Writerly Wednesday: Pens, Ink, and Characters

Howdy Ya'll!

(No, I did not turn into a cowgirl over night or take a trip to Texas. I'm just slightly strange. In case that hasn't become apparent yet.)

I have been doing some writing this week because, whew! musical is finally over and I can have time to write again! Mwahaha!

Not much writing happened, but enough happened for me to have fun with something.

My characters have certain pens. They even fight over some pens because there is only so much ink and the pen is so pretty and red (like flowers - the happy character - and like blood -a very unhappy, slightly crazy character). Some refuse to use pens and will ONLY use a keyboard (no matter how much I beg and plead. These people are stubborn as heck). But most of them like pens. Two of them will only use pens. And use the same pen (that red one).

Maybe it's strange, using certain pens for certain stories. But I love it. I love that I can flip through a notebook and see certain ink or the way a certain pen writes and know what story that scene belongs to. It makes my life easier. Post-writing, of course, as sometimes I don't have the right pen or can't find the pen right away and I begin freaking out because man, is this an important scene and I want to write it right now. Then there's the what am I going to do when this sacred red pen runs out, because it will at some point, and my two lovelies (or unlovelies, really) stop refuse to write until I find it again. But most of the time, it's fun.

I also try to use different handwriting, since a lot of the stories are first person and none of these people would have the same exact handwriting as me. Except maybe one. So using different pens helps make that easier, since every pen makes my handwriting come out just a little bit different to begin with.

Fun fact (in case you care): None of my characters like blue pens. None. This makes me super happy since I have a dislike for blue ink. Unless it's the light blue that only colorful packs of pen have. I like that blue.

Does anyone else use certain pens or colors to when writing?

Writerly Wednesday: A Bit Late but Let's Talk Characterization

I was perusing the internets when I found 25 Things About Creating Characters by Justin Mclachlan. Since I am a writer and since I like reading this lists, I clicked on the link and tralala, read the list.

Sometimes these lists are pretty useless for me. When it comes to characterization, I know my characters. It's a matter of stitching everything together and deciding what the reader needs to know (like age. Readers like age, while I prefer to give random details. Age is a bit more need to know in most cases). I still like reading them, though. They serve as a reminder or a checklist, something to hold my characters up to and make sure they are developing well. Sometimes I even catch one that was sliding through the cracks and go crazy trying to figure EVERYTHING out. This is impossible, by the way. I cannot know everything about any of my characters. I can know quite a bit, but not everything. In some cases, this is very good.

Most of the time, I don't have any reaction to what I just read in and of itself. This time, I did. If you like, you can click on the title of the post thing I read and read it for yourself to see if you agree with me. If not, that's okay.

8. Real people sometimes like lascivious and licentious things:  porn or weed or orgies, or porn, weed and orgies—you get the idea. So, why can’t your character like some of these things, too?

While I agree with this to some extent, basically every book I have read with a male MC has him liking all 3 of those things. So... maybe this isn't really a necessary comment? My version of this would be something along the lines of "real people sometimes like weird things like Cow statues and Veggie Tales and anything Irish. So why can't characters like weird things, too?"

I'm not kidding with this. It bothers me how normal most characters are. They like normal things. They like beer and weed and boobs or muscles. Things we expect people to like. I loved Unspoken  by Sarah Rees Brenna because her characters liked weird random things. Just like real life people. Someone I know loves everything Icelandic. I get super excited about really weird things. A friend of mine was obsessed with pickles for a while. Porn and weed and orgies are so boring and normal and everywhere.

 15. At a base level, every character wants the same things: food, shelter, sex...

Ahem. Excuse me. Sex? Every character wants sex? Half of my characters couldn't care less about sex. I have Kevin, who is asexual and cares way more about everything else. I have Dave (by the wayside, you are getting these names because they are relatively common names so I don't care if you know the names) who never wants sex. At all. I have females who are the same way. It just... no. Not every character wants sex because not every real life person wants sex.

I was so offended reading this. I mean, yes, sexual people, it's weird to wrap your mind around the fact that there are people out there who ohmybabies don't want to have sex or don't care about sex or kind of just stare at sex because it's confusing and why does it even exist let's just eat pasta. Also, this is totally debasing. And wrong. And says something about our society as a whole.

