Sunday, March 6, 2011

Songs to remember for later

Matt and Kim- Daylight
Anna Sun- Walk the Moon
Interpol- Leif Erikson (I already have this one)

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Character Profile for Supposed Novel

Writing Character Profiles - Questionnaire 1 (Adult Characters)
  1. Name: Magdiel but called Maggie by those who surround her
  2. Age: Not documented
  3. General physical description: Olive skin complexion, beachy sun kissed but brown hair that harmonizes with skin tone, big piercing green eyes, heart shaped face, average height for a girl about 5'4", wears short print sundresses with cowboy boots, frail appearance
  4. Hometown: In this particular life Valentine, Nebraska
  5. Type of home/ neighborhood: Rural, very agricultural community, very dusty, hilly 
  6. Relationship status: No established relationship status nor would there be to keep a sense of enigma about the story, boyfriend/girlfriend makes the story a little to definite.
  7. Current family: an ill father, cancerous 
  8. Family background (parents, previous marriages, etc.): No real family background
  9. Friends: No close friends although well liked by every one she meets. She keeps her distance because of her occupational hazards
  10. Other close relationships: The love of her life 
  11. Relationship with men: She has no relationship with men, she doesn't see them as normal girls see them.  She's not human and doesn't possess a lot of emotions that humans have.  She doesn't experience love the way humans do.
  12. Relationship with women: She's friendly to them and empathetic but does not relate to human women.
  13. Job: She works at the local diner (the only diner) in Valentine.
  14. Dress style: Relatively plain Jane clothing when on the job, conservative but has an appeal.  When working on the farm at her dad's she's usually in a printed dress with her dusty, worn cowboy boots.
  15. Religion: Religion doesn't apply to her.
  16. Attitude to religion: It is a comfort for humans.  She finds it interesting and almost humorous that so many different nations and cultures have the same basic idea.
  17. Favorite pastimes: She has a knack for music and any instrument she picks up but while living her life in Valentine, Nebraska she usually plays the banjo. 
  18. Hobbies: Music, helping her father around the farm, and working.
  19. Favorite sports: She can horseback ride but doesn't have any interest in doing it for sport.  Riding her father's horse was more of a convenience when working the farm.
  20. Favorite foods: Usually found eating whatever she can cook up from she and her father's garden.  It is usually something mundane, no real surprise to each meal but her father shows he appreciates the effort.
  21. Strongest positive personality trait: Strong will.
  22. Strongest negative personality trait: Stubborn.
  23. Sense of humor: She has one but only reveals it around the people who are closest to her.  It allows her to let go of the burden she holds and the trouble she's seen and will see.
  24. Temper: She has a strong and high temper when someone whom she loves is threatened.
  25. Consideration for others: Much.
  26. How other people see him/her: Mysterious and beautiful, out of touch with what should matter to a nineteen year old girl.
  27. Opinion of him/herself: She knows she has good intentions but isn't sure how to channel them the right way. She feels she is a danger to those around her because of who she is. 
  28. Other traits, especially those to be brought out in story: She's basically an angel.  I'm not sure how to present that in the story, but she's ranked in the Supreme Ruler's army. She's someone to be fought over. She's fighting an uphill battle to prevent the man she loves from perishing.
  29. Ambitions: Save her father. Save the only love she's ever had and will know.
  30. Philosophy of life: Live as if you were human.
  31. Most important thing to know about this character: She's conflicted between doing what is right or what will save (I don't have his name yet)
  32. Will readers like or dislike this character, and why? They will strongly dislike and like her at different moments, but they will root for her throughout the story.
Writing Character Profiles - Additional Questions
  1. If your character has a job, is he or she good at it? Does he or she like it? She has a job at the local diner called Cosmo's.  She's seemingly good at her job but not overly enthusiastic about it. She let's a lot roll off her back because she is not human.  
  2. What are your character's bad habits? Keeps letting her heart take her to places she shouldn't go. She feels that she's at fault for what her heart feels and she is responsible for guy x's (that's what I'll call him until I have a name) death (constant, and repetitive through out their other lives)
  3. If you asked about his or her greatest dream, what would your character tell you? To be with guy x without inhibition.  To live as a human and possess the emotions they have. To be able to not let things roll of her back like most nineteen year old girls do.  To worry about their worries and town dances.
  4. What's a secret dream that he or she wouldn't tell you about? She want's to give in and not fight for this anymore.
  5. What kind of person does your character wish he or she could be? What is stopping him or her? The fact that she's an angel of sorts and cannot become human unless she accepts an offer from the supposed Devil which she will in the end.  God will not make her human Himself.  The Devil can because he indulges in what makes humans human, their sin.
  6. What is your character afraid of? What keeps him or her up at night? She's afraid of losing guy x again.  She make it a point to avoid meeting him in Valentine.  She doesn't want to have to see him die again.
  7. What does your character think is his or her worst quality? Her weakness for guy x. If she did not possess this tiny piece of humanity she would be a perfect angel.  Every angel possesses at the very least one human quality and she just happens to possess the emotion of love.
  8. What do other people think your character's worst quality is? For the evil her worst quality is her small bit of humanity.  For other people it's how disconnected she is.  Her concerns are not a nineteen year old girls concerns.
  9. What is a talent your character thinks he or she has but is very wrong about? Shutting people out.
  10. What did his or her childhood home look like? Very modest.  It is a very country home small and old fashioned.  The outside has a lot of land.
  11. Who was his or her first love? guy x
  12. What's the most terrible thing that ever happened to him/her? Seeing the man she loves die over and over.
  13. What was his/her dream growing up? Did he/she achieve this dream? If so, in what ways was it not what the character expected? If your character never achieved the dream, why not? Her dream is to be human.  She eventually becomes human but not in the best circumstances.  The Devil makes her human so he can finally claim her.
  14. In what situation would your character become violent? There are instances where she has to fight for guy x and he'll be compromised. She will become violent for him. She'll become violent when she is kidnapped by the Devil's evil henchmen while trying to save herself.
  15. In what situation would your character act heroic? She's always a heroine.  She sacrifices her angelic qualities to prove a false love for the Devil (still searching for a name for him that makes more sense). She does this to save guy x and the world (of course the Devil feels the need to make things complicated for the rural town of Valentine and the rest of the world)

