Author’s Note: Apocalypse

A new story is up on Figment called Apocalypse.

I was not high on any sort of mind bending drugs when I wrote this, bath salts or otherwise. It’s just a really lame attempt on my part to be funny. It ended up being weird I think.

I wrote this in response to the prompt, “In 100 words or fewer write about a character who can’t function before that first cup.” for the Handsome Coffee Flash Fiction Contest Day 1.

I may have cheated a little bit, I didn’t really write about a single character.

This one had absolutely no meaning behind it. It just amused me when I got this image in my mind of what would happen if a coffee shop on an university campus were to run out of coffee on a Monday morning.

Hell hath no wrath like a bunch of sleep deprived students without coffee?

Theory of Knowledge: Censoring Yourself

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people censor themselves.

What I mean is:

“What the f***?!”

or

“That b***h.”

etc.

Words only hold whatever power you give them.

“Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.” – Albus Dumbledore.

Yes, I just pulled out a Harry Potter quote.

Many swearwords stem from normal words, look at many Quebecois French swearwords, a lot of them are religious. This might have something to do with the stronghold the Catholic church had in Quebec for so long.

What I think is that if you choose to use a swearwords, use it like any other word. If you feel the need to censor yourself when you swear, then don’t even use that word. There are plenty of other words that hold the same meaning without the same “force” assigned to them.

I am writing about this because I read someone’s short story on the internet and in the story she used the word, “b*tch”. It was written exactly like that.

Literature is a form of art. Art is a form of self expression.

When you censor your own work, it feel to me like you are shying away from conveying your thought and opinions because it might offend someone. In my opinion, there’s no point of writing that piece. There’s always going to be someone who hates the work, there’s always going to be someone who is offended. What is the point of trying to please everyone when you can’t?

By censoring a word, it’s implying that something should be hidden about it, that there is some power there.

Also, censoring a word like that doesn’t actually make a difference.

I know exactly what she’s talking about even with that letter taken out.

What was I suppose to thing that * stood for?

“She was a real batch.”

“She was a real betch.”

“She was a real butch.”

Why not just avoid the word altogether.

“She was a real meanie.”

Author’s Note: Why I Write Romance

Because I’m bored and lonely.

Yeah, I thought this post was going to be some profound thing about why romance is such a big part of my writing, but that’s pretty much the biggest reason.

The better reasons are:

1. I like the idea that even though there are generally no new ideas, every single writer can take the same one and spin it a different way. In terms of how the events happened or just their writing style. None of my writing is particularly new, I am just interested in what I can do with an old idea.

2. Romance is universal. No matter what theme I want to address, every single person can relate to a story about love. Whether it is loss of love, or unrequited love, etc.

I decided to address this question because I scrolled through all of my stories and realized all of them featured a romance in some way.

Author’s Note: Salt

http://figment.com/books/342052-Salt

This is the new story I wrote for a writing challenge on Figment. I’ve been having a lot of trouble with writer’s block as usual. Doing these flash fiction challenged actually helps me just write because I feel like I have a purpose again. It’s really hard to sit down and force myself to think of an idea out of nothing.

There was no real explanation to this particular piece.

I wanted to utilize the imagery of the sea to illustrate their relationship. I wanted to draw the parallel between her pulling herself out of the water at the beginning and her pulling herself away from him at the end.

To me there is still some doubt whether it was a good idea for her to leave him. He is like the tide, he comes and goes, but tides are predictable, you can depend on the tide to come in then recede. I wanted him to be innocent in this piece. He showed up like he can be be expected to show up, but she decided to stop waiting.

The word limit for this challenge was only 150 words, but I think it may be interesting to revisit this couple.

Author’s Note: Giant

I’ve been writing a lot since I’ve found Figment.

Mostly out of an apparent need for internet notoriety. I think I’m pretty great, but I seem to want other people to know it too.

This new category was started for particular stories that I feel the need to explain, or to delve more into my ideas about it.

The most recent one I wrote is called “Giant”:  It’s a flash fiction story (100 words or less) written for the “These Days are Ours” contest on Figment. The prompt was that it must be set on the Empire State Building or another monument.

I will write an explanation of the story here. Obviously, this was what I was trying to convey, but I’m not too particularly worried if no one else really gets this out of the story.