Why? Cause let's face it, you can have all the sex you want, but if you do not have a relationship, a working, active, personal relationship with someone, you will be unsatisfied. That is what every character wants. Not sex. But a relationship - maybe a messed up one -  but a relationship. That specific character may be overly afraid of relationships - not romantic ones, just fyi, but any relationship, be it mother or father or friend or lover - but there is still that desire there, somewhere.

So, you're characters, Mr. Person can want sex. I don't care about those characters. Because those aren't people I know. I know people who want food and shelter and a meaningful relationship, sometimes with sex as a bonus, sometimes not.

16. Just because a character lives in the past doesn’t mean she has to conform to outdated stereotypes.

It also doesn't mean he or she can't be in one of those stereotypes. Whenever I read a book set in Victorian times, the females are lumped into either 1. superfluous and silly or 2. headstrong and super independent, take no crap, revolutionary. Those are the new stereotypes. I'm not sure what the outdated stereotype being referred to here is - probably women who need men to save them - but let me tell you something, those stereotypes can still exist. They became stereotypes for a reason. Not every women alive was super headstrong and revolutionary. A lot were, but a lot weren't. What's wrong with those stories? Or how about the characters who are just human and alive during a certain time period?

18. In real life, we strive to avoid conflict. But in fiction, characters who always agree have no life—at least, not one worth reading about.

Has this guy ever strived to avoid conflict in an extremely conflict-ridden situation? I don't think so. I read and thus sometimes write realistic fiction. I enjoy it. Because it's life. Usually the nitty-gritty aspects of it. Let me tell you, I live in a family where striving to avoid conflict actually makes conflicts worse. I have a life. I have a life and emotions and reactions and responses. Someone could easily write a story off of my interactions with my family and it would be worth reading.

Why? Because is situations where taking sides is easy, the character who says "I will not take sides. And this is why" can be way more interesting than the person who says "I am taking sides" and is completely ignorant. Avoiding conflicts doesn't mean completely out of fear. How about the reason why the character is striving to avoid conflict is explored? Something like this depends on the skill of the writer, not on what is happening.

 20. Don’t be surprised when a character you’ve created does something you don’t expect. That’s called magic and you should just get out of its way.

This is so completely true. Although I'm pretty sure I did not create my characters because when I create characters, they suck. So... when a character appears in my head and demands I know his or her story... don't be surprised by random things. But really, feel free to get in its way. Challenge it. Fight it. Make sure it is actually there. Then hug it because it really is fantastic.

 22. Real people are seldom interesting enough to make great characters. Create, don’t imitate.

Um... Real people are way more interesting than most of the "great" characters I have read. So I'm not really sure what is happening here. I think real lives are seldom interesting enough to write a book off of, possibly, but real people, no. Real people are interesting. Possibly too interesting because I have no idea how to translate them to paper.

And obviously, I do not know everything there is to know about writing and characters. So this is not an end all say all, but I do know that some of the points I have made here about writing a character, are points that are valid and writers should pay attention to. Because readers want this stuff. Readers can tell the difference between a character who likes weed and a character who has an obsession with elephants. Weed is normal, but random obsessions are pretty normal, too. Not only that, but those elephants will make that character and individual. Those don't always exist. Especially not in YA.

Do you have any modifications to the 25 Things post or my responses to it?

I'm Back and Making some Changes

So I have been gone. For a while. Probably not as long as I am thinking, but long enough.

I have a confession to make. I kinda sorta left this blog for another one (Autumn Unleashed). I needed to.

In the process I realized I had abandoned the purpose of this one. Sure, I wrote some posts that I really liked, but in general, this blog isn't supposed to be about that stuff (thus my new one). This is supposed to be about my thoughts and adventures. Basically, it's supposed to be fun. Mainly. Because sometimes writing gets super serious and nitty-gritty.

Now: the changes!

I will be making the purpose of this blog anew. Yes, it will still be the thoughts and adventures of me, this silly writerly person. But with some new additions. Like...

Writerly Wednesday: in which I inform you about writerly stuff. Such as difficulties I have had in writing, if I have written, what sort of stuff I am working on. Have I made any progress? And at some point I have to read a thing on grammar, I am sure, because I feel like this whole paragraph thing is error laden. 

p.s. I might also talk about/share other writer's stuff on these days because there are awesome writers out there. 