Friday, March 4, 2011

Writing Prompt #23

"What is something you are pessimistic about?"

Response:
Something that bothers me quite frequently is a situation at work.  There's a woman that I work with who has been at Job X (we'll call that my job) for about fifteen years.  She's foreign has different ideals and what not which tend to let her get away with murder.
I understand seniority.  The definition of "seniority" according to Merriam- Webster is "a privileged status attained by length of continuous service."
The last two words are what are missing 'continuous service'.  Seniority for a person is probably also defined as one who can set an example and show the newbies the right way of doing things in say, a restaurant.
This woman refuses to work.  She stands out in the dining room for up to an hour, hour and a half before she comes to the back to nothing more to do in the kitchen so she can basically just go home after tying up a few small odds and ends.  She'll do anything or drag anything out so she doesn't have to work, count tips, I heard last night she actually took an hour and a half to fold 34 boxes. It takes me fifteen minutes to fold that many boxes and that's with other factors like customers calling in an order.
Now... I can slightly understand if my boss says that is a part of seniority.  Cool you showed up here for fifteen years stood around, drank coffee and ate your salad sandwiches.  I get that you're like sixty and you're foreign and age is a big thing for Europeans.  I get that.  I can sort of see the explanation in that.  I've only been there for five years. Whatever.
What eats me is really is that she can sit there and talk bad about the boss! "He's stupid if he thinks I'm gonna do this" (enter Slovakian accent).  The actual fact that she is shooting down my boss no matter what.  Complaining about having to work.  Biting the hands that feed her. Insulting the customers calling them 'American pigs', insulting people with weight problems. Being rude to customers.  I kiss ass every damn day for tips. You may as well wipe the floor with me because I'm such a push over.  I take everyone's bullshit. Why? I have a home to take care of. And I in fact take EVERY one's horse shit!
On top of that she steals tables and forces her way into money so she can afford expensive Cancun vacas and a nice house and to drive all the fuck way from Avon to Job X four days a week. I'm SCRAMBLING for gas money and you're pulling this shit?
The worst absolute part of this nonsense is she's REWARDED by the hand she bites! REWARDED for insulting the bosses. REWARDED for stealing tables! Who the fuck cares about the other servers? The people who do what they're asked ALL THE TIME. Not only do we do the jobs you ask of us, but we do them to the best of our abilities with a fucking cheesy ass smile on our faces. In ten years will I be rewarded for bitching about everything I am told to do? Will I be rewarded for treating everyone like dirt and insulting people's weight problems? Food for thought.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Writing Prompt #22