The story is about a girl who looks out over New York City feeling dwarved and insignificant, and the Empire State Building is for her a daunting symbol of greatness. However, as she ponders the famous Isaac Newton quote, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulder of giants.” there is a reversal in view of the “giant”. In order for anyone great to become great, they had to conquer the giant and climb onto its shoulder to see beyond. The final sentence was deliberate in word choice, “What is a giant but another beast to be conquered?” While the word “giant” has the connotation of greatness, “beast” aims to make the great seem a insignificant, just another obstacle.

Well my explanation is actually longer than the story itself.

It’s quite a different story than I usually write, I’m actually more proud of this one than the other ones I’ve written.

100 Prompts Challenge: December

At the conclusion of November, I am going to be doing the 100 Prompts Challenge to replace the time I used to do NaNoWriMo in order to fulfill my CAS requirements as well as get regular practice on my writing.

I will be linking to the prompts that I have completed as I go along. Currently, I have completed the first prompt, Crash.

My minimum goal is do 1 prompt a week. I also hope to practice writing and experiment with different styles through it.

I did the first prompt one in a panic about my NaNoWriMo, but I will be finishing or at least be continuing it through November. I have talked to several other people who are in my school’s NaNoWriMo support group at school and they have expressed interest in doing this challenge as well.

Best case scenario, if enough people decide to do it, we can print some form of anthology at the end. It’ll be an interesting experiment to see all the different story that are inspired by the same prompt. It’ll certainly be an interesting experiment for TOK, or something.

I think this one will be a lot less stressful than NaNoWriMo because there isn’t that constant struggle to meet the word count and more importantly, it’s long term. NaNoWriMo is great because it pushes you to get a lot of writing done, and despite that stress, I always enjoy it. However, I am looking for something long term because I don’t write unless it’s November. It’s a good habit to get into. … And I need the CAS hours.

NaNoWriMo 2011

Bonjour, I have a French oral tomorrow that I am going to fail. C’est la vie, n’est pas? Non.

It’s almost that time again, it’s almost NaNoWriMo!

I hate exclamation points, but that’s another story.

I’ve decided on using an idea that I’ve been mulling over in my mind for a little while. It’s a superhero story.

It’s about a superhero who defeats finally his archnemesis/love of his life. Then he realizes that he doesn’t have a identity other than the one that he built around defeating “the Doctor” who gave him his superpowers. He doesn’t know where he came from or who he was before he was the superhero.

Perhaps it’s better, perhaps it’s worse than it sounds.

I hate Geography…. It’s making me think about gender roles and how my superhero is the traditionally male “strong man who save the day”.

I’m keeping him though. I’ve been reading too many literary books that can be analysed a million times over that I am determined (and will undoubtedly succeed in) writing a book so crappy that no IB students will ever have to do any form of commentary on it.

Maybe I should have put that as my goal for NaNo on the CAS website…

I’m starting a quasi-club for the month of October to maybe November of other IB’s who decided it would be a good idea to pile a ton of optional work on top of a ton of mandatory work. Although, it does count for CAS though, so it’s… semi-optional? Quasi-optional, since I’m so keen on the word “quasi” today.

There’s 10 other people doing NaNoWriMo with me this year versus the 1 from last year. The more the merrier.

Right now I’m still trying to figure out the logistics of my quasi-club. I think we might do some Friday meetings and have some prizes to make things more interesting.

I’m still in the very early planning stage of my NaNo novel. This year my goal is to actually complete the novel. My novels from the past couple of years have been more or less left to fester. I’m still in love with my idea from this past year, so much so I attempted to redo it for Camp NaNoWriMo, but I don’t think it’s meant to be. At least not right now. We just aren’t ready to be together.

I will bid goodbye to Landon, Arthur, and Carl and say hello to [Unnamed], [Doctor], and [Unnamed].

–

On a side note, my mum called me stupid yesterday. I suddenly heard my mum say to my brother, “Pa lou ti”. I wasn’t really listening so I turned around and announced “I want to be a po-li-ti-cian too!” They both started laughing their heads off at me.

