bragging.  "Oh my god, I'm so thankful for my wonderful husband and my new house and my beautiful new baby and my great job etc etc etc."  Eff you, Facebook acquaintance.

The last few years, (what with the bitterness and cynicism), I have had a hard time coming up with things to be thankful for.  My friends and family, of course, are wonderful.  And I have...all my limbs?  I guess I'm grateful for that.  I have made it through my whole life without coming in contact with poison ivy.  That's a win.  But there are a lot of things that I am not pleased with, in general, in my life.  You know, #firstworldproblems, and all that.  But a lot of things that other people are thankful for, I do not have, and therefore cannot be thankful for them.

But I realize there is something I am thankful for.  And it's sort of an unusual, joking-but-actually-serious thing.

I am thankful for pop culture.

I am not kidding.  I mean this seriously.  And not in a simple, "Oh I enjoy this movie/tv show/book" kind of way.  As you well know, as a reader of this blog and most likely someone who has...ever met me, I am pretty obsessive about different pop culture.  I don't know how to just like something.  I have to dive into it, and absorb every bit of it, and become obsessed with it, and learn everything about it, and contemplate it, and discuss it, and philosophize about it.

I have been this way for, probably forever, but the first really serious obsession I can remember was NSYNC.  And there have been many since then.  To name a few: Harry Potter, Lost, SVU, Legally Blonde: The Musical, Twilight, Criminal Minds, Celtic Thunder, Cracked, American Horror Story, High School Musical, Sherlock, CSI: Miami, Doctor Who, The Hunger Games.  And that's only the tip of the iceberg.  There have been SO MANY more.  With varying degrees of embarrassment.

Sometimes I can see these things coming, and sometimes they catch me by surprise.  There are certain books I hold off reading, or TV series I hold off watching on Netflix, because I know they will take over my entire life, and I need to focus on other things at the moment/am in the midst of another obsession already.  But sometimes a new show will premiere, and I fall in love with it immediately.  Or I'll go see a movie and it will blow my mind.  Or I'll catch a rerun of some show randomly while channel surfing.  And the rest is history.  I don't watch any movie or tv show without immediately IMDb-ing it afterward, sometimes in the car on the way home.  I will watch and rewatch, visit fansites, devour interviews and clips on youtube, learn all about every person involved with it, read fanfiction about it, philosophize about coming episodes, etc.

And the thing is, I LOVE these obsessions.  I am lost without them.  When I reach the point where my interest in something fades from daily obsession to just general interest and like, I hate it.  I feel lost, and unmoored, and restless, and find myself knowingly (or unknowingly) searching for my next obsession, the next mode of filling my days with joy.

I realized, somewhere along the way, that these obsessions are important to me for more than just basic, surface reasons.  I am the worst kind of basement-dwelling nerd, in that I live my life vicariously through others.  This has long been a problem of mine in the real world: getting wrapped up in friends' drama and crushes and whatnot, while having no personal stake in the matter whatsoever.  It's not that I'm nosy, it's just that I desperately want to be involved, and to experience those things for myself.  I have not had much success in several important areas of my life, and find myself to be, in many ways, emotionally stunted.  I have yet to, and there's a great possibility I will never, experience many of the joys and sorrows and adventures and experiences that form most people's lives.  It is mind-numbing to go through life every day feeling nothing, and experiencing nothing, and not ever changing.  So I tend to latch on to other people's experiences.  Pretend they're my own.  Pretend I can relate.

If I focused to much on the dull dreariness of my own life, I would quite literally go crazy.  So I've found it necessary to escape.  To latch on to other people's experiences, even if those people and experiences are fictional.  I escape into a book, or a movie, or episodes of a TV show.  And it has changed my life for the better.  I feel like I've fallen in and out of love many times over, traveled the world, solved crimes, met new and exciting people, gone on adventures, sang and danced, all without leaving the comfort of my own home. I haven't.  I'm aware.  I'm not that crazy.  I know I haven't done any of these things.  But like an alien studying the human race, I feel like I can almost imagine what such things must be like.

