Writers Club!

Last night was probably one of the most fun nights I've had in a very very long time.

Jean had this idea to gather a bunch of us together to enhance our writing abilities. Everyone there writes fantasy as a main genre, aside from me, but The Society is fantasy, so it all worked out.

Last night was me, Vince, Sarah, and Hunter all at Jean's house. There was tea and cookies and ROLE PLAY.

Let me tell you something. You all remember when I discovered RP on Facebook with Jean, correct? RP in person is SO MUCH MORE FUN. Last night's was a little chaotic because Sarah and I had never RPed in person before, but it was so much fun once we got the hang of it. I'm really surprised I didn't laugh or break character.

I played as Silence. It was so much fun to embody her and act as a badass. Silence is really sarcastic and feisty, and it was fun to express that.

It was fun to just hang out with people who want to do the same thing that I want to do. We all just want to write. And most of us are easily discouraged, and I feel like this will motivate us to actually create things.

I drove myself and my parents didn't really give me a set time to come home, but I left around 10. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay all night. I wanted us all to stay all night and just not break character and improv as long as we could.

It was exciting.

As antisocial I am, I'm always really happy after I go out and spend time with real people.

It was just a lot of fun.

I'm also sorry I haven't updated since September 15. I haven't really felt like blogging or writing lately. Maybe this will motivate me.

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Fine day, Sunday.

If you know where the quote from the title of this post is from, leave me a comment and I will love you forever.

ANYWAY! Hello :)

So, as you all know, I earned my license on Thursday. If you know me, you know how often I complain about driving and how much I hate it.

I'd like to take the time now to take back all of those complaints and say that it's so much fun when you actually have the right to do it by yourself.

I drove myself to and from work last night and it was just wonderful. I walked right into work and held up my keys and mouthed "I drove myself!" to Morgan, who was with a customer, and she gives me a thumbs up and grins.

I have found that I am a nervous talker, and I often find myself blabbing about nothing whilst I'm behind the wheel. But then I discovered this thing called The Radio that lets me distract myself from my nervousness and not look like a crazy person talking to myself in my car.

I'm kidding. I know what the radio is. But I never really listened to music while I drove because my dad was always like "no you need to concentrate on the road!" But now I'm driving solo, so I can listen to WHATEVER I WANT. AND IT'S SO NICE.

Today I woke up to the smell of bacon in the house and I was greeted with waffles and fried pig fat when I entered the kitchen.

Then we made plans for the day. My parents needed to go to target and I needed to go to the bank and the drugstore, so I took Melanie and Meredith with me on my errands.

I deposited my two most recent paychecks and I now have almost $600 in my bank account!!!! A whopping $600!!! It's exciting for me.

Of course, since I'm still a minor, I am unable to withdraw any money from my account, so after we went to CVS, we had to go home, for there was almost no gas left in the car by this point.

Eventually my mom and dad got home and Mom went out to get gas and get money for Melanie and I, who were going to Barnes and Noble, Starbucks, and Michaels for poster board.

We had a really fun time out. We left our house around 11 or 11:30 and didn't get home till 1ish.

We went to Barnes and Noble and smelled books and bought one for my mom, which she'd sent us out to get. Then we went over to Starbucks and got drinks and coffee cake. I got a white chocolate mocha (which I added whole milk and cinnamon to) and Mel got a double chocolate frap thing.

I had WANTED to get a Cinnamon Dolce Crème Frap but for some reason, it wasn't on the menu. It was on the website but not on the menu. I don't frequent Starbucks very often, and I was wondering if you can order things not on the menu. Like everything up on the menu was very generic and boring, besides the Pumpkin Spice stuff. So if someone could help me with this problem, I'd be very grateful!

After our coffee and cake, we walked over to Michaels and bought Melanie some poster board. By this point, we only had about $6 left in cash. Starbucks is freaking expensive.

Moral of the post: I really enjoy driving around town by myself or with my sisters. I feel more confident now about driving for some reason. Like now that I know the professionals have faith in me, I have faith in me. If that makes any sense... Probably not.

I'm quite sick at the moment and I keep having these awful coughing fits that leave me curled up in a ball and eyes all watery. It's very unpleasant. Melanie and Meredith have similar symptoms.

Sigh. School tomorrow, and I still don't have a car of my own. I need my own car. I really love my dad's car (if you took out all the boy-ness of it, i.e. garbage and all of his work stuff) and it's a good, nice size for me. But I'd really like one of my own that I bought by myself and it could be all mine :) I shall name it.

Any ideas on names? Let me know. I like Shakira and Timothy so far.