"Write about your first toy"

Response:
My first toy was a doll I called "Dolly".  It was this really soft baby doll with embroidered brown eyes and one or two hairs made of yarn. It had this little pink dress and I carried it every where. Somehow I lost it and I got a new one that was similar but not nearly as soft as my old one was.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Short But Long Story

It should be starting to happen soon, the moment when I start to remember what my purpose is and why I'm put on this planet again. It's late August 1982 the human part of myself is reincarnated into a girl aged nineteen years. In this happenstance a girl of nineteen years in Valentine, Nebraska, a small agricultural city located centrally in the U.S..
Before I had been a slave in Egypt, a nymph in ancient Ireland, a aristocratic socialite in Paris, a Greek immigrant in the United States, and finally, a freed American heiress, a staple in Andy Warhol's factories for years. Here I am once more alive and well arriving at the time I will meet Loec. His name sounds a bit old and dated but it translates when he is reincarnated into whatever year. Somehow his mothers always arrive at names that start with an 'l'.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Writing Prompt #21

"Write a letter to the 10 year old child you had been"

Response:

Christina (young 10 year old version of what I am now),
      First and foremost, please do not take anything I say offensively! This is for your very own good and you deserve to hear this straight from me who is you. You're going to do what you want anyway and I'll be happy if you do because I feel I turned out okay for being such a... I'll refrain from finishing that insult.
     Stop listening to the bands you are listening to! N*SYNC, Britney Spears, B*Witched, and the Backstreet Boys do not constitute real music. Try listening to Pearl Jam or something, get a head start on liking good music rather than boy bands and premature sluts who eventually go mental and shave their heads. While you are doing this, Lance Bass is in fact gay now. Your entire family was right so like Justin Timberlake instead if you'll like any of them. He's the only one who ends up musically talented and stays in the game.
     Start playing sports. Girls who play sports in middle school and high school are considered awesome, not to mention you'll have a friend base that lasts forever. Your future boyfriend Brian (who's pretty cute by the way) actually played sports and has friends he still to this day talks to not to mention 95% of them are normal human beings. Imagine that.
    Keep drawing. Don't ever stop drawing. You can do so much with that talent so stop looking in the mirror and cocking your head to the side trying to look like Britney Spears and pick up a pencil. Oh and another thing, good grades are important. I figure right about now (fourth or fifth grade) you're becoming awful at school. Get to work! Get on it and stop fuckin' around!
     Oh and always remember your mother will always be right so just listen to her! You can avoid so much horse shit if you just listen to her.
     Shine as brightly as you can while you can. Do whatever you want because nothing in this world is impossible if you try hard. I love you, you're family loves you and the people surrounding you love you. Please make it a point to dress better that N*SYNC shirt is super weird.

Love you like my luggage chump-
Your future self who wrote you in hopes of making herself athletically fit and better at visual arts

P.S. Learn a foreign language fluently... preferably Slovak, you're gonna need it when you're sixteen til nowish if not later.

Writing Prompt #20

"Write about the color of hunger"

Response:
The color of hunger is black or dark maroon. It would have to remind me of a cavernous empty stomach. Can empty be the color of hunger? What's the color of a head ache? That's what I get when I'm starving. Forget color what's the sound of hunger? Searing, aching, harsh sound that's so uncalled for!