My obsessions first started back in high school, when I realized my life wasn't exactly following the same course as everyone else's.  While I was happy and social and everything, it seemed like I was always there, but never involved.  Which has pretty much become the story of my life.  I sit back and watch as everyone else falls in and out of love, and becomes successful, and does exciting things, and before I know it, years have passed, and I have done nothing.  I have been on the sidelines the whole time, and I didn't even realize it.  And when I actually take the time to think about it, and stop the daily distractions and focus on what I have and have not done, and where I'm at in my life, it is awful.  Because without the people around me, I am nothing.  I have nothing to show for myself.  It's like staring into an empty void.

And so, I fill that void with things.  Oftentimes fictional things.  These people and places and things I have grown to love, though I have never actually met them, or experienced them, or whatnot, because they do not actually exist.  It's like I'm ticking boxing on the life experience chart, and I am very nearly able to convince myself that these are my own life experiences, and that if I am able to spout pop culture stories and anecdotes on command, it will almost be like those stories belong to me, and actually happened to me.

And I am grateful for that.  Because if I had none of that, none of those places to escape to, I would be absolutely lost.  I would be miserable.  But I am not.  I am able to get through the day if I know I can come home and watch an episode or five of Doctor Who before I go to bed.

Anyway, this turned into more of a depressing feelings rant than I really intended it to.  Shocking.  But it wasn't meant to be like that.  It was meant as a genuine expression of thankfulness for all of the wonderful creative people that have created these worlds and people that have gotten me through my days.

Hopefully, I won't always be like this.  Hopefully, someday I will find a real live person to obsess over, who is just as obsessed with me as I am with him.  And he will whisk me away on wondrous adventures of our very own.  But until then, I've got this.  And this will do.

Unsolicited Movie Review: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Holy Crap.  Guys.  This movie.

Was not terrible.

Not only was it not terrible….it was AMAZING.  Well, I don’t know about amazing.  It wasn't amazing.  But it was very good.  By Twilight standards (which are very low), it was AMAZING.  By far the best of the bunch.

Now, this is the part where I tell you that if you have not yet seen the movie, and intend to, stop right where you are and read no further.  I know, I know, you've read the book, but there are actually some spoilers.  Like, big ones.  Spoilers that will actually spoil the best part of the movie for you.  You can come back and read this later.  Because I know my opinion is important to you.

This is also the part where if you have no interest in Twilight you should also stop reading.  But you probably already have.

Alright, so.  For those of you that have read Breaking Dawn, particularly the second half of the book, I think we can all agree that it’s terrible.  Just so bad.  When I heard that they were splitting Breaking Dawn into two movies (TOTAL Deathly Hallows rip-off) I was equal parts enraged and amused.  Enraged because of the aforementioned Deathly Hallows rip-off, and amused because the second half of the book would make for such a terrible movie.  TERRIBLE.

As a refresher, here’s a quick summary of the second half of the Breaking Dawn book: Bella’s vampire training, non-stop vampire boning, Renesmee is a creepily perfect talking half-breed baby, Jacob is in love with said baby, everyone’s anticipating a big deadly brawl with the Volturi, Edward calls Jacob SON, and then nothing happens.  No battle.  Then the story ends and you’re like….abuh?

So obviously, this is the makings for the most terrible and anticlimactic movie ever, right?

I have been both dreading and anticipating it for months now.  I knew it would be terrible, and some of it would just be so ridiculous that I would be forced to rip my seat from the theater floor in a feat of super-human rage and throw it through the screen.  But I also knew that it would be just ridiculous enough to be hilarious.  During Breaking Dawn Part 1, Gretchen had to elbow me numerous times for laughing loudly during inappropriate parts because it was just so bad.  And with the ridiculousness turned up to 11 this time around, I knew that I would probably have lapsed into laughter seizures by the end of the film.