Style Sundays: Shut up. I know. That's girly. But... I believe that style is very important in characterization. It says a lot about someone in little ways. And... 1. Style is not fashion. I could care less about fashion. Style is personal, what an individual wears. 2. Style is nothing to judge people by. Sometimes it is meaningless, sometimes not. But in general, it is fairly helpful and defines a lot of the world. 

So what shall Style Sundays be? I will post pictures of the various things I have worn throughout the week because A. It's my style and you might want to know more about me as a person and B. I want to keep track of all the things I wear because my style is rather random. So these posts may be amusing.

And at times, I may include some styles my characters love, either on me or just pictures.

And... My personal favorite -

Travel Tuesday: (Notice the green because T's are always green, but especially the word Tuesday)
I haven't been able to travel a ton, but I have been to places in this world. Some very nice places that I would like to share with you. Here I will choose places I have ventured to and share my thoughts on the places and my adventures there as well as some information about the place. This may not be useful to your life, but I hope you find it interesting. 

And that's it! I am back! If you so wish, you can click on the link somewhere up there and visit what I have been up to for the past month or so, if not, here's an impromptu Travel Tuesday and hope to see you around!

I do not own this. Unfortunately my current phone doesn't have my pictures of this skyline. But, it looks like where I got this from doesn't own it either.

So, since I'm not delving into anything too much right now, I'm making this a game. 

Can you name that certain place I have traveled to??

That Cliche Post About 2013

It's the 2nd day of 2014 and I've been thinking about stuff (and giggling with friends on beds and playing Scrabble and babysitting crazy people). Mostly the past year and everything that those twelve months have cumulated into. A lot of it sucked. I mean, ripped through my entire being stole my world from me sucked. Other parts were awesome. Through the sucky and the awesome, I learned a lot. Or, sometimes finally learned something I should have learned a while ago. 

So, here's part of my 2013.

1. I started college. Most people start up in the fall, but I shook my fist at tradition and started in the spring. Except, I was really shaking my fist at the helplessness I felt and was deciding I wanted some say in my life. 

From this I rediscovered acting, discovered that I love plays (as somehow, I never really explored them before), and got my license. 

2. Writing is definitely part of me. If I stop writing, I stop being a decent person. So to not kill people, I must write. 

Wait. I don't mean that when I stopped writing I actually killed people. I just was a really disgruntled, horrible me that I hope I never am again. 

3. I came to accept the fact that, yeah, I have depression. It happens. It is there. Beneath the surface. Partly situational, partly not. And that's okay. I'm not going to let it control me. I will be okay despite all the grey, because this world does suck, I can't deny that, but there are a lot of beautiful things I can learn to enjoy. 

4. I loved. I loved with my heart and soul turned inside out and it's not billowy, it's not all flowers and picnics and happy songs. Turns out love is anything but the romantic we are taught it is. It is raw and painful and so intense it actually is breathtaking. I loved until it hurt. Partly because maybe it wasn't returned, and maybe it never will be, and maybe it broke my heart in the process, but dammit, did I love. 

5. I learned to fight for myself. 

I have fought most of my life. For God, for my brother, for my mom, for friends, but for the first time ever, I decided that I am worth the fight, too. From this I got loads of self-confidence (which, for the record, I actually had already, more than most people, but I got a ton more). I began to look in the mirror and be okay with who I was looking at because it didn't matter what other people thought, it didn't matter what I looked like, I was valuable, I had plenty to offer the world and if people judged me on my appearance, their loss. 

6. My parents officially got separated. Through a restraining order and loads of drama, but Dad no longer lived at home and my mom got Divorce papers sent out. I have no idea how people view divorces, but they aren't fun. Not for any children involved. This one was slightly more dramatic than some in it's coming about since my dad isn't the most mentally sound person, but still, I can't imagine that most divorces are somehow easier on the kids. 

Also, despite being 19, when these things aren't supposed to affect me because I am old enough now to not care or feel or something like that, this did affect me. A lot. My dad was officially out of the house two days before my birthday, which was pleasant, and it screwed up what was supposed to be a really nice day. Not only have I had to deal with all the responsibilities of being the middle man between my parents and both of their remarks about each other, but they are my parents. They raised me Christian. They read the Bible. So, I always thought they would stay together. That when everyone else in my family was divorcing, they wouldn't. So it was a pretty big hit that the divorce papers are out there. 

