SO I ACTUALLY DID NOT LOSE THE CONTEST

HI, ALL!

So remember this post when I was half-secretly all bummed like, "yeah so I lost the writing contest but here have a story anyway"?  Well I actually was only thinking that because the UVU people were all, "Hey so yeah we'll notify winners by March 1st, yeah totally," and then it was like March 3rd and we'd heard nothing back and I was like, "the tears are real."  But hey guess what IT'S MARCH 27TH AND THEY GOT BACK TO US!  I actually was a runner-up and will get fifty dollars for it!  Yaaaaaaaaaaaay I just placed in a writing contest for the first time everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Thanks to everyone who read "Locks and Keys" and gave me feedback.  You guys are great.  I am excited.  This is pretty swell.

Yay.
-Allie H-S

Short Story: Locks and Keys (with Audio) (UPDATED)

Hi, all!

Sorry for the lame amount of posting currently.  I was actually waiting for the results of a writing contest to come through before I posted anything else.  I have a short story I wrote called "Locks and Keys" that I was actually going to post back with "Missoula," but instead I decided to enter it in a writing contest.  If it had been previously published, it would have been disqualified.  Not that is really matters, since I lost (ouch).  I'm actually pretty bummed.  But hey, at least I can put the story online now!

Locks and Keys
(I took this link down, revised it, and put it back up at least four times before coming to the version you see now.)

Locks and Keys Audio
(Sorry my S's are so loud.)

So...you enjoy that.

We've definitely done lots of other projects in Creative Writing this year, and I know that for this blog to become a good portfolio, I need to be prolific.  But I also don't wanna post anything I don't think is good, so...we'll see what I decide.  We're doing a poetry unit right now, so I'll probably do a post of a few poems later.  I still have to edit some and write a slam poem.

Wish me luck!
-Allie H-S

P.S: my updated favorite webcomic list should appear on the side bar.  New ones include Johnny Wander, Balderdash!, Paranatural, Monsterkind, Harpy Gee, and The Lonely Vincent Bellingham.  Wow, that's a lot more than I expected.  My friends say I have a problem....Haha...ha....

UPDATE: Eek look here I just learned I didn't lose yay!

Short Story Time! "Missoula"

Hi, all.

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I also know that I promised you all a peek at whatever decent writing I manage over this school year.  We really haven't done any interesting writing in English this year (just essays and things), but I would kind of like this blog to function as a portfolio, so maybe I'll post those later.  In the meantime, I'll talk about my latest couple Creative Writing pieces.

But first (bear with me), I am excited to announce that next year, Mr. Parker will be offering a Creative Writing II!  It will be a class in which each student chooses a long-term project, a goal they've been interested in for a while, but haven't found the time to fulfill.  These include screenplays, novels, poem books, etc, and the entire year will be dedicated to finishing that one project.  This means that, potentially, I could have a book published before I'm out of high school.

Oh my god.  I have been wishing for a class like this for years.

Also, so you don't think I've been doing nothing all school year, here are the projects we've done in Creative Writing that I may or may not (probably won't) post later:
1. Memoir - We spent the entirety of first quarter just writing this short memoir.  Mine was about a friendship I lost last year, and involved a lot of personal angst.  We'll be reviewing these fourth quarter, and if I decide then that mine doesn't suck (or at least that I can fix it), I'll post it then.
2. Horror Story - I didn't actually finish my horror story (whoops), partly because I had horrible writer's block, but mostly because I kind of went all-out and decided to write about things that frighten me personally, every single day.  It was about creepy china dolls and mirrors and evil reflections and stuff, and I'm pretty damn sure that I can't ever finish it without it affecting how comfortable I am at home, so you probably won't see that one.
3. Unexpected News ("Missoula") - This (or most of this) should be posted below.  The prompt was to write a story in which the main character receives unexpected news.  "Missoula" is about a fifteen-year-old boy named Andy whose mother one night takes him and his little sister, Molly, and leaves their father.
4. Deeply-Held Secret - This one really wasn't very good.  My main character, Ed, has a crush on a girl who's into drugs and stuff; one day when there's a drug bust at school, the girl stuffs her drugs into a random kid's locker, and Ed realizes it's his best friend's.  It was choppy though, and poorly put together.  I like Ed's friend's name, though; it's Lionel.  (He goes by his middle name, which is Jack I think, short for Jacob.)
5. Surprise Ending ("Locks and Keys") - Okay, so my surprise ending here wasn't that revelatory or anything, it just wasn't overly anticipated.  "Locks and Keys" will hopefully be posted eventually, but first, I'm entering it in a writing contest.  It's about a sixteen-year-old girl named Elliot whose mother died just a couple of months ago.  Elliot finds a note written by her mom before she died telling her that she needs to find the box that a certain key fits because it's apparently got some cool stuff inside.

