Friday, August 30, 2013

Dream 112

PC and I were running away from our captors or some evil corporation. Sometimes we were in a car, sometimes on horseback. Either way, PC was driving. {Sometimes we were Darren and Paige though. A lot of the time actually. But we were also still Stephanie and Sam.}

I think we had been arguing, or maybe it was just leftover tension from being captured. I dunno, but as we got farther away, the tension/anger began to subside. We started to like each other and feel like a team again.

I looked over my shoulder and saw that the sky was blanketed in horrendously beautiful, dark charcoal-colored clouds. It filled me with chilled awe and fearful adrenaline. And there was a tube-like piece of cloud beginning to reach down towards the ground…

“What is that?” I said to Sam, pointing.

The answer came to me right as he said it: “It looks like the beginning of a tornado.”

The wind began to pick up. I think I could feel it. We were kind of scared, and tried to drive/ride faster.

The cloud stopped looking like a tornado really and became a chubby cylinder with a little cloud stick poking out from it on the bottom right side. But I guess it was still a tornado.

I suddenly spotted a helicopter in the sky. It was the evil people; they were out looking for us. Fear pulsed through me. They were so close. They were about to see us. But then I had a great thought: maybe the helicopter would get sucked into the tornado.

“There’s one of the helicopters,” I told Sam. I don’t exactly remember the exchange between us, but it came down to the fact that even though he really wanted to watch, he had to look where we were going {‘cuz driving}, so I’d have to describe everything to him.

So I did. I described everything really thoroughly and poetically as the helicopter flew straight into the tornado and started to drop and shift around in the sky.

Then there were suddenly tons of shooting stars, white and beautiful. They streaked through the sky around the helicopter, and I jokingly thought maybe they’d hit the helicopter, even though I knew that wasn’t really how sky worked XD

But then that happened. Suddenly the stars were—and maybe had been the whole time—balls of fire, probably about the size of a basketball. They rained down mostly in the relatively near distance behind us with the tornado and helicopter, but some fireballs dropped close enough to us that we were alarmed.

The fireballs started to hit the helicopter. The helicopter didn’t catch on fire right away; it just kind of spun a little and started to fall. A panic budded in my chest. If it exploded, would anything hit us? The helicopter caught fire and started to go down.

“Um…” I began. I’d been describing everything, but suddenly the words were lodged and confused inside of me. I didn’t know how to address the danger in the most helpful way. PC didn’t yet know what was going on, and every second wasted was a second he’d like to have to consider the situation. “It’s going down,” I finally said. “It’s going to crash.”

That was good for us. But…

“Oh god,” I said. The helicopter slammed into the midst of some industrial buildings, where the evil people’s headquarters were. It crunched into the architecture with a chunky, tangible force the is the color blue to me.

“Brace yourself!” I yelled to Sam, although I don’t know how we were supposed to do that. Basically it amounted to us trying to get away faster. Suddenly we were on foot, holding hands, pounding our steps into the ground with as much panicked force as we could possibly drive through our heels.

The helicopter’s crash plowed out a crater in the ground, sending out a slow-motion shock wave of blue energy and orange fire. The wave leveled everything it touched.

Suddenly everything was in slow motion. We gripped each other’s hands with a rough desperation. I felt the wave of energy and heat coming closer. I knew it was dangerous, but I already felt victorious. I think I smiled.

The terrain in front of us changed. Suddenly it was tons of hills/mountains covered white pebbles, and we were giants compared to it. We had to be careful not to step in the rivers and passageways between mountains, because our feet would get caught in them

~Stephanie

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Me, as a Writer

I got these questions off Miriam Neal's blog, Wishful Thinking. I used to follow her when she was on Blogger {as opposed to Wordpress}. Now she has a book out called, "Monster." I think you can buy it online? Anyway, I stole these writing-related questions from her blog.

What was your first-ever piece of writing? I illustrated and dictated my stories to Mom before I could write myself. When I was about five, I had a series called "The Brave Little Briar" stories. Brave Little Briar was an adventurous girl like myself who liked to carry a big sword with which she fought dragons and chopped through briar thickets.

How old were you when you first began writing? I started telling stories on paper as soon as I could hold a writing implement. It got serious around...well, let's be real, I've always taken myself {too} seriously XD But I finished my first "full-length" story when I was twelve.