7. I had my heart broken. Yeah, yeah. Teenage angst. But, it happened. It's there. Still there, actually. And in some ways, it was good. It definitely helped me better myself. It taught me how to forgive. How to not hate random people I have never met. Taught me that sometimes, it's okay to show up at someone's door and immediately break down because, guess what, I don't have to hold myself together all the time. Being broken sucks, but it also helped me to grow in a lot of ways. 

8. I learned some cool car stuff. 

9. I got myself back. This is super important because, well, losing yourself is never good. I don't suggest it. And getting yourself back is super hard and sometimes terrifying. 

10. I went to awesome concerts. Switchfoot, Family Fiction/The Lone Bellows/The Now Now, Relient K/The Almost, The Lumineers/Dr. Dog, and Creation Fest (with way too many bands, but Switchfoot again). And I mean AWESOME. Switchfoot is fantastic, I had so much fun at Relient K, and The Lumineers was magical (it was an outdoor concert with a river nearby and stars and a city skyline and then them and their music). 

11. I stopped trying to be "the perfect Christian". Or whatever. I'm not a typical Christian. I never have been. A long time ago I stopped trying to make people think I am perfect and I am okay and nothing is ever wrong. I don't judge people based on appearance. I try to include every kind of person in my group of friends. I question God. I fight with Him. I want to punch Him in the face and cry into His shoulder at the same time. I think when others say stop. I am constantly told by Christians that I have to be something that I'm not. And I am done with it. I stopped trying. I started just being impossible, fighting, questioning, curious me. So I don't call myself a Christian anymore because when I look at Christians, I don't see myself and I started embracing that warrior girl who loves no matter who you are. 

12. I questioned. I questioned a lot. My sexuality (as in if I am sexual), my ability to love, my relationships, everything I have been taught since I was little,  what I want in life. All sorts of stuff. I think I like most of the answers I got. Most. Some I want to punch in the face and stab with multiple swords. 

13. I am lucky enough to have someone who came back to my in January and proved that sometimes, there are people who are just meant to be together, whose bond will not be broken. Not permanently. And this person isn't a Significant Other. Not in that way anyway. 

14. I collected the weird habit of writing lists. I used to never write lists. Now they are everywhere. 

15. Oh! I almost forgot. I worked at a Preschool and loved loved loved it. I want to go back in time and hug all of the days those kids made me laugh and smile and all the times I was able to make them laugh and smile and all the hugs and games and secret faces being made behind the teacher's back. Those months of working there helped me get through life and showed me that I might want to work with younger children all my life because they are incredible. 

So, there's a strange synopsis of my year in no particular order. 

I'm hoping for a better 2014 with a whole lot more epic moments, but I'm just grateful to have another year to learn and grow. Hope you all are having a wonderful 2014 so far and that this year is better than the last, whether 2013 smiled upon you or frowned. 

Just Some Thoughts (and breaking away from the Alphabet for a bit)

I am broken. I can't deny that. I feel like a doll that has become unhinged from all of her limbs. Sometimes I am scared of everything I can see now that I have been broken. I'm scared of my brokenness, of the brokenness of everyone around me. I'm afraid that there is nothing to help me, no way I can help others.

I'm not asking to be made un-broken. That is part of humanity in this world. When God made us, it was with the ability to break and be broken, to find ourselves in places we never wanted to be. And it was good. I'm asking to find purpose in my brokenness, to accept my brokenness and help others accept theirs so that we can see the beauty in the brokenness. The way the sun shines on us after we have been left out in the cold night. It's there. Sometimes hidden and buried deep past our darkened lenses, but it's there. 

Imagine if you had never seen the dead tree of winter, the way grey comes over the land and swallows it up. If everything was always the green grass, the warm sun on your face, and colors vibrant, would it always be so stunningly beautiful? Or after a new moon, when the moon is full and her light is dancing across the sky, would the magic of those nights still be there? 

Who's to say that brokenness isn't part of wholeness? Not physical brokenness, but brokenness of the soul. It is a feeling, a state that can live beside the state of wholeness because we are so much more complex than material objects. When we shatter, we don't die. We are not irreparable and hopeless. 