And that's as far as we've gotten.  So.  Here, have a link.

"Missoula" on Google Drive

You'll notice Missoula has "Part 1" at the end of its title.  This is because I'm toying with the idea of making it into a little continuing project.  So maybe I'll post more of that later.

So...yeah.  Enjoy, and feel free to comment below.  (I like knowing you guys exist.)

-Allie H-S

So Things Change

Hi, all.

So if you've been paying attention, you'll know that I haven't posted in about two months.  Sorry about that.  And if you're here, you'll also know that about a month ago, I changed this blog's URL.  Sorry about that, too.  And if you've ever been in high school, you'll know that things change.

Let's talk about that.

On November 1, just after some of my friends had a heart-to-heart on Halloween night, they decided that it was necessary that we shut down the Role Play.  It had been causing some social, academic, and creative issues that I don't want to elaborate on on here, and in order to make things better, we thought it best to cut off all collaboration.  No more book.

So that sucks.  Obviously.  But you'll notice that this blog is still named Rousseaux, and its URL is still Anthony's birthday.  One of the conditions was that our individual characters are still ours, and we are free to do what we want with them.

So, since I'm not actively working on his development anymore, let's go ahead and post Anthony's character form here, for future reference.

So, I realize you have never been properly introduced: kids, meet Anthony; Anthony, meet the kids.

Anthony James Rousseaux

Gender:

Male

Born:

September 9th, 1992 (currently age 23, in the beginning of the story only 21)

Literary Status (Protagonist/Antagonist):

Uncertain

Shadow Ranking:

Was once Tier Nine Recruiter, now Tier Seven

Height:

6'4"

Appearance:

Tall and skinny, with narrow shoulders and a slightly lilting stride.  Really not incredibly strong.  (He has a knife, but in battle relies mostly on his cards.)  He has pale-gray hair trimmed just out of his eyes, which are a light brown.  He has a rather effeminate jawline and a thin nose. Anthony actually has lots of scars and a Shadow Mark on his left wrist, but he hides them with a Three of Clubs.

Sexuality:

Straight demisexual (needs to form emotional bonds before he can be interested in any-thing

sexual, kissing or otherwise)

Personality:  

Very quiet and very observant.  Not particularly light-hearted, but easygoing in most situations. He 's very private, and has to be pushed (or at times, negotiated with) in order to express his feelings because he's not sure they're critical to many situations, or his past because he's mostly ashamed of it.  

Flaws and Weaknesses:

Just because Anthony does not often acknowledge or act upon his emotions doesn't mean they don't trouble him regularly.  He spends a sizable amount of his time regretting things, and swallows every emotion he doesn't want to feel.  This is obviously unhealthy, and he has paid the price for it in many ways, on many occasions.

Skills:

Anthony is a card dealer; he has a magic deck of cards with a specific power each, categorized by suit ("Spade to Fight, Heart to Live, Club to Build, Diamond to Steal" - fighting, healing, illusion-casting and misc. cards, respectively).  He's also fast in a fight, if not particularly strong, and has good endurance.  He always has a diamond-made dagger on him for when he can't or won't fight with his cards.

Story/Backstory:

He had an English mother and an American father.  His father was a state representative for northern California, where Anthony lived on the family estate until he was old enough to go to school.  At that point, his parents began sending him away to a British boarding school every year, where he spent the holidays with his English grandparents, only coming home to California for the summers.  By the time he was ten, he really didn't have much of a relationship with his parents past maintaining social pretense.  

When Anthony's cousin Nathan's parents died, Nathan came to stay with them and became a fast family favorite, causing tensions to rise dramatically.  One day near the end of the summer, Anthony and Nathan had a fight that involved the Black Joker or Master Thief card tearing between them.  This killed Nathan, and Anthony received a jumble of all his interesting thoughts and memories which, as you can imagine, took a while to sort out.  Anthony's parents flipped and all social pretenses dropped, causing a huge fight.  

This was when Anthony ran away and was intercepted by the Shadows.

The Shadows recognized the potential in Anthony's card dealing power and made him a priority trainee, eventually turning him into a skilled Recruiter.

One of Anthony's first recruits was Dakota Black, when Anthony was thirteen and they both still believed in the Shadows.  They became fast friends, and Dakota's house became like Anthony's second (and at times, first) home.  

When Anthony was fourteen, he fell in love with a girl named Cassie Reed and couldn't bring himself to recruit her.  Dakota helped the couple to run away from the Shadows, and they tried to go into hiding, but did not succeed; thus, Anthony was forced to recruit Cassie.  She was immediately shipped off to another base, and he never saw her again.  A year later, another Shadow ratted out Dakota for helping them, and as punishment for their treason, Anthony had to kill him.  (At this time, Anthony was 15, Dakota was 14, and Raven - Dakota's little sister - was 11.)