They were actually talking about my brother buying her a house when she’s old that has only one floor so she didn’t have to climb stairs, which is “Pa lou ti” in Mandarin…

Transit Travels: Day 4 Wrap up (This post is image heavy :D)

Hi…

Day 4
August 6 – Science World 

I planned on going to the area around Science World today, but there really wasn’t much there. Mostly because the outside of Science World is being renovated or something. There wasn’t a place outside to sit, except under the trees. But all the trees were taken and the ones that weren’t the ground around it was covered in garbage.

Also, my ideal place to write has tables. There weren’t even picnic tables around. Not even one that was full.

I brought my DSLR today, so I just hovered outside taking pictures for a while.

I didn’t bother editing this one, not even with Picasa – which is my lazy program. Photoshop is the only way to go.

I decided to pop inside of Science World for a few minutes – family membership card. I saw their new dinosaur museum. It’s hard to be impressed by that after I went to the Royal Tyrell Museum though. It was also too short.

That’s the only good shot of a dinosaur I got, the lighting was terrible in the exhibit. I also bought a postcard, which I’m going to mail to Hubby, who’s still in the middle of nowhere.

Then I left. I hovered awkwardly at the map wondering what I was suppose to do with nowhere to sit. I saw on of those tiny ferries that run on False Creek and ran for it (it was about to leave).

(That wasn’t the one I took, obviously, since it’s leaving as I took it. Mine looked exactly like this one though.)

Day 4
August 6 – Granville Island

Basically I paid $6.50 and took the little boat to Granville Island. It was fun. I like boats. 😀

It’s a bit steep though, the price. Fun to do at least once, but Skytrain and Bus would get you from Science World to Granville Island for about a quarter of the price. Round trip is $11. A bus ticket is $2.50 with unlimited rides for two hours. I have a bus pass, so it’s definitely not worth it for me to take the boat more than this one time.

That was taken very subtly while no one was looking. 🙂

Anyways, here’s Granville Island from the boat:

And here’s a better picture of Granville Island from the boat:

I took some pictures from the dock.

There are more, but I’m too lazy.

Then I walked around trying to find the Kids’ Market, my favourite part about Granville Island. What? It says on the advertisements that it’s for kid and kids at heart.

While searching I came upon a street performer called Basketball Jones. He was from New Zealand. I loved his accent – although, the only accents I don’t like is the ones from Asia, I think the tones are harsher, or more emphasized, that’s why. He was really funny and his tricks were pretty cool.

He juggled four basketballs, then he got up on that unicycle. It was a great show. I gave him a bunch of change, which I wasn’t entirely sure made up a dollar. Yeah, I probably seem like a total cheapskate to him, but a lot of people left nothing and I only had a twenty dollar bill.

After that I walked around for a bit still trying to find the Kids Market. (I went the long way around and eventually got there. )

I went inside the shop that sold a lot of NHL stuff for kids and looked around. There wasn’t much to tempt me in there – I want a Kevin Bieksa jersey. I went around back and found a seat right outside the store with all the stuffed toys.

Here’s a shot of the ceiling:

There was a giant opening next to me. Here’s outside:

And even more outside:

I sat down and wrote about a page or so. It was a pretty good spot to write. I couldn’t get down to writing though. There were so many stores, so many things to see. I got up and went upstairs to my favourite store, the one that sold costumes. (I’m bad with names, Store names too… If it isn’t a brand, I probably won’t remember it.)

I spent thirty-freaking-bucks on a Gryffindor scarf. I don’t regret it though. Which is what my mum is most pissed about. Like I said, I have a problem with my spending, if I see something I want, I’ll just buy it, if I have the money.

In my hand is the postcard I mentioned buying for Hubby. I’ll have to drop it in the mailbox tomorrow.

I love scarves. I have one for every day of the school week (which is usually the extent of me wearing anything other than pajamas, look I decided to get out of the house this summer, okay?). I really do. Now I have another one! 😀

Granville Island is amazing. I had a good time, but it’s definitely not for my main purpose, which is to get out of the house to write.

I definitely will revisit this place, I just will go there to play with friends or family.

–

*I did get a ton of writing done on the commute back though.

** For bigger size/better quality and a couple of photos that aren’t included in this post, here’s my flickr photostream:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/lowdiwwj/

Transit Travels: Day 3 Wrap Up and Day 4 Warm Up

 Good morning… gorgeous.

