I finally got there.
You know, that special little place where you don't feel like crap for breathing and you're not worrying every damn half second about things.
Which is ironic, because being the month of AP tests and finals and college essays and what not, you think this would be the worst month.
Traditionally, it has been. (at least in the last two years)
And yet, it isn't. It's actually one of the best.
Maybe I've been building to it all this time, from September to now. Maybe I finally hit the confidence jackpot and was like "congrats, you finally did it" to myself.
I do remember when it started though.
Remember my music video trauma? When I made my music video and I was stuck and then I was inspired, and I wrote that I was going somewhere with it?
After three weeks of coming into the DVP room before and after school, logging Mr. Russo's heavy camera and hoping to God I wouldn't break it, filming people who didn't really want to help but did so out of obligation, I finally finished it.
And it was good.
Good enough that, in fact, when I played it for my friend in class, it took me a couple minutes to notice the crowd that had slowly but surely gathered around to watch. And after it was finished, one of the best students in the class went "That was actually pretty good." A really popular senior girl (Who actually is really nice, but she is also really well-known so NO NAMES) asked me to play it again. I did, and then she said "That's really good." Someone even asked me to upload it on Youtube.
Keep in mind that I don't think its a "great" music video. I don't think that any company would upload this as their official music video. But it was the one I wanted to make and I slaved over making and the one, that in the end, earned everyone's respect.
I don't know, it was then when it all hit me. The fact that I did it, that I made this thing after stressing and worrying and working for days without expecting much out of it. I did do it to make it good, but I didn't do it for the 'fame' or in the belief that I would actually get respect or recognition for it.
But when I did, I got in a good mood. And it hasn't went away yet.
It's helped me realize that "Holy shit. I DID something." Most of my other projects that I've slaved over have either gone unrecognized (not that I feel as if my work would warrant that much recognition anyways) or simply not paid attention to. It was just another assignment, like this one. One I took pride and agony trying to make good, but an assignment.
Most of the other videos in that class other people have taken charge on, so I just slid back and let others do all the work. None of it was intrinsically whollistically, 'mine'. There is a whole list on the credits though, and at least four names just for sticking with me and letting me be a weak numbutt about it for a week before calling it quits on the first song, and doing another.
I know my potential now. And what I want to do for the rest of my life.
Not necessarily music videos. But I want to do things that I slave and work for, heart and soul, and then see the faces of the people (as I now realize) I respect and admire as they watch it. To see their admiration reflected back, as an equal.
That's all really. To be an equal.
Also, I have college essays to worry about. And Ivy Leagues to not get into when I see my peers apply and get accepted to. Things like that. I have a intimidating internship in the summer that I hope to go I don't screw up. I'm not stressed about it.
I've come a long way (at least in my mind) from the teenage girl that cried over if her friends still cared about her.
Gotta keep moving forward.
P.S: Because I put a smartcard in the CD slot of an Apple computer at school (true story) I have to wait till monday to put my video online. It'll probably be under a "only people with the link" can see the video (at least at first) but if you guys want to see it, I'll put a link on here later and blog post about it.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Friday, May 3, 2013
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Words and the Internet
I don't use Instagram. I've always avoided it. This post brings out an excellent reason why.
But I don't agree with the post, especially not in the belief that "But when it comes to words and writing, technology seems to fail on every single front."
That's false.
Twitter is the reason I know about so many things involving the things and people I care about, even from a distance. Twitter is the reason I love the Mortal Instruments more ardently than without it, and Twitter is the reason I'm now friends with people that were just acquaintances before. Twitter is how I express myself in sentences without any of the in-context fumbling of real life. It shows the way I want to be seen. I like Twitter.
If not Twitter, then you could complain texting. I can't text. I suck at it. Nobody texts me, and if they do, the conversation is awkward and heartrate-inducing as I try to say the right things without knowing the context.
Gmail is the reason why I'm best friends with somebody who could have been simply "another" friend, how I can communicate what I mean and how I mean it without the pretenses real life puts between us.
Tumblr doesn't use words as nearly as much, but a thousand words conjured and posted on Tumblr as quotes, stupidly funny text posts, or simple fangirling bring me closer to people than I ever was before.
I don't mean to sound like a total loser, but without the Internet, I'd be a much worse writer.