Well, IMAGINE MY SURPRISE when the movie was actually GREAT.  I mean, I did laugh at a few inappropriate parts, but it was more so a case of me thinking the wrong things are funny, all the time, and also, I began to feel cheated out of a good laughing and mocking experience as the movie was turning out to actually be good.

I mean, for the most part, I don’t remember very much of the movie before the crucial HOLY CRAP part that I will get to momentarily.  Here’s what I did have thoughts on:

1)  Baby Renesmee was terrifying.  Going into the film, I had only seen previews featuring a full-grown Mackenzie Foy (the girl who plays Renesmee), and she’s…what….7?  8?  (She was 11.  I looked it up.  I have no concept of age when it comes to children.) Anyway, because I had only seen clips of her at her normal actual human size, I assumed this meant Renesmee would just pop out at that age and they wouldn’t show her rapid aging process, which I thought would be a mistake.  But instead, they made a terrifying baby child robot monster.  The moment the CGI baby creation appeared on screen, I peed my pants a little bit in sheer terror, while all the preteens in the theater around me were cooing, “Oh, she’s so adorable!”  What?!  Are you not seeing the same baby monster as me?  Do you not know what real babies are supposed to look like?  It wasn’t really that bad, I guess (maybe).  It didn’t have one eye and an extra arm growing out of its face, or anything like that.  As a matter of fact, she looked perfect.  But perfect in that CGI kind of way.  I guess it was just creepy because you don’t often see CGI babies, so it looked unnatural.  But there’s supposed to be something unnatural about Renesmee anyway (vampire baby) so it worked.  But it was still creepy in all stages of development except for when she was her actual age.

2) I liked the scene where Bella yelled at Jacob for imprinting on Renesmee.  Maybe because I just cherish  any and all Bella and Jacob interaction because I am Team Jacob 4evs.  I know, I know, that horse has already left the barn.  You made the wrong choice, Bella.  That’s all I’m saying.  You made the wrong choice.  With Jacob you would’ve had adorable babies that didn’t tear their way out of you and ruin your life.  Just sayin.

3) The scene where Jacob reveals his werewolfiness to Charlie was ridiculously hilarious.  Hilariously ridiculous.  All of the above.  First of all, it was this film’s Gratuitous Taylor Lautner Shirtless Scene.  A final farewell to The Abs, I suppose.  I shall miss them so.  Anyway, Jacob basically did a sexy striptease for a very uncomfortable Charlie and then just as the two men were about to reach a whole new level of closeness, Jacob wolfed out and Charlie’s mustache almost fell off in surprise.  I feel the scene was well acted by both Taylor and Billy Burke.  I will miss Billy as Charlie.  He is hands down my favorite character of all the movies.  And I shall miss The Abs as well.  Farewell, Abs.  You had a good run.

4) I went into this film thinking I knew exactly how many studs to anticipate, but I was WRONG.  Two of my past favorite loves returned as nomadic vampire friends of Carlisle’s, and boy was I ever happy to see them, and would allow them to drink all of my delicious blood any time they’d like.

a.       Joe Anderson.  Remember Max from Across The Universe?  The scruffy Kurt Cobain adorable boy that wants you, he wants you so bad? Yeah.  Him.  He played Alistair, a dark and mysterious nomadic vampire with a bad attitude.  He was kind of weird, because it’s kind of a weird character, and I wish there had been more of him, but he did flee hilariously to the Cullens’ attic at one point.

MAX!

Alistair.  You'll just have to trust me on this one.

b.      Lee Pace.  Oh my god, my love.  I first fell in love with Lee as Ned, The Piemaker from the far-too-short-lived Pushing Daisies.  Adorable.  And he played Garrett, another nomadic vampire, and oh my dear sweet baby Jesus was he ever a giant flaming ball of hotness.  Possibly my favorite part of the movie.  Maybe.  It’s just such a treat being surprised by an old hot friend.  And I think The Powers That Be must have loved him as well, because they gave him a lot of good/funny parts that weren’t necessarily in the book. 