Anthony shouldn't have killed Dakota because that's a really shitty thing to do to your best friend, but also because for the years to come, it gave the Shadows a hold on Anthony they hadn't had before.  They convinced him of how cowardly and unforgivable that was, among other things he'd done (recruiting Cassie, killing other people, etc.), and essentially used these things as blackmail to make him do even more shitty stuff.  (It was very important to them that he felt like he would never have an out.)

In order to deal with everything, Anthony made himself pretty much completely numb, and it worked until he was about nineteen (when he peaked and stopped climbing the Shadow ranks).  Then Raven ran away from home, and the Shadows assumed that it was because she'd found out about them or about Anthony killing her brother.  They immediately sent Anthony to either recruit her (despite her apparent lack of powers), or kill her.  He knew he could never recruit her, and at the thought of killing his friend's little sister, Anthony finally snapped.  He had a small mental breakdown because he couldn't manage to numb himself anymore, and he finally allowed his allegiances to drift from the Shadows.  For the next two years or so, he followed after Raven without actually catching her, and got demoted several times.

When our story starts, Anthony is on his way to recruit Raven to the Shadows, but sent on a detour to befriend and recruit the other characters.

Kill Count:

Unknown

I made this with an anime maker game;
I couldn't change the proportions so he
kinda looks like a twelve-year-old, but
it's supposed to be him after he leaves
the Shadows and joins the Army.

Same anime maker; this is him before
he peaked in the Shadow ranks, so probably
when he was eighteen or nineteen.  (He drank
very lightly then, but now doesn't drink at all;
it freaks him out.)

Sara made this Anthony dragon with
her mad drawing skillz.  (No, Anthony
cannot actually turn into a dragon.)

Bailey made this with an online
chibi-maker thing.

Again, chibi-maker thing.

This was made on Polyvore.

Siri made this for I think my
Christmas present last year.

This is the original inspiration picture of Anthony,
which I may or may not have posted here before.

I'm not sure I own any more than two of those pictures.  Moving on.

Because the roleplay is over, and I am without a project, I'm pretty freaking bored.  Right now, I'm floating around doing stuff like rereading Harry Potter (third time), rereading Hunger Games (second time), starting Divergent, watching lots and lots and lots of movies, basically looking for inspiration wherever I hope I can get it.  It's not working very well, but I'm not really sure what else to do.

Any ideas?

In Creative Writing, we've been doing lots of short projects, which are interesting and fun, but they really need revision.  (Once revised, I'll post them here.)  Mr. Parker (yes, last year's English teacher is this year's Creative Writing teacher) says that next year he'll be offering Creative Writing II, in which we'll work on just one project all year: a big project, like a screenplay or a novel or whatever it is we high schoolers each decide we've wanted to do for the past sixteen-to-eighteen years.  So I'll be working on a novel, then.  Yaaaaaay!  I really need a project now, though.  Something to work on consistently, and something that I can feel is meaningful and well-executed once I've finished.  And maybe next year I can fix it, or try a new one.  Either way, there's really no reason to wait around.

I need to finish something.  Mr. Parker told me I'm good, but I "lack discipline."  Sad, but true.

Get it together, Allie.

Do you guys ever get like this?  Project-less and under-stimulated, I mean.  And if so, what do you do?

Until next time (whenever that may be),

-Allie H-S

P.S: I do have one thing I've been poking at, a short story about a girl whose mother uproots her and her little sister to leave her father.  It's called Missoula because that's where they go, off to see her aunt.  So we'll see if that turns into anything.  Wish me luck.

Other Miscellaneous Updates: I never finished 1984; I hate Debate; you should read a webcomic called Namesake; I joined Pottermore as WombatRiver12772 and it put me in Slytherin; and HAPPY THANKSGIVING unless you're not American in which case HAPPY DAY YOU SHOULD HAVE SOMETHING NICE FOR DINNER!  That is all.

Let's Just Go Ahead and Update You on Everything

Hi, all!

I've been kinda busy lately, what with school (school sucks, but less so than the last two years), the roleplay (we've been redeveloping everything), and debate (I also joined the debate team, just by the way).  So sorry for not posting very often.  I was going to compare The Maze Runner (book) with The Maze Runner (movie), but I get kinda rambly when I review.  So maybe later.  (Long story short: the movie was better.  I know, I didn't believe it either.)

But yeah, this blog is a bit behind.  I think it's time for an update post.  So now, in no particular order...