And let's not forget that this blog is the product of writing and technology. And I love this blog, no matter how angst ridden it is.
So no, I disagree whole-heartedly. Both the Internet and books provide the words I need to feel okay sometimes, and make me the better person I want to be. They give me opportunities to learn and understand people and things that I only saw from afar before. I owe words, and thus technology, quite a lot.
Thanks for understanding
But I don't agree with the post, especially not in the belief that "But when it comes to words and writing, technology seems to fail on every single front."
That's false.
Twitter is the reason I know about so many things involving the things and people I care about, even from a distance. Twitter is the reason I love the Mortal Instruments more ardently than without it, and Twitter is the reason I'm now friends with people that were just acquaintances before. Twitter is how I express myself in sentences without any of the in-context fumbling of real life. It shows the way I want to be seen. I like Twitter.
If not Twitter, then you could complain texting. I can't text. I suck at it. Nobody texts me, and if they do, the conversation is awkward and heartrate-inducing as I try to say the right things without knowing the context.
Gmail is the reason why I'm best friends with somebody who could have been simply "another" friend, how I can communicate what I mean and how I mean it without the pretenses real life puts between us.
Tumblr doesn't use words as nearly as much, but a thousand words conjured and posted on Tumblr as quotes, stupidly funny text posts, or simple fangirling bring me closer to people than I ever was before.
I don't mean to sound like a total loser, but without the Internet, I'd be a much worse writer.
And let's not forget that this blog is the product of writing and technology. And I love this blog, no matter how angst ridden it is.
So no, I disagree whole-heartedly. Both the Internet and books provide the words I need to feel okay sometimes, and make me the better person I want to be. They give me opportunities to learn and understand people and things that I only saw from afar before. I owe words, and thus technology, quite a lot.
Thanks for understanding
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Finis: A Response to "Writing"
I've rewritten this blog post three times.
The first two were emotionally satisfying blog rants about my opinions. This post should hopefully be something else.
In latin, Finis means end, or in other words, finished.
-
Writing is an art because it is a bitch. Say what you want about metaphorical you's making you slave and suffer, (Not that there is anything wrong with that. It just doesn't work for me) but in my perspective, it is because you owe a debt to the words that it is a bitch.
It could be easy. It could be the rambling ugly posts that I put here often without editing. It could be self-satisfied rants and fantasies. That's what writing could be if we didn't owe it to ourselves and the words we love that we do better.
Writing isn't hard. Monkeys can type words into keyboards. It's crafting stories and universes out of sheer words that's difficult, of gently pushing ideas into one's mind without declaring your opinion too loudly that's hard.
That's all.
-
*I would be totally lying if I said I got that great great word from something other than the end of two of my favorite manga series back in middle school (Both of which all of you should read because let's face it, these two series are more complex than 99% of any books I read), and like any other pretentious middle schooler, have kept it latched in my brain until a moment like this has arrived
**On that note, I highly highly recommend The Infernal Devices series, which contains the excellent quote "We live and breathe words" (It also helps that the main character and her love interest are both obsessed with books.) And no, I'm not over Clockwork Princess. But I do have a copy of the first book to lend if anyone wants to read it.
The first two were emotionally satisfying blog rants about my opinions. This post should hopefully be something else.
In latin, Finis means end, or in other words, finished.
-
Writing is an art because it is a bitch. Say what you want about metaphorical you's making you slave and suffer, (Not that there is anything wrong with that. It just doesn't work for me) but in my perspective, it is because you owe a debt to the words that it is a bitch.
It could be easy. It could be the rambling ugly posts that I put here often without editing. It could be self-satisfied rants and fantasies. That's what writing could be if we didn't owe it to ourselves and the words we love that we do better.
Writing isn't hard. Monkeys can type words into keyboards. It's crafting stories and universes out of sheer words that's difficult, of gently pushing ideas into one's mind without declaring your opinion too loudly that's hard.
That's all.
-
*I would be totally lying if I said I got that great great word from something other than the end of two of my favorite manga series back in middle school (Both of which all of you should read because let's face it, these two series are more complex than 99% of any books I read), and like any other pretentious middle schooler, have kept it latched in my brain until a moment like this has arrived
**On that note, I highly highly recommend The Infernal Devices series, which contains the excellent quote "We live and breathe words" (It also helps that the main character and her love interest are both obsessed with books.) And no, I'm not over Clockwork Princess. But I do have a copy of the first book to lend if anyone wants to read it.