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5 Things I Suck At Pertaining To Writing

1) Chapters.
     I suck at chapters. I never want to end a thought on a cliff-hanger-type tangent, so my chapters all run on into one long 100 page or so story. I just like to have all of my thoughts flow evenly and nicely and without stopping. Which probably isn't ideal for most readers.

2) Time.
     I want everything to be written out chronologically and extremely detailed, even though most people hate that. Like I want each moment to be played out so that it's like a movie, but obviously that's not the most quintessential layout for a book.

3) Keeping My Tense.
     I always go back and forth between present tense and past tense and I end up confusing even myself. I can't help it. I can never decide if I want to write in one tense or the other and it all ends up a mess unless I go back and fix it.

4) Remembering Details.
     I can never remember my details. I really should write up character charts and things to remind myself later, but I never do. I can forget something as simple as if the character is left handed or right handed, or to something as important as their last name.

5) Editing.
     I always want to edit before I'm ready. It's a bad idea to go and edit early, before all of the ideas are out there. And it's funny, because I really really hate revising my work. I like it all perfectly but at the same time, in the moment, I want to change it all and start all over.

That's all I can think of right now but I'm sure as soon as I hit "Publish" I'll think of like twenty more things. C'est la Vie.

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The Great Gatsby, The Fault in Our Stars, and License

Three very big things have happened to me over the course of the last few days.

1) I purchased and watched The Great Gatsby (with Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio). It was truly a work of art and I was impressed by both the cinematography and the soundtrack. I had heard that the music was going to be modern while the rest of the movie was historically accurate, and I was a bit skeptical at first.

After seeing it through just once, though, I loved it. I thought it all worked together very pleasantly and I was very surprised. I thought it was a very interesting take on a classic American novel. It's definitely one of my favorite books ever and I even want to watch the movie again, and I would if it weren't over two hours in length.

2) I picked up "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green from the library the other day and I finished it in less than two days. It was absolutely magnificent and I couldn't have asked for anything better to come from one of my favorite YouTubers.

However, as much as I enjoyed it, I felt that the storyline was a bit predictable. Maybe that's just me, but I was able to figure out ahead of time what was going to happen. There were a few surprises, which were very nice (and tragic in some cases) but for the most part it was very predictable.

Don't NOT read it though. It's a really really good book with love and humor and tragedy all wrapped up into 300-odd pages.

3) And finally, I obtained my provisional license today! If you know me personally, you already know that I, unfortunately, failed my drivers test the first time I took it back in August. I ran out of time on the parallel park and cried quite a bit.

Today, however, I completed the closed course as well as the real road course with perfection and awesomeness. Not to toot my own horn or whatever, but TOOT FREAKING TOOT. I don't think I've ever been more proud of myself than I was today when I pulled back into the parking lot of the DMV and ran over to my dad to hug him.

My driving instructor-person was very monotone and made me rather nervous. I was shaking quite a bit and all she kept saying was "do this" and "do that" in a boring voice that made me uncomfortable. Even when she said I had passed and congratulated me, she didn't crack a smile. It doesn't really matter though because I got my LICENSE!!!

And so, that's been my Tuesday-Thursday of this week. Pretty much, anyway. I worked on Wednesday evening with Heather and it was nice. We got out a bit late though because we had some trouble with the register but no worries! We figured it out.

Now I'm off to study for a sociology exam. Very displeasing after such an exciting day. Sigh.

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Humans.

I wasn't originally going to post this. I was just going to rant to myself in a random Open Office document, but I decided to throw it on here as well.

What bothers me the most is how none of us can respect another's interests and knowledge. Not naming names, but I know plenty of people who are not writers and think that they can judge me and argue with me about the basis of writing when, in fact, they know absolutely nothing about the topic.

There's a difference between technical writing and creative writing. One sucks, and one doesn't. The process of writing creatively (as seen in a previous post of mine entitled "My Creative Process") varies depending on the person. And it frustrates me when people tell me that I'm doing it wrong.

I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm doing it my way. You don't see me criticizing the way you play football or nurse a sick patient back to health, so don't criticize the way that I create things.

Why can't you just trust that I know what I'm talking about? It just drives me so crazy when people tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about.

On multiple occasions, I have been told by someone who is NOT a writer, that writing is such a tedious task and there's so many technicalities that go into it and that I have to study to write and I can't just spew it out on paper.

Uh, yeah I can.

I don't need to study how to tell a story. Yeah, my creative writing classes that I've taken over the years have been really helpful in giving me good ideas for stories, but I don't think they've made me any better a writer. I matured by myself.