Sometimes we become something like mosaics. All those broken pieces and shards, of all different colors and sometimes materials, pulled together into one space, large or small, to make something beautiful or aching. Something that stands up and says "I am here. I am alive." We are in charge of how our mosaic selves come together, whether we know it or not. Do we want to bring all the pieces in, line them up properly, how society says to? Are we going to ignore the hole in the middle of ourselves, try to cover it up with borrowed pieces, or search for the true filler? There are so many dark pieces, but what will they become? More darkness or something that speaks of hope when there shouldn't be any? 

We look to people who have been broken. Who have been broken and bent and so thrown about by life that they should be past mending, but there they stand, wonderful and better for their experience, risen to power not through a search for power, but a search for love and hope and meaning. 

They have been through hell and maybe the rest of us have or will be, too. Our own personal Hells with demons darker than we could have imagined, demons that come from within us, too, not just from outside. To be in hell is to either walk out as life or walk out as death. This isn't to be determined by the situation, by how strong Hell is and how often it leaves us in a comatose with the essence of our selves seeping out onto the cold floor of life. It is to be determined by us. We can choose to be made desolate by our brokenness or to be made into something beyond the humanity we are first born with. 

I can't say that the brokenness, the deadly disconnect from the holy in this world, the cracks forming across my vision, has made my stronger yet. When Jacob wrestled the angel and became Israel, he didn't stand ten feet away. To wrestle with something, to overcome it, one must come into contact with it, touch it, embrace it. I am in that process now. The state of the world, this fallen, broken, bitter state has come to me and shrouded me in its shadows. But unless I take ahold of it, embrace it, for those moments make it mine, I can't be above it. I can't say that it has no power over me until I have wrestled with it. 

That's where I am now. Wrestling. Wrestling with everything wrong I see in this world and everything wrong I see in me. 

That is the scariest part, the part that has me wide eyed and holding my breath with my back against the wall. Myself. There is no enemy to my well-being stronger than myself. I am the one who made a mess of me. The darkness inside is not always obvious. This darkness can seem so wonderful. It can fill us with power and make us think we are okay when we are so far from anything resembling okay. When we are not broken, but decaying. That is the power of the the darkness inside. Decay. We can't break ourselves, but we can let ourselves decay. 

For too long, I didn't wrestle with everything breaking me down, and everything inside that let me be broken down. I let this brokenness become a weakness. I didn't try to overcome it. I kept myself far from it, thinking if I just sat and waited, the bad would fade away. But it's not like that. It takes this wrestling - a questioning and a seeking and confronting and fighting and everything that makes us human; love and doubt and hope and despair - to begin to understand that there is something outside of this darkness. It is suffocating at times, the hold around me so tight that I can't breathe, but I am gaining strength. I will walk out of my hell and I will come out alive. 

I was created with this strength. So much more than I ever could have imagined. To fight everything that wants me dead, shut down and surviving, but not thriving. I'm not the only one. Not the only one broken or decayed or lost in everything that says there is no power to the good in life. And I'm not the only one who can wrestle with it. 

I know who I was before I was broken. She was great in some ways. Someone I wish I could say firmly I am now. She wasn't moved by others. She had so many convictions and stood by them. She loved with all she had. 

But I wonder now, do I have more since I was broken? And I think, yes. Brokenness is a transformative state, one where we find ourselves, the limitations we have set for ourselves and the limitations that are innately ours. For us, these frail souls that are wandering through life, often without direction, we need this brokenness to grow. The brokenness life presses upon our hearts, that threaten to destroy us, or that is what we think anyway, gives us the opportunity to reach for something more. Those who never break are the ones who wrestle with their brokenness, not as a sin, but to say that there is something greater inside. They have moments where they are pinned to the ground, out of breath, bleeding from the effort to not give in to the power of the hurt and the pain and everything so desperate and clawing.  But they don't stop this wrestle. They understand that brokenness is a time of testing. 

That, yes, this brokenness is the refining fire. 

To be past this brokenness is not to leave it behind. To live through it is to have a raw underside to everything beautiful. To sing of love while remembering that there were times when love seemed so far away. For some, to look at God and not forget how much pain it took to stand before Him. This doesn't detract from the awe, from the beauty, but adds to it. Brokenness is the layer under everything that gives meaning to the good, to the beauty. 

