Story Saturday

My friend, Anticipation, is pushing me to start the flash fiction story that I mentioned quickly in my previous post. The idea is that I'll write a story each week using you, my followers as the characters. Some of you know Scott who used to do this on his blog, Ergo, before it got deleted.
If you want to be a character please give me permission to use you in the comments.
I hope to have a story out next Saturday so if you want to be in it please let me know soon. I'm tying to decide on starting with a zombie apolalypse themed story, a horror, or a superhero story. What would you like to see?
A while ago in this blog post these stock-standard horror movie roles were delegated. If I could get these people to participate and fulfil there roles, or if I could get some one to take their places, I'd be very happy:

[Zella] might even be final girl quality.
O'Malley you'll be the hero and save everyone, or, more likely, be the guy who turns evil and dies a horrible and painful death, or the guy who steals from the ancient tomb and dies a horrible and painful death, or the guy who dies first, a horrible and painful death.
Laura, you can go for help and disappear (maybe later we find you dead in a cupboard, it depends how reasonable you are through the movie.) Don't worry though, some of best characters die this way.
Chairman, you either [Be the little nerdy guy who doesn't want to be there and dies right at the end saving the hero and heroine.] like me or [die like] Laura. Or you know, you could be the hero, but it's unlikely.
Scott, you're probably the comic relief guy who dies halfway through. Or you could be the villain if you like. I'm sure you'll be fine with either of those.
L, I giving you the role of police officer or private investigator. You either come rushing in and die or solve the crime without saving anyone but yourself and the final girl.

So please, give me permission!

Story: Belonging

Since I've been so slack at blogging lately and am still being slack I thought I'd just post a short story I wrote. I'm thinking of doing Flash Fiction like Scott used to do where he'd use his followers as characters. That might get me blogging on a regular basis again. Tell me what you think.
This is a story I wrote a year or so back for an English exam based on the quote “Human beings, like plants, grow in the soil of acceptance, not in the atmosphere of rejection.”

Glen grips my elbow, leading me away from the fire to some place cooler, quieter. Gail is in front of me, looking back at my face, her forehead wrinkled with concern. Gracie runs over in a partial panic, leaving Gareth confused and with empty arms back at the tree they’d been sitting under.

“What’s wrong? What happened” Gracie’s words hurry from her mouth with more urgency than I find necessary.

“She feels sick”

“Did you drink anything?” Gail cuts Glen off to interrogate me. I’m hot, God I’m hot. I think I’m going to throw up. I wish I could just throw up.

“No, I’ve only had the one can of soft drink all night. I brought it myself. I haven’t let it out of my sight.” My palms are so sweaty. I feel so sick. I can’t breath, that’s what’s wrong. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. Oh God, I can’t breathe.

Gracie sighs with relief and glances back at Gareth. I haven’t been drugged, it’s not an emergency, she can return to her boyfriend.

Gail’s not so quick to let it go. “Did you eat anything funny?”

Just leave me be. Leave me alone. I don’t want to be here. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. “Only those chips I brought.” Gareth is trying to catch Gracie’s attention; I can see him over Gail’s shoulder.

“Is it your asthma?” Gail just won’t give up. Why can’t she leave me alone?

Glen has led me to a wire fence and I slump down with my back resting against it. Glen does too. “Gracie, I’m fine” I tell her, “Gareth wants you.” She smiles gratefully at me and ducks off towards her boyfriend. He put his arm around her. I want to cry. I want to-

I’m crying. Oh God. I’m already crying. Damp cheeks. Eyes swollen. No wonder they think I must be sick, what other explanation? It’s a fun party, I shouldn’t be crying.

Gail sits down next to me and the words “distract me” escape from my mouth as another wave of nausea hits.

Gail begins to talk straight away, as if she’s been dying to tell me something this whole time. “Do you know what Gillian just tried to pull?” Oh, God. Yes. Yes, I know what Gillian tried. Why else am I in this state? “She and Grant just tried to set me up with Gabe!” Inside I howl in pain. Argh, I feel so pathetic. Gail continues, “As if! He so… I mean, it would never happen. Never.”

Is she trying to make me feel worse? I feel stupid, what’s wrong with me? How could I be in love with this guy my friend is too good for?

I admitted it. There. I admitted it.