Update 1: Yeah, seriously, I joined the debate team.  I kind of regret it though, 'cause my most enthusiastic debate team friend (AKA: 70% of my motivation) has had to take a lengthy leave of absence.  But I already paid club fees, hotel fees, and an extra sweatshirt fee, so yeah, there's no going back.  Our first tournament is on the 11th, which is soon, so maybe I'll post about it after.

Update 2: School started a couple months ago, and my classes this year suck significantly less than they did last year.  Unfortunately, I allowed myself to get discouraged around registration time and did not sign myself up for Drawing, but hey man, I took Photography instead.  It quickly became my favorite class, so I call that a success.  But more on that later.  I'm also taking Creative Writing and Honors English, both of which should give me posting material (in the fullness of time).  P.E. is dumb and Honors Math is dumb, but that's just two of eight classes.  I got more than half-lucky this year!  Yessssssss.

Update 3: Right but so photography.  Photography is hard, so we're taking it slow(ly?), meaning we don't develop our first round of actual film until Monday.  But earlier, we made pinhole cameras (mine was unsuccessful), and photograms (mine were very successful).  So yeah, let's talk about those.

First thing's first: I have to explain how photo paper works.  Basically, a bunch of goddamn magicians came together and created a type of white paper that turns dark when exposed to light.  Well, okay, it doesn't turn dark until you put it in the developer chemicals, but the important thing is this: the parts that had light on them will be dark.  Shine light on one corner?  Dark.  A different corner?  Dark.  A tiny spot in the middle?  Dark.  Just how dark it really gets depends on how much light hits the paper and for how long.  If you shine a really dim light for a fraction of a second, it'll turn kinda grey.  A glaring bright light for a minute or so should turn it completely black.

So, a photogram is what you get when you cover up certain parts of the paper to prevent the light from reaching them.  In class, we stood in the dark room and laid a bunch of objects on our photo paper, put it under a light, and shined it on for a couple seconds, then put it in the developer chemicals.  (side note: do not get developer chemicals on your hands.  They won't hurt you, but you'll smell like old rubber and vinegar for the next two days, which makes you really sick really fast.  It's gross.)  My best four came out like this:

This one's fancy 'cause I mounted it.  (sorry the photo's not
the greatest.  I had to turn it in, so I took this one in class.)

Admire the doll arm.  (And wonder why the hell it has those
shadow objects reflected on it.  How does light work again?)

I am so sorry about the dust.  I tried to get it off,
but in my house, it's pretty much unavoidable.

b r o k e n   l o c k e t
(broken hearts)

Maybe I needed the change of medium from drawing to art.  I like this.  I really do.

Update 4: Like I said, we've all been working on the roleplay, and I'm really excited about this.  We've been doing this without actually roleplaying it though, which just means lots and lots of redevelopment with hardly any writing.  Which I love, actually!  It's satisfying and refreshing.  And remember Raven?  (I mentioned her briefly here.)  I kind of killed her off and deserted her, but now I'm fixing her!  I've been meaning to do this for months.  It only came off the ground now because Mr. Parker (yeah so last year's English teacher is this year's Creative Writing teacher - cool beans, right?) assigned a short narrative written about a Facebook status.  I don't have a Facebook, so I made a status up and ended up writing about Raven running away from home.  It was almost kind of enlightening, actually.  I always try and map out my character and storyline before I start writing, but this time I just kind of just let it go, and I learned things.  Like that Raven is gay, or at least bi.  Despite having a girlfriend myself (damn cutie she is), I am not usually prone to writing LGBT characters, so that was kinda surprising.

The real challenge here is going to be handling two developed characters in my head without getting more excited about one than the other.  And if I succeed to love them both, the next challenge will be to kill Raven off anyway.

Yay!

Update 5: Okay, I think this is the last thing.  Here, we have...webcomics!  God, do I love webcomics.

CUCUMBER QUEST is really fuckin' cute, guys!  These four hero people (er, *bunnies) have to travel all through these crazy kingdoms to collect some silly stuff and fight some ridiculous villains, and I won't lie to you, the whole quest thing is really just kind of inane (even to them).  The heroes are all really adorable though, and like - I mean, can I be your friend, Cucumber?  Pleeeaaase?? - and the villains are all really compelling, actually, with really interesting dynamics.  (Like Nightmare Knight and Rosemaster.  I really want to know what's going on there.)  I mean, their quest is kind of frustrating, and a million times harder than it needs to be just because some of the characters are just stubborn, but the webcomic itself is so cute.  Read it.  You must.