When the sacred text of Judaism, of Christianity, says that God looked upon the world He had created and said that it was good, He wasn't just looking at the perfection before Him, but at everything wrapped up in Creation. He created with the possibility of brokenness, with rules and threads and everything. He made all things in a state of perfection, but with imperfection as a path that could be tread upon. I don't know why, I don't think I shall ever know fully. But He would have known the power brokenness could have on his creation and the power his creation could grow in from this brokenness. Maybe that's the good of it. That we can become so much more by experiencing brokenness. To see all the beauty He made with eyes that can better appreciate it. To experience the holy with spirits that can know the power wrapped inside the holy more than they ever could have before. 

F.... Fantasy

I live in a world I don't quite belong to. It's like I really am that square trying to fit into a circle and I really can't fit no matter how hard I try. I know, I know, doesn't everyone feel that way at some point? I agree, most everyone does. We don't all fit together perfectly, but usually that's just because we haven't found our spot in the puzzle of humanity and life yet.

Maybe this is just teenage angst kicking in, but I wonder if my square isn't ten times harder to fit into a circle, if I don't belong to this puzzle at all.

I've been thinking and pondering and wondering over this for a while. What exactly is wrong here? Is it me? Is it the people around me? Is it both? I mean, why, why is there this huge difference, this gap, cavern, Grand Canyon, Pacific Ocean standing between me and everyone else around me?

Then it hit me with the weight of a hundred books with hundreds of pages.

Fantasy.

I grew up on fantasy. Lived breathed, ate, slept fantasy. I immersed myself in Greek myth early on. I was seven when I first sank into the world of Middle Earth and shook hands with Sam Gamgee and was fascinated by Gollum. I was in middle school the first time I even heard of The Chronicles of Narnia, but I immediately found myself staring longingly at my closet, hoping that one day I would push past my dresses to find woods and lampposts and everything I longed for. I was so enraptured with fairy tales and myths that I wanted to name the baby in my mother's belly Cinderella and Prince Philip and Hercules when I was three. There were so many Saturdays my father would turn on the sci-fi channel as I sat by his side.

All of this was so wonderful and exciting and comforting and made my heart soar whenever I opened those pages. But in the end, it sort of ruined my life.

Not exactly ruined, but almost everything that twisted knives into my soul and taught me the bitter meaning of disappointment and longing came from fantasy.

Sam Gamgee taught me what a true friend is. As did Merry and Pippin, and Legolas and Gimli. Those friends became integral parts of my life. How I thought, who I modeled myself after, what I was looking for. And I believed, so truly believed, that everything they were, friends were.

If I am to be a friend, according to this world, what am I to be? I am to be loyal - to a fault, if there is such a thing. I am to be steadfast and unwavering. I am to mean every promise I make, even if death is staring me in the face. If I am to be separated from a friend, I am to fight my way back to her as soon as I can and do anything possible to save her if she is in need of it. I am to be there for laughter and for tears, that shoulder to lean on and a promise of the future. Willing to lay down my life if it helps my friend achieve his goal. To push through all boundaries, mental and physical and emotional, because I know that person is so much more than anyone else around me might think. I am there to help him better himself, iron sharpens iron. And I will fight for him. I will throw myself in harms way and risk embarrassment or anything else to come to his defense in his time of need or when someone has hurt him. No matter what life throws my way, no matter how grey the sky is and no matter how burdened I am with the weight of a thousand years, I will bend, but I will not break. My heart is yours and I will never disappear of my own accord.

I have tried my best to live up to this definition of friend. At times I have failed, as a human will.

But this is what I was taught a friend is. Not should be, not in a perfect world. But is.

I lived my life with this definition of friend. And was disappointed and hurt time after time as friend after friend faded away and disappeared and watched me break and crumble and stood by, expecting me to catch them while I could barely stand.

I didn't know it until recently, but this all hurt so much because no one had the same definition of friend I did. No one else had been raised on fantasy and had the values such stories held running through their veins. Only me. So of course I was disappointed. I was looking for someone who no longer exists.

I have always had a high set of standards for leaders, be it teachers or politicians or leaders within my church. Especially the leaders within my church. Leadership that fell so far below my line of expectations that I barely recognized it as leadership hurt me a lot, drove me away from church. I knew it was my standard for a leader that caused this.