I’m in love with Gabe Glover.

“God, Gillian’s just getting ridiculous.” I eventually reply after fractionally calming. “She should deal with her own problematic love-life before messing with others” and screwing up mine.

“Exactly!” Gail jumps to her feet. “I’ve gotta go talk to Gracie” she says, dusting of the back of her jeans, “will you be alright?”

“I’ll be fine.” I tell her.

“Yeah, I’ll stay with her.” Glen says. Gail smiles and walks off. We watch her for a while before Glen turns to me. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I’m just a little sick, that’s all.” Just a little sick, yeah right. I want to find that hole everyone’s always talking about, in which I can crawl up in and die.

“Just a little sick, yeah right,” Glen says, “something has upset you.” Glen is as intuitive as always, to bad that is the last thing I want. I don’t want anyone to know. These are just pathetic emotions I need to overcome. I wish my head would stop telling me I’m in love with him. Stupid head, it’s supposed to be logical. Leave this silly stuff to the heart, I never listen to it.

“I’m fine, Glen, nothing is wrong.”

“Com’on Phoebe, something is up, you can talk to me about it, you know you can.” Garg. Why does he have to care? Why can’t he leave me be? When I don’t speak he continues, “I’m your friend, Phoebe, one of your best friends, you can trust me, okay?”

He cares. I know he does. But I can’t tell him, I just… can’t. I need to try to handle this myself first. “Glen, I just… I don’t want to talk about it now, okay?”

He nods, “okay”.

“I just need time.” He asks me if I want him to leave. He’s being so good. I’ve calmed down now. I can breathe. I don’t make him leave. Without saying anything he offers comforting company.

We sit awkwardly in silence for a while as Gabe spins around and around in my head. Eventually Glen stands. “Ready to head back to the fire?” he holds a hand out to me and I nod. “Smile, now” he tells me, and I do. “Whenever you’re ready for that deep and meaningful,” he says, “I’ll be there.” And I know he will.

I put my arm across Glen’s shoulders and grin clumsily. “Thank you.”

Penguins is Fair Dinkum

Zella Kate gave me the Fair Dinkum Award which is awesome and all but it's forcing me to finally write a blog post, which I suppose is a good thing, seeming I haven't written in so long, but it does mean I have to think and try to be creative during my uni break.
The Fair Dinkum award is about being a good buddy so I'm really happy that Zella would consider me a good buddy. To receive the award I have to tell you five things about myself and then pass it on to five other bloggers. Right-o then:

1. I can memories lyrics extraordinarily well, especially with my favourite songs. My dad is always commenting on it. I know every word to Jesus of Suburbia by Greenday. All 9 minutes 12 seconds of it. (and I suppose I should warn you that the link contains some mature contents)
   
2. My favourite author is Shaun Tan. He is an Australian picture book author and illustrator for young adults. People may think that having a picture book author as my favourite author isn't very English nerdy of me but check them out and you'll understand. The Red Tree and the Lost Thing are beautiful books and the Arrival, done entirely in pictures, is incredible, but my favourite book (of all time) is Tales From Outer Suburbia, a collection of beautiful and bizarre short stories. If Zella ever feels like reviewing a picture book she should look into Shaun Tan.
3. I have an obsession with T-Shirts. I've banned myself from buying anymore shirts except I keep violating that ban. Most of you know about my periodic table t-shirt by now. I also have a Green Eggs and Ham t-shirt and a One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish shirt and a Where the Wild Things Are t-shirt. Someone unfortunately linked me to ThinkGeek the other day as well and I'm likely to go on a T-shirt shopping spree any day now.
4. I'm studying a Bachelor of Cultural Heritage which has a lot of people saying "Huh?" when I tell them. Basically it's a degree about heritage preservation and museums. I'm hoping to become a museum curator after I graduate. A war museum would be my dream job. I did some work experience with a Fleet Air Arms museum run by a naval base. The close collaboration with the navy and all the war history was amazing. I could happily do that for the rest of my life.
5. Despite an absolute love for lists I can never achieve the number of things I was aiming for. For a list of 100 things I'll bunk out at around 96. For a list of five things, I can only come up with four.

Now... to give the award to five bloggers...

1. Laura
2. O'Malley
3. Lucy
4. Tom Parker
5. Au7is7icr4bbi
   

Congratulations, winners!