Name two writing goals. One short term & one long term. Short term...*thinks lots of rude, degrading, unhelpful thoughts about personal productivity and potential...clears throat* I'd like to write some every day this semester. I know that's a very small goal, and not one that will necessarily yield me a "finished" story, but right now I just need to get back into the writing habit.

A long term goal is to be a published and popular author. Yes, I said it. I'd like to receive some level of recognition. Not necessarily win an award or have my books turned into movies, but I want people to have heard of me.

Do you write fiction or non-fiction? Exclusively non-fiction, unless you count blogging and journaling.

Bouncing off of question 4, what’s your favorite genre to write in? Either fantasy or realistic fiction. Usually a combination of the two. It fascinates me when magic/the supernatural collides with the world as we know it.

Favorite author, off the top of your head! -_- Don't do this to me. Like actually. F. Scott Fitzgerald came to mind first though, so I'll go with him.

Three current favorite books. Unfortunately I haven't read any books recently that would qualify as favorites, so all these are old:  "Tex," The Farsala trilogy, and "Inkheart."

Biggest influence on your writing. I don't have an answer to this. Honestly, people I know don't influence my writing. Other authors do {like if I'm currently reading "Inkheart," my phrasing takes on a Cornelia Funke slant}, but even that fades after a couple of weeks.

What’s your go-to writing music? As a general rule, I can't write while listening to music. It distracts me. Every once in a while, though, I'll be listening to a song and *BAM!!* an idea smacks me in the face. When that happens, I put the song on repeat and go at it for hours. {Songs I can remember this happening with:  "American Secrets," by Parachute; "Safe and Sound," by Taylor Swift; "Orchard of Mines," by Globus; "Young and Beautiful," by Lana Del Ray; and "Headache Music," by Expedition.}

List three to five writing quirks of yours! Little habits, must-haves as you write, etc.
1) I hold my breath and bite my knuckles when I'm struggling to break through or writing an intensely emotional scene.
2) I get really hung up on names and point of view. I cannot be satisfied with a stand-in name, and I cannot so much as jot down a single sentence without deciding on a final POV.
3) If interrupted during a burst of inspiration, I completely deflate and become deeply furious and woefully depressed and cannot continue the story. Possibly ever again, but at least for the day.

{Wow. I'm even more high-maintenance than I thought.}

What, in three sentences or less, does your writing mean to you? Writing is a manifestation of the mental power, creativity, and acuity that I treasure. Writing is how I harness, explore, and reconcile my intense emotions. Writing is a way to inspire and persuade the public.

I tag anyone who wants to answer these :)

~Stephanie

Sunday, August 25, 2013

There Are So Many Worse Things

Hey :) College is going pretty great so far.

~ Dropped my US history class, so I only have 15.5 credit hours. It's gonna be a totally manageable semester now. Unless Scope & Methods actually kills me.

~Applied for jobs at the library, writing center, gym, and tutoring center. Hopefully something turns up. I'm $200 short of where I wanted to be at the end of the summer. Not a great feeling.

~ Went to a Headphone Disco. Really interesting and fun. I was reminded again that I can actually dance. I'm always surprised. Like, literally every time. If I go out again and dance, I will be genuinely surprised if people think I'm any good.

~ Made four new friends. Somewhat unfortunately, three of them are freshman guys XD One of them is a senior girl who's in my tap dance class and Scopes & Methods class.

~ Haven't gotten sick from the cafeteria yet.

I do have two small dilemmas already thought. Advice would be greatly appreciated.

Bekah and I love the freshman guys we met. They're really sweet and fun and we like showing them around. However, we're worried about leading them on. Is there a way to be good friends without things getting weird and tragic? Gerard says "Don't talk to them." Aaron suggested I hot glue corn flakes to my face to put up a friends-only barrier. Y'all got anything else?

Bekah herself is the second dilemma. I like her. I love rooming with her. But she spent all her time last year between guys' dorms and houses and wasn't around to make real friends. Now that she's getting serious about school work and avoiding guys {"They have cooties."}, she clings to me like she has chronic new kid syndrome. How do I get some healthy distance here?

But you know, these dilemmas are hilariously small compared to last year's series of meltdowns. I'm doing well, and I'm sticking to that.

~Stephanie

Friday, August 23, 2013

Top 10 Favorite Possessions

Not the most sentimental. Not the most expensive. Not the most beautiful. Just my favorite things.