BLINDSPRINGS is...ahh...I'm not sure how to explain Blindsprings.  It's kind of involved, or at least, the whole story hasn't been revealed to us yet.  As I understand it, a kingdom was ruled by a group of people known as Orphics, who were born with magical abilities that came from the spirits.  But the Orphics were too oppressive of their people and the Academists (scholars who managed to invent their own, artificial magic) revolted, quickly taking over the kingdom.  The Academists developed a way to seal Orphic powers, and quickly became distrustful and oppressive of all community members who were of the Orphic line.  Now (about a hundred years later?), Orphic community members are beginning to revolt again.  I think.  Despite it being kind of complicated, the story is told with such incredible charm (and such a different and lovely range of characters) that it immediately keeps you reading.  It's not very long, and updates relatively often, so if you're looking for something elegant and new, I recommend this one-hundred percent.

BFF COMIC is something I was only introduced to a couple days ago, but it is damn freaking adorable!  I'm not far enough in to write my own description of it, so here's the author's: "Best Friends Forever is a (b)romantic dramedy about a dirt-poor quarterback and the nerd-chic president of the student council trying to hold their unlikely friendship together - despite the suspicions & meddling of their frustrating classmates."  Honestly, I'm still early enough in the comic (chapter seven) that I technically shouldn't be reviewing yet, but it is so cute.  Teddy (the nerdy kid) is adorable, and Vincent (the quarterback) is beautiful, and they're just...aw.  You should read it.  Please.
(UPDATE: okay so I caught up on it and it starts out adorable, but then it gets really angsty really fast.  I'm not saying you shouldn't read it, but ahh, be warned.  That's all.)

Oh Yeah and Also Update 6: I'm about 20 pages into 1984 right now.  You know, that old dystopian classic by George Orwell?  Yeah.  It's scaring me.

Alright, so that's the last of my updates.  I hope you guys are all doing wonderfully, and I myself have been doing pretty okay.  I'll talk to you later!

-Allie H-S

Happy Birthday, Anthony! Brief Roleplay History?

Hi, all.

I know I haven't posted in a while.  School started and I've been pretty busy ever since.  I've been trying to find something to post about, and today is a special occasion.  On this day, Anthony James Rousseaux (the namesake of this blog) turns twenty-three.  He was born on September 9th, 1992.  (Hence my username.)  He is by far the best and most developed character I've ever created, and I just...I mean...he's cool.  He's pretty cool.

look at these cool cards, guys.  I own these.  yeah.

In honor of his birthday, I thought this would be a good opportunity to tell you all more about the roleplay.

Some of this will be recap.  Here I'm not rereading and adding on to my old posts about it, but instead, starting fresh.

The roleplay (sometimes known as "Divided") is a project my friends and I started in late fall, 2012.  It was meant to be a silly writing project, just for fun.  We each created our own characters, initially just one for each writer, but since then, things have grown.  This may not be perfect, seeing how at the moment people keep changing their ideas, but as far as I know, the author-character chart looks like this.

Author Siri Reilly:
 - Lizzie Tyler
 - Hank Jacobs
 - Meg Richards

Author Sara Williams:
 - Shade Grey
 - Darel Jones
 - Nate Jones

Author Bailey Giauque:
 - Bea Holmes
 - Jade Young
 - Lea Vindico
 - Oliver Vindico?

Author Alix Kintner:
 - Shizuka Maki
 - Demon?

Author Madison DeCamp:
 - Tyler Noel
 - Cassie Reed
 - Skyler Mills
 - Scarlett Mills-Noel

Author Allie Hedderly-Smith (me):
 - Anthony Rousseaux
 - Raven Black

(We occasionally write one-shots including other characters, but overall, the rights to each belong to their respective authors.)

I typically have trouble staying interested in more than two characters.  If we ever start writing again, I may try my hand in the supporting cast.  (We don't have a lot of that.)

But anyways, we started it in 2012 (eighth grade) just for fun.  One person would write a paragraph or so from their character's point of view (a post), and another would write a response paragraph from their character's point of view (another post).  The responses were, for the most part, quick and interesting, and our story soon progressed into a gallop.  At times, it got in the way of our school and homework habits; cranking out posts like we were born for it.  As is the case with all great amounts of output, the new and sudden experience caused our writing styles to change dramatically.  (Zen Pencils, anyone?)  And I'm not kidding when I say "great amounts;" we ended up with three different Google docs because each doc only allows a around three-hundred and fifty pages.  That's about one-thousand pages of writing.  Sure, most of it was fluff that didn't progress the story, but still.

We all tried a few other roleplays (zombie apocalypse-themed, dystopian society-themed), but none of them lasted long.  I think the reason this one was so successful was the appeal of the fantasy and freedom of our characters, but also mostly just that it was the first one, the one we all really got to know each other through.  If the roleplay hadn't started, I likely wouldn't have the friends I have now.

But so, after three docs, summer vacation finally came and we got distracted.  We've tried to start it again a couple of times, but haven't quite succeeded.  And we've been toying with the idea of turning it into a book for a while - like a year.  I think my co-authors would rather nobody posts any direct excerpts right now, but if we make any real progress, I'll let you know.