If you are accepting the role of a leader, act that way. There should be someone there training leaders, standing beside them and helping them through the early hiccups. This person should be wise and knowledgeable, with a good heart and a balanced perspective. Good leaders look beyond the surface, past the dirt and grime of stereotypes and shallow judgments, to the person buried beneath, to the heart of gold and characteristics that will win the war. They are forgiving and merciful, leading with justice, but compassion, too. They ask for help when they need it and look out for all involved, not just a certain set of people. They will go out of their way to save the wounded and won't leave anyone behind.

These are the leaders I grew up with, men of women of such noble characteristics, I couldn't help but admire them and desire to stand among them.

Then I began to look at the world around me and no one with the title of leader was following these rules.

It broke me to see these men and women not even trying to be the leaders I knew they could be. But why, why weren't they? Because they weren't fed fantasy. They didn't grow up in worlds built upon these kinds of leaders.

I learned that things were sacred. The connection between one person to the next. Marriage was a life long commitment and the secret promises of lovers were as thick as iron trees. Though they didn't swear to be true in front of a whole congregation, til death do they part. Blood and marriage and friendship were all sacred things that wove people together in such beautiful patterns.

Words held meaning. There were no empty sentences. False promises only belonged to the wicked.

I was taught from the moment I could hear my parents' stories that I can be a hero, too. That I can slay dragons and nothing can hold me back from being the victor in this ongoing battle with 1,000 different enemies. One day I will find my wardrobe or a wizard will appear and call me to my destiny or a god will touch the threads of my life and the greatness I feel swelling in my chest at times will be held in my hands. I can do so many good things and save the world simply by being alive and trying to live my life the best I can.

I was taught to believe in the impossible. In the magic that coated all things. To never say never because who would have guessed a Hobbit would be the one to deliver the Ring to it's doom and would Susan have ever guessed that she would visit a world through the wardrobe. The most fearful of girls turned out to be the bravest and with determination, the greatest curses could be removed. With the heart of being human, the courage and determination and love, anything, anything was possible. I listened to the mustn'ts and the shouldn'ts and the can'ts and I vowed to spit in their face because all the friends I wandered through woods with and fought alongside did.

But here I am. I am nineteen and there is nothing spectacular about my life. I live at home because I don't have money to move out. I want to do good but everything limits me. I try to fight the dragons all around me but I can barely fight the mosquitoes. I thought I found a knight in shining armour, but of course, the princess got him and here I am, in my loser-hole with falling apart walls and ceilings and I wound up with a loser in tinfoil who sided with the dragons. Because life isn't fair. Cinderella doesn't really get her prince. The prince will choose the girl from the palace, not the gutter. No matter how much that beaten down girl deserves something more than the same old dirt and dust collecting in her apron. I am no hero and there isn't about to be one on my doorstep. This is the real life and I fantasy only touches my life through reading and writing.

But above everything else, the thing that ties it all together, is the real definition of magic. Magic, in these stories, was so much more than spells or gods or power and energy being harnessed. Magic was the friendships, the unbreakable bonds between people, the love for a friend or lover that made you risk it all. It was the way people came together to fight injustice and the way good triumphed over evil. The real magic lay in the way people viewed things and who the characters were.

And even that magic doesn't exist here. At least not around me. So I long for more fantasy to build around myself because it is there that the values I adhere to still live. But whenever I emerge, a little piece of me cracks further. This world is tearing away at me because there is no magic here. No one tries to live up to these standards anymore. I'm not so sure people even know what these standards are anymore.

It sucks. It sucks so much and I want to throw things and punch things and slam my fist into the ground and watch the earth shake. But I can't do anything.

Anything but realize that fantasy really is fantasy. That growing up means seeing a world without any magic and figuring out how to survive it.

But I'm never going to stop hoping, wishing, dreaming, that maybe one day, somehow, a wizard will come and I will slay a dragon and I will stand with a band of people coated in the magic I long for.

Eeeeeepiphanies

I'm going with the lamer definition of this word that simply means a realization. Not one like, oh yeah, I always feel sick after pasta, but more like... well, you'll see.

I think. A lot. More than is probably good for me. I think about cheese. I think about time. I think about books and writing. And I think about things I'm not really sure too many other people think about on a regular basis. This leads to a whirlwind of words and thoughts and twisters of ideas that never stop with their motion but keep going going going
and sometimes it drives me crazy.

But sometimes I have epiphanies. Or, what is equal to an epiphany for me. Something that I kind of want to begin running around and telling everyone because ohmyword, how did no one think of this sooner?? (Or just how did I not think of this sooner)

So, I figured, I'll share some of those epiphanies floating around my head with you. No matter how lame and just simple realizations of epiphanies they are. 