Ned!  Oh how I miss you.

"I'll follow you anywhere, woman." -actual quote.  Sigh.  I love misogyny.

Neither movie picture really does them justice, because they look like stupid vampires, but in the movie…..ugh.  Trust me.

5) This movie was a lot more sexual than the last, I thought.  Which was surprising, considering the headboard-breaking scene in the beginning of Breaking Dawn is what heled many a preteen girl through puberty.  The book leaves almost all to the imagination, but much of America was hoping the movie would be straight-up porn.  It wasn’t.  It wasn’t nearly as risqué as I thought it would be.  But in this movie, Edward and Bella are having their first vampire-on-vampire sex, and Bella’s mind is basically being blown as a result of her super-human vampire senses making vampire sex way better than boring old human sex, blah blah blah.  Anyway, this was more of an actual sex scene than in Breaking Dawn Pt. 1.  Interesting.

Alright, so all that happened, and then we get to the Just Plain Terrible part of the movie, The Most Anticlimactic Battle of All Time.  So just like in the book, all this tension is building, and you think everyone’s going to die, all hope is lost, blah blah blah.  Team Cullen and Team Volturi come face to face in the Abandoned Meadow Where All The Action Happens.  The Cullens are all “Blah blah blah Renesmee may have a stupid name but she’s not an uncontrollable people-killing monster”, and the Volturi are all, “Yeah ok but you guys are a bunch of jerks and I still don’t like you.”  Then Alice and Jasper show up to save the day.  Aro welcomes his creepy crush Alice, and takes her hand to do his mind-reading thing.  Alice can see the future, (situationally, her visions change as people change their minds), and she can tell that Aro still intends to pick a fight with Team Cullen.  Then, in a change of pace from the novel, the Volturi…do something to Alice, I don’t remember.  They attack her or punch her or pick her nose...something threatening.  So, okay, I figured they’d have to beef up this movie with a little bit of action since the book has none.  So, that’s fine.  Then Big Papa Carlisle is like “Nuh-uh!”, and charges Aro, and they fly up into the air for a little high altitude vampire spat.  They both thud back on the ground and Aro holds up Carlisle’s decapitated head and-

WHAT?!  WHAT THE…WHAT?!  DID THEY JUST KILL CARLISLE?!  THIS DID NOT AT ALL HAPPEN IN THE BOOK!

So, okay, I think, they have definitely parted ways with the book now.  But, you know they had to make the movie less terrible.  I’m surprised they would choose to kill off a main character against canon, but maybe this is punishment for Peter Facinelli’s terrible and unnecessary accent.  Maybe Jennie Garth wrote the script?  Who knows?

Carlisle’s death makes Team Cullen crazy with rage and revenge, so they charge at Team Volturi, and shit goes down.  Everyone’s fighting everyone.  Vampires fighting other vampires.  Vampires fighting werewolves (Who are on Team Cullen as well. Team Edward and Team Jacob were able to put aside their differences and come together to battle the Volturi.  If only the fangirls could do the same.)  So fighting is happening and then WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY JUST KILL JASPER?! It’s understandable, Jackson Rathbone’s accent was also terrible. OH MY GOD SETH CLEARWATER!  PRECIOUS BABY WEREWOLF!  AND THEN LEAH?!  HAVEN’T THE CLEARWATERS BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH ALREADY?!  So much fighting!  But Team Cullen is killing a lot of bad guys.  Edward uses Bella as a human (vampire) baseball bat.  See ya Mean Mean Dakota Fanning: Team Cullen just ripped your pretty blonde head off.  Oh, and then Aro.  Killed Aro.  Yay we win!

Oh….wait….no…..JUST KIDDING!  PSYCH!  Everyone’s alive! (Except for Irina.  Sorry Irina. But she was terrible as Shannon on Lost soooo…)  None of that actually happened!  It was just Alice showing Aro what would happen if he didn’t back off.  Needless to say, he backs off, and the Volturi run away.