But so anyways, school has started, and September 9th has come.  Happy birthday, Anthony!  Someday I'll start writing about you seriously again, and you'll be back where you came from.

Talk to you all later.
- Allie H-S

P.S: Salt Lake Comic Con was exhausting; I didn't realize the Salt Palace was so big.  (The vendor's room from last year was used this year for just the entrance.)  I got ten cool little pins from some place called Akumu Ink, a fancy fascinator hat, and a black parasol umbrella.  Now I'm completely broke.  And that's really all there is to say on the matter.

P.P.S: I always feel like I need to leave a second signature to conclude my post-scripts.  But I don't.  So that's a little frustrating.

Summertime: Fruitless Classes and Extra Books

Hi, all.

Not that there are likely many of you out there, it being July and all.  But if there are, then damn, what're you doing here?  I haven't posted since May!

I have sort of been doing stuff with my summer, though.  For the past two years, I've taken a class at the University of Utah ("the U") called Seize the Story.  The first year, it was just amazing.  It was a week of really intensive writing projects - but nothing too overwhelming - and local authors came and talked to us, and we got free food at the student union building, and we each made like twelve new writer friends, which was absolutely great.  The second year was decidedly less great in comparison, seeing how we had a different instructor and no TA (we'd also had this really cool TA, Kate Coursey).  We didn't really learn anything that year, and there was lots of the instructor just rambling about nothing, and no author visited.  But we still made a bunch of new writer friends, and still wished that that class could just be what school was like, because sitting around working with this huge group of other dedicated writers is so refreshing that you'll never forget it.

This summer, however, I made a mistake.

I didn't sign up for Seize the Story this year.  It had the bad instructor again, and none of my friends would be taking it with me.  And there was this other class, "Intensive Creative Writing," which was four weeks long instead of just one, and costed a hundred dollars less.  It even offered a 0.5 high school English credit, if I wanted it.  It started only a few days after the last day of school, which sort of sucked, but I did it anyway.

And wasted the first month of my summer on it.

If I'd thought the Seize the Story instructor was useless, this instructor may not have even been there.  But then she got mad at us when we didn't pay perfect attention.  She got sick of us after the first two weeks.  (I feel so sorry for those poor Granite School District kids who get her for the whole year.)  Even though she got tired, she was still mostly nice, but because the class offered a high school credit, she had to follow the Utah Common Core in what she taught us.  For those of you who don't know, the Common Core is basically an outline of what the state of Utah deems necessary for a school to teach us.  So this class was wasted on bullshitting our way through everything to simple sentence structure ("what is a noun, everybody?") to essays (she didn't give us an actual type of essay, but I wrote what she called a "humorous argumentative" on why local coffee chains are better than Starbucks - maybe I'll post it someday) to poetry units wasted on soulless "I Am" poems, which she said she hated herself, but saw no problem in assigning to us anyway.

This is an "I Am" poem.
(courtesy of: docstoc.com)

The other shitty thing about this class offering a credit was that nearly all the kids in there were only taking it to get one.  The instructor's daughter came in at one point to give us a brief overview on how journalism works, and she asked how many of us wanted to pursue a writing-related career.  While at Seize the Story it would have been the entire class of sixteen minus maybe one, here in a class of eighteen, there were only four kids (including me).  One was a super-introvert and the other was generally pretty rude, (and the third was my girlfriend - God knows if she'll ever revisit her blog though), so unfortunately, no new writer friends were made.

The one good thing that came of this class was a free-verse poem called Meliorism that I wrote the night before the last day because I knew we'd be having a class-wide poetry reading, and then a party.  (Scratch that, there were two good things; at the party, I learned to play poker.)  The poem sort of needs to be read aloud though, so I'll post that soon.

Wow.  Superlong posts are sort of my forte, aren't they?  But I have one more subject to cover before I go.

This blog will only be mostly dormant this summer!  That is because of my lovely new reading assignment.  Okay, it's not really new; it's been a couple months.  But it's new to you!  Andbutso, this summer, I'm supposed to be reading and annotating The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande, and I need to collect five "artifacts."  Artifacts are basically real-world things I've noticed (news stories, advertisements, all that jazz) that relate to the ideas of the book.  I'll need to blog about them here.  So, now that you know about my new project, and seeing how I'm already over a third of the way through summer, I'd better get to that.  I'll see you guys later.

Thanks,
- Allie H-S

Vital Vocab 30 - An Ass-Kicking English Class

Vocab: vocation, wane, whimsical, zealous, zenith

Commonly Confused Words: its/it's, they're/there/their, you're/your, except/accept

Grammar Focus: parallel structure and semicolon/colon

Hi, all.  