Monday, February 11, 2013
The "Too Cool Kids"
It's bullshit. The whole "Queen Bees" mythos is such a joke. Not because that the elitism or the "brattiness" doesn't exist in real life, (Oh, but it does) but because it isn't as simply hiearchal as the media likes to play it up to be.
There is one large social group that is filled with people that go to the same parties and hook up with one another and smoke pot and etc etc, or the people that are at least well aware of these happenings. Granted, these are the kids that hear that rumor going around or the ones that are spreading it, the main audience for a majority of the "high school" drama that isn't directly related to school.
The wide majority of kids don't belong in this group, but the most vocal and "popular" members of each class are. Most kids have their own social group, containing their own dramas and gossip and information that the first group wouldn't care less about. These groups get smaller and smaller as you go down the list until you're looking at two best friends hanging on to each other for dear life, and those few unlucky kids without any real friends at all.
These groups are always bonded together by something, whether it be a similar set of beliefs/knowledge, a long history, a shared sport or extracurricular activity, etc. These groups mingle and merge and many people can be a part of more than one. The more well-liked or vocal you are, the more influence you have within these groups, even of those people you don't directly know because they've heard you in class or seen you in the assembly.
There are no Queen Bees, but there are people who act like it, and people in that social class/group. And they get judged.
They get judged by those who don't want to be a part of that group where hooking up is something casual instead of scandalous, and socializing is more important than grades.
I am not one of these people, no way in hell. I don't believe in that, and I wouldn't dare let my kids or my friends start doing that.
But the stereotype is starting to piss me off.
Sure, some of them seem "slutty" or "bitchy" and that kind of thing, but once you get past that (if ever), you start to see individuals, people liking certain things and being different from their peers in their own way. Some of them will still be shallow and cruel and vindictive, but you start to see them as more than the stereotype that can be assumed by their seemingly shallow conversations.
I have started feeling particularly defensive about this because I used to assume these stereotypes. I didn't even know I relied on these stereotypes as judgement until I met a few people that transcended it.
What's more terrifying about this stereotype is that we don't know how these people live their lives, or how they've been taught to live their lives. We don't know what hell they've been through (and we all have seen our own hells, even as you jerk your head towards their seemingly shallow banter in class) or what terrible things they've seen or even what beautiful things they've done. We don't know.
All we know is the stereotype, the ones that colors our lenses so fully that we can't see them in any other way.
At least, until we make ourselves.
(A somewhat patronizing rant, I know. Forgive me. It's been brewing in my head for awhile. Also, I continued to use the phrase "Them" because I didn't want to start going by individuals, and it's easier, at least for the sake of this essay, to go by that label. I wouldn't suggest thinking that way after this post.)
There is one large social group that is filled with people that go to the same parties and hook up with one another and smoke pot and etc etc, or the people that are at least well aware of these happenings. Granted, these are the kids that hear that rumor going around or the ones that are spreading it, the main audience for a majority of the "high school" drama that isn't directly related to school.
The wide majority of kids don't belong in this group, but the most vocal and "popular" members of each class are. Most kids have their own social group, containing their own dramas and gossip and information that the first group wouldn't care less about. These groups get smaller and smaller as you go down the list until you're looking at two best friends hanging on to each other for dear life, and those few unlucky kids without any real friends at all.
These groups are always bonded together by something, whether it be a similar set of beliefs/knowledge, a long history, a shared sport or extracurricular activity, etc. These groups mingle and merge and many people can be a part of more than one. The more well-liked or vocal you are, the more influence you have within these groups, even of those people you don't directly know because they've heard you in class or seen you in the assembly.
There are no Queen Bees, but there are people who act like it, and people in that social class/group. And they get judged.
They get judged by those who don't want to be a part of that group where hooking up is something casual instead of scandalous, and socializing is more important than grades.
I am not one of these people, no way in hell. I don't believe in that, and I wouldn't dare let my kids or my friends start doing that.
But the stereotype is starting to piss me off.
Sure, some of them seem "slutty" or "bitchy" and that kind of thing, but once you get past that (if ever), you start to see individuals, people liking certain things and being different from their peers in their own way. Some of them will still be shallow and cruel and vindictive, but you start to see them as more than the stereotype that can be assumed by their seemingly shallow conversations.