1. I'm not normal.  

Hold on there. Hasn't this been affirmed time after time and aren't I already well aware of this and have been since I began to interact with humans? Well, yes.

This in itself is nothing new. But coupled with regular social and psychology and other stuff from my psych and human sexuality classes, I am so far away from normal I might not even be human.

List a bunch of normal social conventions and how normal people go about their lives and, well, I don't usually follow those definitions. Stick me in social settings, I don't work like normal people.

For example, in Psych we went over this story: A woman's husband works twelve hours every night and is tired when he gets home. His wife feels lonely and longs for companionship. Because of this she takes a ferry every night to the city across the river to see her lovers. She never becomes too intimate with them, leaving one and moving on to another anytime intimacy is beginning to go too far. One night she gets into a spat with a lover. She leaves in a hurry. When she gets to the ferry she realizes that she has forgotten her wallet back at her lover's house. She begs the Captain to take her on anyway, promising she will pay the next day. He feels for her, but rules are rules, her can't give anyone exceptions. The time is getting closer and closer to when she must return home. She returns to her lover's house, asking him to give her her wallet back. He refuses. Desperate, she visits an old lover and asks to borrow enough to cover her fare. He refuses. She must leave now if she is to return home. The only option besides the ferry is an old bridge that doesn't have the best reputation. With no other option available, she decides to take her chances. As she crosses the bridge, a highwayman rapes, robs, and murders her.
Who is the most responsible for her death?
 Are you thinking the woman? If she hadn't been cheating, she wouldn't be dead. 
If you are, the rest of my class agreed with you. 
I did not. Say she had gone to the store to pick up some things for her husband and had lost her wallet in a store and winded up dead. Different situation, but same ending. It was the highwayman's fault. 

Anyway, that was just the latest in a list of ways I differ from most people. 

2. Those girls in books who think they aren't attractive yet every guy they cross paths with wants to date them? They exist. 

I can't roll my eyes at those books and threaten to throw them across the room. No matter how ridiculous it sounds or seems or whatever. 

I was calling this the Bella Swan Syndrome. You know, two guys fighting over her, nothing that obviously special about her but every guy tripping over themselves trying to get her attention and complimenting her fiercely. Ridiculous. Stupid. Annoying. Dear God, authors what is wrong with you!

I think they were all watching my life. I'm shy. I'm pretty plain looking (pretty, I guess, but plain looking). I am awkward and clumsy and don't normally have much of a social life. 

I met two guys yesterday and got asked out by both of them and was laughing hysterically at the weird things they were saying ("You like fedoras and have two of them? That is the sexiest thing I have ever heard a girl say. Marry me." <-- a="" accidentally="" and="" asked="" both="" did="" find="" friends="" get="" go="" have="" home="" i--="" i="" into="" just="" kid="" make="" me="" movie="" not.="" see="" separately="" the="" them="" then="" things="" to="" twilight="" two="" walk="" with="" worse="" you="" zone="">

This is after my two best male friends both liked me (as I dated one of them). 

So, hey, Bella Swans do exist!

And it sucks. (Of course, I am hoping that I am right and they mean as just friends, but Life has proven that whenever I think friends a male thinks Iwanttodateyou)

This picture. Is huge.

3. Sometimes that cute guy you find really interesting turns out to be a professor. With a son your age. 

Thank you life for those awkward moments. 

4. It's nearly impossible to ridicule Buddhism.

Someone had made fun of atheism in an inaccurate summation of what they believe and then I began thinking about how easy it is to make fun of Christianity (the hole "take of My flesh and blood" thing) and Islam and Hindu and animism and so many things people believe can be boiled down to sound completely moronic. Except Buddhism. I couldn't think of anything at all to make it sound stupid. In fact, I kinda winded up making it sounds really really cool.

So, Buddhists, take pride in that!

5. (This happened this moment) When I start a blog post, I know exactly what I want to say and have these epic lists, but by the time I'm done with subject #2, everything flew away. 

I swear, I'm secretly a mother, the way my mind does stuff like that.

Anddddddd..... I'm just going to go away now and stop ruining stuff like this.

Wait.

6. I SHOULD STOP MAKING LISTS