You should spam me with pageviews.  I was hoping I'd reach 1500 page views by the end of the year, but this is my last Vital Vocab, and on Friday, I post my last required post.  (And I'll try, but let's just accept that I don't do a lot of overtime posting - especially compared to this friend and this friend and probably several others.)  I will, of course, post my epistolary when it's finished, and whatever else I write because I actually really like this blog and stuff, but...but I digress.  1500 pageviews.  And look at this!  Look.  At.  This.

Thirty views!  By the end of the week.  Can we do it?  (Probably not, but it's worth a shot.)

But so, on to other end-of-the-year things.  I know other people have already done their final Vital Vocabs on this same thing, and also, I am an awkward turtle and I suck at telling people who I really admire that I really admire them, but that doesn't make this any less necessary.  So, um, yeah.  Mr. Parker...ya done good.

Honestly, this was the best class I've had in a long time, English or otherwise.  Everything we read in class (Killer Angels doesn't count - summer reading) was something to stay with me, something useful to me, something I'll be sure to remember in a year.  We read and discussed books to care about, books to love, books to zealously shove under others' noses (just ask my mom; they're really stacking up for her).  I was excited to go to this class from the first weeks of the year, and that feeling didn't simply reach its zenith and wane.  We've got just four weeks left until summer, and I still look forward to English as much as I always did.  

Now, note that I've got four fabulous friends in my English class, a fortune I haven't been presented with since probably the third grade, so that certainly helps matters.  (And I am so sorry that there's always that constant and useless whimsical chatter from us.  Please don't mistake that for a lack of respect; it's really just our pitiful lack of control.)

Now obviously, being me, I have a personal affinity for English classes.  But this is the best one I've had in a while.  And I generally try to skirt around how people sometimes point out to me that they think I have a vocation for writing, but this class...it's really nice to feel like you're fairly skilled at something, and that maybe your life could go somewhere.  You know, eventually.

So, all in all, I'm kinda bummed about the end of the school year, except I signed up for Mr. Parker's Creative Writing class next year, so there is yet hope.  

Thanks for the reading and the pageviews, friends.  May good fortune come your way and your eyelashes not fall directly into your eyes.  Until next time.

-Allie

Vital Vocab 29

Vital Vocab Dictionary

Vital Vocab 29 - Spider-Man

Vocab: vapid, vehement, veracity, vestige, vivacious

Commonly Confused Words: course/coarse

Grammar Focus: parallel structure and semicolon/colon

Okay, guys.  We have to talk about something.  And that something is Spider-Man.

Specifically The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  

First off, DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE IF YOU ARE EPILEPTIC.  There is this one scene that is no good for that, I will tell you right now.  Second off, I promote this movie vehemently, but this is not so much a review as it is a rant, which means THIS POST IS GONNA BE CHOCK-FULL OF SPOILERS.  (Mr. Parker, you should go see it before grading this.  I'm not kidding.)  It also probably won't be very cogent.  (<<ha.)

For you to fully understand all the feels I feel about this movie, you need to know two things about me: a.) I view all things media as two parts writer and one part an emotional human being, and b.) Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy always has been and always will be my OTP (One True Pairing, for any non-fandom-y readers), rivaled only by AnthoBea (Anthony Rousseaux and Bea Holmes, one-shots of which surface periodically on my girlfriend's blog here).  Additionally, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are like my two favorite actors ever because gosh they are both such adorable dorks and I love them oh my god.  They are perfect.

But so of course, they killed her.  

Yup.  

And it was beautiful.

That is not to say that Death is beautiful.  It's not.  It's harsh and ugly and desperate, and unlike every other perfect and lovely Hollywood actor, the broken way that Andrew Garfield cries portrays that quite nicely.  However, the death is beautiful from my writer-y point of view.  Having seen the movie twice in its first three days, I have such an incredible amount of respect for whoever wrote it.  

They spend the entire movie, it seems, building us up.  They make us so sure of Peter, whose web shooters never miss a beat even when they're broken, who saves every pedestrian, who responds so immediately in every situation; he is the perfect hero.  And they make us so in love with, so incredibly lost for Gwen, who's gorgeous and intelligent, not some vapid damsel in distress, but the high school valedictorian, who knows what she wants and makes her own decisions, who so obviously loves Peter and makes everything un-complicated for him, but also lives and leads her own life.  

Given that, the true excellence of Gwen's death scene relies so heavily on defeating the heavily set conventions of the genre.  When the villain claims he'll kill the girl, you know his words are written without a vestige of truth because a true superhero never loses a soul, especially not the love of his life.  Furthermore, in every other movie, when the protagonist holds their loved one's lifeless remains in their lap, crying over their body, begging them to open their eyes...the person always does.  Sometime, I'll have to review Frankenweenie to fully express my thoughts on this scene, but let's suffice it to say it is the most clichéd thing you could ever write into a story, and I will lose all respect for said story if you do.