1. iPod ~ Not only do I love music, but Sarah saved up for like a year to be able to buy me this iPod classic for high school graduation :')

2. Ramen bowl ~ PC gave me this bowl for Christmas. It just makes me really happy. I eat ramen noodles fairly often in college and always carefully wash and replace the bowl on my shelf.
 

3. The "Mythical Dress" ~ For some reason, I just love this dress a lot. I've only worn it twice in my life, but it's one of my favorite possessions.
 

4. Halle ~ My little orchid C:
 

5. Batman mug ~ It's three times the size of a normal coffee mug, and it has Batman on it. I freaking love that mug.

6. Bed Friends + Batboy ~ I have three stuffed animals that I sleep with:  Charles, the Pilgrim bear; Real-Blank, my slightly dingy baby blanket; and Happy, my purple hippo. Little Batman/Batboy is not technically a Bed Friend, but I'm including him because he belongs on this list.

7. Fairystone cross ~ PC gave me a fairystone charm as a reminder of what's up. I've worn it for at least part of every day since April 14th.
 

8. Batman Converse ~ Sarah did it again by getting me Batman hightops for my birthday! {Oh crud, or was it Christmas? D:}

9. Ember bracelet ~ I got this at Disney world from a cute French Canadian guy who thought it was cool that I wrote books. But really I just like it because it's a more mature reminder of the Fire Fairy stories. I wear it all the time.

10. Blue and teal underwear ~ Yeah. I just have this one pair that I love a lot. *nods awkwardly* Sooo yeah. No pictures with this one.

What are some of your favorite possessions?

~Stephanie

Thursday, August 22, 2013

The "Made Ya Look" Look

I knew I had personal quirks, but college has a way of revealing what my friends at home must have gotten used to.

Recently I've become conscious of my unusual conversational habits. Eye contact makes me feel vulnerable and uncomfortable, so I tend to avoid it or abruptly disengage it mid-conversation. This confuses people when I tell stories or give hypothetical dialogues. I'll be telling a story while making eye contact ("So he just walked away, rolling his eyes at the professor.") and then I'll suddenly look over the shoulder of the person I'm talking to and continue ("Like, WOW. Are you kidding me?").

More often than not, the person I'm talking to will hurriedly look over his/her shoulder, thinking that my exclamation was a real-time reaction instead of a continuation of my story. I think this is also due to the way my voice tends to break off and deceptively shift tones.

I'm trying to quit doing this. I'm sure causing people to falsely look over their shoulders all the time is at least as uncomfortable for them as eye contact is for me, and honestly, eye contact is a life skill I need to master.

While we're on the topic of things that make me uncomfortable, my dorm this year is suite style, meaning that my room and one other room are joined by a bathroom. Major pet peeve of mine? Having people near me when I'm trying to relieve myself. The idea of people being able to hear my bodily functions is enough to scare the pee into permanent residency inside me.

I guess I'll have to get over that too.

~Stephanie

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Just Looking

His hands found her waist and pulled just enough to make her step forward. She tilted her head to the right and looked at his eyes. She stopped breathing.

It caught her by surprise every time.Usually , she just liked his face. It made her smile. It made her feel safe and excited. It was a good-looking face. But sometimes, she would glance at it and see something more. Like a film had been peeled off, revealing all the bright intensity that had been blurred.

In those moments, the message in his teal eyes captivated and mesmerized her. His eyes halted time. His face looked so warm, and his eyes so bright and engaged that she forgot to keep living life. She just fell into their depth of color, wondering how a face could possibly look so alive and so perfect. Like all the warmth in the world had been concentrated inside a single person. All the heat and love and breath-taking him-ness shined out his eyes with a piercing, vibrant clarity that demanded full attention.  She couldn't breathe. She just looked, awed by the fullness of what she saw.

“What?” he asked, shying away from her stare. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“No reason,” she told him, trying to pull herself back together. “I’m just looking at your face."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
 I can't decide how I feel about this. I had a really hard time getting it right, and I still don't think it's there. It's too cheesy and not solid enough. I'll have to keep trying.

~Stephanie

Monday, August 19, 2013

Toby and Halle

All moved in to my sophomore dorm at Campbell! :) It's a little smaller than last year's, and ridiculously configured. Seriously, who designs dorm rooms? No one with a degree in common sense, that's for sure. There's a small, two-person desk affixed to the wall--on one half of the room. If Bekah wants to study, she has to be on "my" half of the room, and studying at the same time will be pretty much impossible.