My allegeries acted up yesterday. In short my eyes totally swelled up and my my nose stuffed and I couldn’t stop sneezing. That’s hot. 😐

I didn’t get anymore writing done after I returned from the airport, which put me behind for Camp NaNoWriMo. I’m at around 7,741. Well I just have to hit 11,000 by Sunday and I’ll be good.

That brings me to…

Day 3
August 5 – YVR Vancouver International Airport

It’s the second largest airport in Canada… is what I learned from CTV News at 11 yesterday.

I went to the Domestic Flight area and sat down right by a huge window that overlooked the… well I’m not sure what it’s call. It was the part where the planes taxi up to the airport and let passengers board. These are all technical term here, people.

There was a food court right in that area, so I sat down with my Subway dinner. I got here way later than all the other places I’ve gone to, by the time I got here, I was already feeling tired and ready to go home. Because I usually went home around 5, so I can have dinner.

I usually eat lunch out.

Which reminds me, I really do need to cut down on spending. I’ve ate out at whatever place I’ve gone to these past three days and spent more money than I usually do in a month. Mind you, I rarely go shopping and my spending comes in bursts… but I’ve spent $35 in the past three days. I consider it paying the rent on the place I park my ass all day. Well I guess I’m going to have to eat at home first so I don’t have to spend as much money on food.

I got to tell you though. I’m pretty loose with my money so if I see something I really want when I’m out today, I’ll probably buy it.

At least if I eat first I won’t buy as much. My house doesn’t really have much food, so … T&T buns it is.

I got distracted from the airport.

As a writing spot, it was great. For me, the problem was that there were too many distractions. Namely, the wifi and the airplanes outside the window.

Wifi allowed me to spend a lot of time spamming people’s streams on Twitter and surf the internet in general. Basically, not writing.

The airplanes outside the window. Well. I think airplanes are pretty cool

For that reason alone, I kept looking and and watching the airplanes for a while before I realized what I was doing.

There was also a lot of people. Given.

They weren’t as distracting though. The conversation level was at a “dull roar” as my math teacher liked to call it. No one stood out, but everyone was talking.

There were a few situations where this was not true.

An adorable pair of little blond twins who looked like they were around 2. They were the cutest things I have ever seen. And I work with children regularly, through volunteering. Their grandma lifted them up to the windows and they were oohing and ahhing, IN UNISON.

Oh my goodness, I wanted to take them home with them x). But unfortunately (also fortunately for my productivity), they left to catch a flight to Calgary or Edmonton. Yes, I have really good hearing. It’s not eavesdropping if they were talking loudly near me.

There was also a woman doing her homework who asked me suddenly to look up the word “meniscus” for her, the one relating to anatomy. Apparently she was studying to be a personal trainer. She said she might as well have trained to become a doctor, so was learning all of those things already.

There was also a mum who bitched her son out. I guess, he left for a while and immediately on his return, she demanded where he was. They exchanged some other words, she started yelling at him. He didn’t exactly help the situation though, all of his replies were flippant. I’ve already learned this lesson from my mum, gotta head her off quickly when she’s yelling and tell her I’m giving in.

Good place to write overall, I was just easily distracted. And people are interesting. It’s a good place to get inspiration from, you can imagine the stories of everyone that passes you by.

I will revisit. Maybe I’ll try the International Flights area next time. It might be less distracting especially if there are a lot of tourist around there that can’t speak English. It’s harder to eavesdrop – I mean, accidentally overhear conversations, when you can’t understand them.

But then again, we get a lot of Chinese tourists, since Canada and China signed that deal. Mandarin conversations are more distracting for me than English ones.

–

Today I plan on going to Science World/Granville Island. I’m getting off of the skytrain at the Science World stop, but if there isn’t anywhere to sit, or if I just feel like it, I’m hopping on the Aquabus or False Creek Ferry or some other name, and going across the water to Granville Island.

It’ll cost me $11 bucks though for a two way trip though. Well, maybe I’ll just hang out in the area around Science World. It overlook the water and there’s a park somewhere around there according to my mum.

For now, the destination is Science World – which I still have a pass to until November…. maybe I’ll go inside. Or not. We’ll see in tomorrow’s wrap up.

Transit Travels: Before Day 3

 Good morning! I woke up at 10 after going to sleep at 3 the night before. I wasn’t feeling the tired until now, 12:30.