But these writers broke the cliché.

Gwen does not open her eyes.  And somehow, whether it's due to the integrity the movie has already shown, or the sheer finality of her limp body once she's hit the ground (she falls from a clock tower, by the way), you know she won't.  And Peter's sobbing, and it's brutal and coarse and unexpected, and although it's a factor that I came in to the movie already invested in the characters, this was the first movie I've ever cried in.  When his web reached down to catch her, the end of it opened slowly into an unmistakable hand.  But he couldn't catch her this time.

But somehow, even without my two-parts-writer perspective, the crushing honesty of Gwen's death doesn't ruin the movie for me, because it ends with Spider-Man coming back to the city after his period of grief because Peter finally watched a video of the speech Gwen gave at graduation.  It says that there are dark times ahead, but not to lose hope, because people need you and things do, eventually, get better.  So Peter gets new hope and closure, and goes back to saving the city, and the movie ends with the same shadowy figure who spoke to Dr. Curtis at the end of the first movie talking to Harry Osborne, setting us up for another sequel.  

Our beautiful Spider-Man will go on without Gwen Stacy, as will his adventures.  And I truly believe that no one beats Emma Stone, but honestly, I'm pretty excited to see what vivacious or sexy redhead may play MJ in the next movie.

I'm gonna really miss Gwen, though.

-Allie

Update: so, it came to my attention in searching for pictures of Gwen's death that she actually died in the comics as well (which apparently I should have known - I really need to find those), but my points about clichés and everything still stand.  but so yeah.

(courtesy of: Sneak Peek)

Vital Vocab 18 | Vital Vocab 30

Vital Vocab Dictionary

Vital Vocab 28 - Hiatus Cont. (Updated!)

Vocab: truncate, ubiquitous, vacillate, utilitarian, undulate

Commonly Confused Words: course/coarse

Grammar Focus: parallel structure and semicolon

Hi, all.  

I think my weekly Isaac Bade posts have been truncated not only by my hiatus, but by the end of the school year.  This is the third-to-last Vital Vocab of the year, I've been told, and so Isaac is gonna have to stay the course and sit with that broken arm for a bit longer.  Now, I was sort of vacillating about where I really wanted this story to go, but beneath the coarse, utilitarian fluff posts and regrettable, ubiquitous stress, I still really like him.  Isaac is a cutie; among other things, he's smart, and artsy, and quiet, and I just really appreciate him as a character, so I think I'll keep him to revisit later.  And also write down all the other stuff I know about his story, that I never actually incorporated here.  Because, even if I didn't have a perfect storyline, it did undulate with little story arcs, so that's something to work with.

Until next time!

-Allie

UPDATE: I actually will be sending you guys a full Isaac Bade story!  I chose him as one of the protagonists for the epistolary story I'm working on for Creative Writing, so you guys'll get to read it before the school year is out!  So I guess you could say...

(courtesy of: tumblr)

UPDATE 2 (which is slightly less important contextually, but still worthy of note): Ava's Demon is back from its hiatus!  Which makes me particularly happy because it'd been on hiatus for a little over a month.  Which was unfortunate.

Vital Vocab 27 | Vital Vocab 29

Vital Vocab Dictionary

Vital Vocab 27 - The Hiatus Continues (Update)

Vocab: tacit, tangent, tenable, tantamount, trenchant

Commonly Confused Words: bear/bare

Grammar Focus: parallel structure and semicolon

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA!

I love the internet.
(courtesy of: Amazing Creatures blog)

That said, hi all.

First thing's first, not seeing a need to be tacit, I'll just say, I've never been particularly trenchant about how I get my homework done.  Which is how I managed to miss Vital Vocab 26.  Sorry about that; I was doing a research paper I'd gotten behind on and Vital Vocab got lost in the bare flurry of end-of-unit procrastination. So that was fun.

And now, in this Vital Vocab, the hiatus continues.  Were this still just due to my own failure to outline, I would have written some little tangent of a something (even if it wasn't Isaac-related) to keep you all entertained.  But unfortunately - and I may have said this before (or something tantamount to it) - during or directly after bearing the stress of a something-or-other (usually school), I fall into this small pit of total writerly emptiness.  So I tried to write through it, but after a few hours of sitting and staring and writing and deleting, it became tenable that this is the most I can give you on my midnight deadline.

So.  Sorry for the lack of post.  Until later, my dears!

-Allie

Vital Vocab 25 | Vital Vocab 28

(Vital Vocab 26 does not exist.)

Vital Vocab Dictionary