Thanksgiving in Australia

This is only going to be short because I have to catch a bus soon but it's been so long since I wrote anything that I thought I would tell you about my first Thanksgiving.
Like everyone should be aware, Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Australia but because of the abundance of American exchange students staying on my floor at college we decided that we would have a Thanksgiving dinner.
I can't decide if my favourite part was cooking, eating or making turkey hands.

My turkey hand, Roboturkey. He fights for turkey rights across America, trying to save the birds from being consumed on Thanksgiving day.

Everyone attending the dinner had to bring something to eat and I made Cheesecake. Hanging out in the kitchen as everyone baked, making roast veggies, some weird sweet potato thing with marshmallows (that was delicious) and even a turkey, was really fun. As they say in Questionable Content "Baking is science for hungry people" and we all know that science is pHun. (Okay, I'll stop with the science jokes because math and science puns are basically the first sine of madness).
The meal was amazing and so was dessert. We have so much food left over that we won't have to go to our horrible college dinner for a week. People loved my cheesecake (yay!) and I loved basically everything there.
After dinner we all said what we were thankful for and there was an enormous amount of tears and hugging.
I didn't stay long after that. My NaNoWriMo has been driving me insane and I was behind on my word count so I needed to get some work done. I hear everyone went out clubbing, got extremely drunk and passports were lost. Some days I am particularly glad I don't drink.
In closing, Thanksgiving was an amazing night, probably one of my favourite college experiences so far.

A Few of My Favourite Things

1. Warm cinnimon donuts
2. Late night walks while eating lemon sorbet
3. Lemon sorbet
   
4. Glow-in-the-dark stars
5. Walking with a skip in your step on sunny days
6. Dancing like crazy while eating chocolate ice cream straight from the container
7. 3am writing sessions
8. Laying in bed listening to the rain
9. The smell of rain and wet concrete
10. Walks in the park while wearing pretty dresses
11. Whatever my current obsession happens to be
12. Friday night burger night followed by LAN-gaming
13. Reading a book curled up on a window seat
14. Researching bizarre topics just for the hell of it
15. Gripping conversations with fellow obsessers
    

A Hint

"Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go and find out what they're doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out...
...You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go."

-Choices, xkcd

Boring Examples of Literary Techniques

I haven't blog properly in ages and, rather than make it up to you with something fantastic, I'm just going to give you a quick update and leave you with this a boring exercise.

University is keeping me busy and I'll be more busy next month when I do NaNoWriMo again. The plan is to write a fantasy-western but since I've never written fantasy or western before, nor read any western and hardly read fantasy, I can't hope for much.
It's basically the story of a young, mood-based shapeshifter who goes on a quest to find his parents fighting in a war on the Frontier. Once I'm finished planning my plot I'll hopefully upload it and you can give me ideas for a title.

Now for the boring exercise:

Of the top of your head, give me examples of these literary techniques:

Alliteration: Ridiculous remixed rap (because the girl in the room opposite is playing obnoxiously loud, bad, music)

Irony: A hippy getting eaten by the animal it is trying to save

Metaphor: The lights were deafening

Oxymoron: fun-run

Paradox: 21 days since this sign was changed

Simile: Like starving wolves counting sheep we close our eyes, pretending to sleep. (Listening to the Alkaline Trio)

My Weirdest Fictional Crushes

You've probably learnt by now that I love writing posts about my favourite fictional men. I'm a crazed fangirl, I admit it, and I'm here today to share with you some of my weirder crushes.

Shan Yu - Mulan: Shan Yu is the bad guy from Disney's Mulan. He is obnoxious, he is ugly, he is impossible to like, yet for some crazy reason, I have a mega crush on him. He's just so badass (from now on referred to as BA). I like a lot of guys simply because they're badass and Shan Yu is one of them.

Scar - The Lion King: Last night I was talking to a friend about Disney crushes and it sort of went like this:

Me: I'm in love with most Disney guys. Hero or villain. The bad guy from Mulan, Shang, Scar, Aladdin-

Her: Wait, back up for a minute. Did you just say you're in love with a Lion?

Scar is another BA guy. He is misunderstood and an outcast. Sure, he did some really bad stuff but still- Alright. There's no point defending him. I know he's evil. But he's sexy evil. I mean, for a lion.