The plan was to go to the airport to write.But my parents are going to look at a store and apparently my 11 year old brother can’t stay home alone for two hours, so I can’t leave until around 2. By the time I get there it will be around 4 or 5. Which is usually when I come home. That’s all right, I guess. My mom has already yelled at me because I told her that. She started saying how she never asks me to do anything, blah, blah, blah. So now I’m staying home with my 11 year old brother even though all he does is watch TV in his room.

Well then, since I have lots of time before I leave, I’ll write more.

I got another letter from my friend, Hubby (because she married to me on Facebook), who is in the middle of nowhere for Air Cadets summer camp. I spent an hour writing back to her. When I go to the airport today I have to remember to buy her a postcard.

This is probably the most snail mail I’ll ever have to write in my life.

I’m wearing my Agent P shirt that I got from the Disney Outlet store in Calgary. :O

–

Transit Travels: Day 1

August 3 – Lonsdale Quay

Since I only made this blog yesterday, I’m starting to write about my adventures on the third day. Let’s take the (huge amount of time because of my parents) I have to fill to write about that.

On the first day, I decided to go somewhere, generally familiar to me – Lonsdale Quay. My brother used to love going there (mostly he loved taking the SeaBus) so we use to go there a lot. I didn’t bring my camera that day so I’m going to use a picture I found off Google Images.

I sat outside, under the giant Q, over looking the water. It was a beautiful day. I forgot to bring my power cord for my netbook and in any case, there wasn’t anywhere to plug into, so I wrote by hand. Although I’ve only gone to two different places, this one was the most productive. It was busy enough that I could sit there for a long time without being noticed, but not too busy that I couldn’t focus on my work.

The lack of wifi also helped productivity.

The food that I got was pretty damn good too. I got a Hawaiian chicken burger from a place called Rex Gourmet Burgers. Price was standard for gourmet burgers, around $9 for the meal and drink. It’s not something I can afford to do every single day, but it was definitely worth it.

Favourite place to write so far, definitely will revisit.

–

Transit Travels: Day 2

August 4 – Waves Cafe, Downtown Port Coquitlam

I think Cafes could be a great place to write, but this one wasn’t. This cafe had a constant stream of people walking through, not many of them staying. The ones that did were all spread out in the room. We were clearly noticeable and after a few hours, the staff started starting at you. I bought another drink after two hours, but I still got this feeling from them that I was overstaying my welcome.

The prices were pretty standard for a coffee shop, which is to say still overpriced. I paid almost $8 for a panini and a medium caramel frappe.

It wasn’t anything special. The frappe tasted like a frappe, pretty good, but it didn’t stand out against Starbucks or any other place where you can get coffee. The panini was not bad, but I really couldn’t find the ham under the overwhelming taste of egg. It should have been called Egg breakfast panini with some ham on the side.

I stayed there writing for a while. The goal was 7,000 words, but I stopped after getting to 6,770 because I decided I would go to the farmer’s market that was happening across the street.

It was not a great place to write. It was too empty and too quiet that any sound is amplified. When I walked in there were two women conversing loudly in Chinese, then there was a couple having an argument, then there was a group of four women that talked in unnecessarily high pitched voices who also decided to sing along to the music that wasn’t bothering me until they started singing along to it. The sounds of drinks being made was also ridiculously loud because there were only isolated groups of people talking at once.

It seems like a great community gathering place – for a small community. It was never busy to the point where I can write in peace. I need the place to be full of noise, but not deafening. I need there to be so many people having so many different conversations at once that I can’t hear or understand what individuals are saying. I don’t need to know what you did last week, I don’t need to hear about your irrational fear of bruises.

I also got a Belgium Hot Chocolate after a few hours, just so I didn’t seem like I was only there to use their wifi and their space (which I was, and they knew it). It was a bit less than $5. Which is too steep for me to pay for regularly.

It was amazingly delicious, but extremely sweet. After drinking about half of it, I was a bit sick of it. It’s great for a treat, but I wouldn’t buy it too often.

All in all, it was a nice place right in the middle of Port Coquitlam, but we’re too much of a suburb to have a “real” coffee house atmosphere.

I would revisit, but to hang out with friends, not to write.