My writing has matured over the years and, yeah, I'll admit that some of my best stuff was written in class, but it was merely a coincidence. I seriously haven't learned anything in a single creative writing class. My voice is the same, just more mature now that I am older.

You can't study how to write. If you're born to write, you're born to write. It's story telling, just more detailed and typed out instead of spoken aloud.

I'm just really angry about this right now. I'm sorry to rant it but I really needed to.

And don't misinterpret this. This topic goes with any number of passions, whether it be acting or dancing or tight roping walking: Don't let anyone tell you that what YOU love doing is wrong or that you're doing it wrong. You're doing what's best for YOU and THAT'S what's important.

Fun fact, here's another thing that bothers me; The fact that Pumpkin Spice Latte's are actually orange. It just... *shivers*

Thank you for listening to me ramble about what I'm passionate about. I'm sorry if it was a bit incoherent, but seeing as I haven't slept in the last month, give me the benefit of the doubt.

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Life In Letters

If you know me, you know I'm obsessed with YouTube tag videos. I watch way too many of them. I've seen a few of these "Life In Letters" videos and I thought I'd write a post with my own "Life In Letters."

A - A Capella. I absolutely love singing and I love a capella songs and musicians. It's so fascinating to me and I love watching it, whether it be live, in a video, or performed by myself.

B - Blood. I get a lot of blood work done. It sucks. I hate needles.

C - Cupcakes. I work in a bakery. We sell a lot of cupcakes. Also, my friend Shane periodically gives me money to bring him cupcakes every day. It's become like a routine.

D - Driving. I HATE DRIVING. My license test is next in exactly a week and I'm terrified. Parallel parking is so hard. I'm trying to stay confident and positive but it's very hard.

E - Eggs. I make really good scrambled eggs, and I could probably live off of eggs. I love them. Hard boiled, scrambled, fried, I just love them.

F - Friends and Family. They mean the world to me and I don't know how I'd get through all this stuff without them.

G - German. I love German with a passion. I mean, 3/4 of my B days are me taking/teaching German. I'm dedicated. I'd love to minor in it. Maybe even teach it someday. If I had to be a teacher, I'd be German or Drama or some other kind of "elective" teacher.

H - Hugs! I love hugs. They make everything better. Especially when they're from someone who really cares about you. Sometimes you just need a hug.

I - Idiot. I have no common sense and I really don't think before I speak. It's becoming a serious issue. Everyone thinks I'm a pervert when really, I just don't think before I say things traced with innuendo.

J - Jewish. Born and raised! Speaking of, l'shana tova. Happy Jewish New Year!!

K - Kitchen. It's one of my favorite rooms in the house because it's where the food is. I love baking and cooking and stuff as well.

L - Love. I'm a romantic. It's horrible. I want love and I want someone to love me for me. I'm giving up, which is why everything I write has love laced in between the lines.

M - Megan! That's me. And I hate my name. They spelled it wrong in the yearbook. I'm so mad.

N - Nerd. It's my most common nickname. I'm a dork. I know it.

O - Ocean. I'm really really scared of a lot of things relating to the ocean. Deep sea animals are freaky.

P - Piano. I played until I was 12 or 13 and I've been wanting to pick it up again. I used to be pretty good, for a 12 year old, and I always wanted to play professionally some day.

Q - Queen Elizabeth II. I have a weird obsession with the royal family. I did a whole report on QE2 in sixth grade and I've been interested ever since. She's just so cool.

R - ROLE PLAY! All I want to do is role play. Always. And I haven't had that much time since school and work started picking up.

S - Sleep. I haven't been getting very much lately, but I cherish every hour. God I miss naptime.

T - Theatre. All the world's a stage, but that's the only place I belong. When I'm up on stage, I feel more confident than I do anywhere else. I can't picture myself enjoying anything more.

U - United Kingdom. I am a bit of an anglophile and I can't get enough of British culture. It's becoming an obsession and an addiction... Sherlock and Doctor Who and Harry Potter and X-Factor are my life. Help.

V - Video Games. I love old-school gaming. Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, all that.

W - Writing. Duh. It's going to be my future career and it's what I'm best at. I love it. I love creating characters and making up my own worlds and being in control.

X - Xerox. Okay, so we don't actually have a Xerox machine at school, but I do make a lot of copies, being an aide for German.

Y - Yes. I've been trying to say "yes" to more things. I had a really good summer BECAUSE I kept saying "yes" to parties and dates and sleepovers. For the first time ever, I didn't sit on my ass the whole time. I went out with real people.

Z - Zealous. It's my favorite word. Also, I live by it. Be passionate.

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