Now our beds have to be really close together, too, which makes us both uncomfortable. We like our space and privacy.

But on the bright side, I already know my awesome RA, and she's the only suite mate Bekah and I have! Lucked out again.

Bekah brought a fish named Toby. He's red and blue like Spider-Man, and named after Toby McGuire. I have a purple orchid named Halle, named after the Angels & Airwaves song "Hallucinations."

I'm in such a different place than I was last year, in every possible way. Hopefully this year will be great. I'm excited to meet new people and be my real self. Right now though, I'm bored and it's rainy. It is supposed to rain for the next seven days solid. I hope the weathermen are wrong.

~Stephanie

Friday, August 16, 2013

Re: Summer 2013

 I looked back at the Summer To Do list I had posted a few months ago. I expected to be bitterly disappointed with my lack of success and feel like a tearful failure as I head back to school on Sunday.

I was pleasantly surprised.

~ work at dance Check. I filed papers, painted paper castles, ordered shoes, taught dances to "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes," painted the wood behind the barre, made Home Depot runs, and got paid for hanging out at one of my favorite places on earth. I love these people, I love to dance, and I love getting paid for being with people I love and dancing. Check a thousand times over.

~ go to the beach Check, twice. I went once with my family, where I walked a lot and hung out with my really cool bestfriendsister, Sarah. Then I went with PC and his family, where we made three separate trips to an awesome rock store {as in labradorite and amethyst}.

~ fall deeper in love with God It seems weird and wrong to check this off of a list. I definitely got some pointers on how to hear him and live my life the right way. I'm excited to listen to him this fall.

~ read "Paradise Lost" I straight up did not do this XD It's been on my summer list since I started it in tenth grade. It'll happen one of these days.

~ learn more German I didn't learn, like, a LOT more German, but I feel slightly more familiar with it, and I can now say "cheese," so I'm counting this as Check worthy. Check.

~ get my eyebrows done for once Not check. I think it's actually not that important to me, though I still would like to have them done.

~ travel with Cassidy Check. I definitely did this. Florida was hot and interesting and funny. California was crisp and clear and relaxing and financially wonderful.

~ see "The Great Gatsby" at midnight Check. Technically I saw it at 10pm instead of midnight, but I actually count that as being even better. The movie was breathtakingly, phenomenally, gloriously perfect. I cannot stress enough how beautiful it was. However, I think you have to read the book first to "get" it.

~ get my body back to where I don't hate it Check, actually. I started going to boot camp again, and while I'm still critical of myself, I can see muscle and I'm currently tan, which equal me not walking around the house literally all of the time and telling myself how disgusting I am.

~ catch lightning bugs with PC Check. We did not precisely catch lightning bugs, however, just the other night, we found a lightning bug trapped in thick grass. At the same time, we saw a point of yellow-green glow emanating from the ground. I didn't know what it was, because I'd never seen a bug get stuck and keep lighting up, but when we investigated, there it was. It was inexplicably fascinating to me.

~ eat stuffed crust pizza for the first time I can remember Not check. This one disappoints me. I really want stuffed crust pizza, like, a lot. Mur.

~ read "Nineteen Eighty-Four" Not check, because I couldn't find it even though I know we own it. I only read two books this summer: "A Mirror for Princes" and "The Book of the Bizarre."

~ write something Check :) I journaled a lot, and wrote something that's currently titled "One Percent." I like it a lot, even though I have no idea what's going on. Maybe I'll post it sometime.

This summer was amazing. I must be the luckiest person in the world. It was perfect. Wow. Just wow.

I am ready to go back to school and be the best version of Stephanie this world has ever seen.

~Stephanie

Monday, August 12, 2013

Iron Lace

8.11.13

Everything is weird and pleasant. Life has a filmy quality. It feels like a dance. Blurred and beautiful. Abstract and aggressive. Gentle. Lyrical.

It feels like pinnacles and breakthroughs building. Like iron lace. Beautiful and terrible.

Things are so wrong, but they feel so right... I never understood that concept before. So obviously wrong, but at the same time--guiltless.

I'm not supposed to try to coax myself into feeling chaotic. But shouldn't I?

Everything is so weird and pleasant.

~Stephanie