But not before everyone in the audience has shit their pants because WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!  Did that whole badass decapitation-rific battle just happen and then NOT HAPPEN?!  HAVE WE ALL BEEN PUNK’D?!  GREATEST PUNK EVER!

So, anyway, then the rest of the movie happens, and since you’re still riding the HOLY SHIT WHAT DID I JUST SEE wave, everything that happens is great.  Or maybe it really was great, I’m not sure.  I don’t know what to feel anymore.  But I thought the part where Bella finally used her shield to let Edward read her mind was sweet and well done.  I really believed they were in love until I remembered that she cheated on him with another guy.  Sadpants.

In what I thought was a nice touch, the very last shot in the movie cut to a shot of the last page of the book, and the last line, “And then we continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece of our forever.”  I really liked that.  A nice acknowledgement of how this whole craze began (reading.)

In another interesting touch, the closing credits started not in a credits roll sort of way, but by showing a clip of each character with the actor’s on the screen.  So Kristen, Rob, Taylor, etc. etc. etc.  Then we get to Taylor’s werewolf friends, and I was like, Why are they in the credits, they were never not wolfy in this movie?  Weird, but ok. Then they show James, Victoria, and Laurent, from the first movie.  And then they showed EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER BEEN IN A TWILIGHT MOVIE!  I thought that was kind of cool.  A nice look back.  I almost wished they had done something like that with the last Harry Potter movie, except it would have been so long, and it basically would have been an In Memoriam reel, and I was already too emotional, I probably would have choked on my tears and died.

Breaking Dawn Part Dos.  A huge disappointment if you’re looking for unintentional laughs.  But actually a great end to the Twilight franchise.  Nice send-off.

So that’s that.  That’s my super long review.  I hope you enjoyed it!  Just kidding, I know you did.

Taking the F out of Funemployment

Unemployment has not been as bad as I thought it would be.  In part because I was absolutely miserable at my last job.  However, now that I am approaching one month of unemployment, I'm being hit with reminders of just how convenient it was being employed, even miserably.

1) Prescriptions.

I don't have any serious diseases that require life-saving medication.  However, I do have prescriptions that I refill every month, that make my life a lot easier.  Namely, allergy medicine, and several acne medications.  My acne is just horrendously ugly and painful and awful without it, but I can't very well afford what will probably amount to $250/month without insurance for acne medications.  It's been so nice for these last two years, actually feeling like a pretty adult, rather than a miserable acne-riddled teenager.  And as much as I like to think that my skin has outgrown it, I know it hasn't.  Unfortunately, I worry my pizza face will make me even less hireable than I already am.

2) Money.

The convenience of money is not a surprise to me.  However, mid-month it seems like I can do okay, and stretch out what I have, if I just don't shop or go to the movies or out to eat very much.  But then I reach the beginning of the month, when I have to pay my student loans, which takes a massive chunk out of my savings.  And my credit card bill, for which I am still paying off books I bought back in college.  Awesome.  And Christmas is coming up, and as much as my family would say I don't have to get them anything, I'm not going to be the 26 year old adult that can't afford Christmas gifts for her family.  Especially when there's only the four of us.

It's such a sad realization that everything in my life has become about money.  I can't even remember the last time I made a decision that wasn't about money.  And the saddest part is, I don't foresee a future for myself where this isn't a problem.  I did myself a great disservice by going to 2 expensive private schools, and choosing a major that is not useful in the working world.  And without the luxury of a spouse or even any kind of significant other, I am going to have to support myself for the rest of my life.  I don't get to follow my dreams, or do something I enjoy.  I have to find something, anything, that will make me money.  Anyone that will hire me.

There are two things that would solve 99.99999% of my problems right now:
1) Winning the lottery.
2) Finding something I want to do with my life.  So simple, and yet no luck in 26 years.

Blaaaaaaaaaaah.