Jafar - Aladdin: This is my last for the Disney villains, I promise. You must admit, Jafar is one of the coolest Disney bad guys. Besides him being an utter BA, the reason I love he so much is the song he sings, the Prince Ali Reprise. Only a true villain would taunt the hero with his own song.

Trunks and Vegeta - Dragonball Z: The fact that I love Trunks and Vegeta isn't weird because they're anime characters, because I have a lot of those, nor that they're from Dragonball Z (I've been criticised for crushing on DBZ characters). It's weird because of the father son thing. I love Vegeta because he's BA, dark and moody (and evil). I love Trunks because he's, well, the opposite (except still BA). And he has a sword. This isn't my only father-son fling, I also have a crush on Atticus and Jem Finch, which could really be considered weirder, since Jem is twelve or something and I'm almost nineteen.

The Scout - Team Fortress 2: This is all levels of weird. For starters, he's a computer game character. And not only that, he's this computer game character. I have absolutely no explanation for why I'm crushing on him. It's weird, I know. That's why it's on this list.

Harbouring and bizzare crushes of your own? I want to know.

When I'm an Old Woman...

Hi all! *Penguins looks around at all the skeletons occupying the room* ...Hmm... Maybe I was away on hiatus for a little longer than I expected...

But I'm back now! (Hopefully).

I've been very busy this past month getting ready to start university. I'm at college now and I've had my orientation week and my first week of classes. I've been hanging out with all the international students from America, sitting on the edge of my seat the whole way through my Cultural Heritage lecture and drinking a lot of hot chocolates from the incredible coffee machine in my college lobby.

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but have been very slow at getting around to it. My inspiration for this post came from this brilliant poem by Jenny Joseph. I'm pretty keen to be the same type of old woman as her.

Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired
and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
and run my stick along the public railings
and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
and pick the flowers in other people's gardens
and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
and eat three pounds of sausages at a go
or only bread and pickles for a week
and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
and pay our rent and not swear in the street
and set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

• I'll tell it as it is. Ask me for my opinion and you'll get my honest opinion. Even if you don't ask, you're likely to get my honest opinion.
• I'll wear clothes that haven't been fashionable since before I was born, just because they're comfortable.
• My hair will be white but always with an inexplicable shade of blue or purple.
• My walking stick will be your worst enemy, second only to my wit (Assuming I get more witty with age)
• Since I never drank in my youth I will drink like my life depends on it.
• I will wear leather and go to rock concerts and then complain that the music is too loud.
• I will steal pens from the bank, even if this means I need wire-cutters.
• I will forget to turn my hearing aid on and loose my glasses on the top of my head, and then ignore you when you try and help me or tell me what I've done wrong.
• I'll stand too close to paintings at the art galley and flirt with the guards when they try to remove me.
• I'll hog the swing set at the children's playground and use my grandchildren as an excuse to participate in the kids activities at the museum.
• I will complain about "kids these days" and how it was never like that in my youth, even though it was.
• I'll spend all day in bed reading large print books.
• I will find Mills and Boon's great literature.
• I will apply for jobs at fast food restaurants and get fired for being vulgar to the customers.
• ‎Like Chandler says in Friends: "If I'm gonna be an old, lonely man, I'm gonna need a thing, you know, a hook, like that guy on the subway who eats his own face. So I figure I'll be Crazy Man with a Snake, y'know. Crazy Snake Man. And I'll get more snakes, call them my babies! Kids won't walk past my place, they will run. 'Run away from Crazy Snake Man!' they'll shout"

All in all, I'll be an obnoxious old lady. How about you?

Storytelling

Alright! So my idea for writing a story together with my fellow bloggers got an amazing eight responses. Since yesterday when I came up with the idea I've got the blog set up.

Our genre has been set: suspense thriller set in a dystopian sci-fi world with escapist fantasy undertones (thank you, Zella)

A forum for discussion has be created (thank you, Chairman): http://s4.zetaboards.com/Penguins_Group_Story/index/

And of course the blog has been created and the first post has been written: http://blogwritersstory.blogspot.com/

Also, to be an author I need your email address so I can add you. If you don't want to write it in the comments here you can message it to me through the discussion board or if you are on twitter you can direct message me at Penguins_quack.