I have started feeling particularly defensive about this because I used to assume these stereotypes. I didn't even know I relied on these stereotypes as judgement until I met a few people that transcended it.
What's more terrifying about this stereotype is that we don't know how these people live their lives, or how they've been taught to live their lives. We don't know what hell they've been through (and we all have seen our own hells, even as you jerk your head towards their seemingly shallow banter in class) or what terrible things they've seen or even what beautiful things they've done. We don't know.
All we know is the stereotype, the ones that colors our lenses so fully that we can't see them in any other way.
At least, until we make ourselves.
(A somewhat patronizing rant, I know. Forgive me. It's been brewing in my head for awhile. Also, I continued to use the phrase "Them" because I didn't want to start going by individuals, and it's easier, at least for the sake of this essay, to go by that label. I wouldn't suggest thinking that way after this post.)
Friday, January 18, 2013
Goals
I want to write more. More nonfiction and more fictionfiction. I want to write fiction stories and get my novel on the road, and I want to write articles about things I'm interested in.
I want to exercise more, become fast and strong and undeniably, skinnier. I want to be one of those girls who can walk around in their body without feeling inadequate or bad about themselves, to be able to run without gasping for air. I want to be able to demand my body to do things I never would have done before. I want to be physically strong.
I want to read more, and of alot of different things. Last year was a year of YA fiction, of reading what was in front of me at the library and returning alot of books unread, of keeping up with loved series instead of finding new things to read. This year is going to be different. I'm going to read more non-fiction, but also only reading things I want to read instead of reading things I think I should read. My interests never solely revolved around the books people talked the most about. I should have known better.
I want to know more. About the world and my peers, and how it all works. I want to be able to keep exploring instead of staying in my comfortable little bubble, typing away as I waste my days obsessing over grades and the like.
I want to do more, do more with my friends and make friends. I want to have more of those friendships where you really know someone, where you can trust them with an idea without worrying about tarnishing the image of yourself in their head. I want to practice more, be able to do things more.
I want to BE someone, I want to love and love deeply. I don't want to waste my time and days watching things in order to satisfy that hungry drive in me. I love Tumblr, but it, along with a combination of other factors during sophomore year, really inhibited my talented and ambition. I won't let that happen anymore. Tumblr and Twitter are the places for expression, not placacy. I should have learned that awhile ago, Tumblr is most boring when used that way. I would know.
I want to be myself, without anything stopping me anymore. That's going to be the hardest one. I know that now, as typing those words make me anxious when I can't really envision myself doing that. What will that mean? What kind of person will I seem to be? What really am I? I'm fairly good at disgusing myself, playing roles that aren't really me in public. I wonder what I'll become. What I'll make myself be when I finally stop hiding. I have no idea, but the idea scares the crap out of me, but I suppose that's good. Being scared means you're doing something uncomfortable, and being uncomfortable pushes you in directions you've never been before. Hopefully, I'm in the right direction. I hope my anxiety is wrong.
Sayanora guys.
I want to exercise more, become fast and strong and undeniably, skinnier. I want to be one of those girls who can walk around in their body without feeling inadequate or bad about themselves, to be able to run without gasping for air. I want to be able to demand my body to do things I never would have done before. I want to be physically strong.
I want to read more, and of alot of different things. Last year was a year of YA fiction, of reading what was in front of me at the library and returning alot of books unread, of keeping up with loved series instead of finding new things to read. This year is going to be different. I'm going to read more non-fiction, but also only reading things I want to read instead of reading things I think I should read. My interests never solely revolved around the books people talked the most about. I should have known better.
I want to know more. About the world and my peers, and how it all works. I want to be able to keep exploring instead of staying in my comfortable little bubble, typing away as I waste my days obsessing over grades and the like.
I want to do more, do more with my friends and make friends. I want to have more of those friendships where you really know someone, where you can trust them with an idea without worrying about tarnishing the image of yourself in their head. I want to practice more, be able to do things more.
I want to BE someone, I want to love and love deeply. I don't want to waste my time and days watching things in order to satisfy that hungry drive in me. I love Tumblr, but it, along with a combination of other factors during sophomore year, really inhibited my talented and ambition. I won't let that happen anymore. Tumblr and Twitter are the places for expression, not placacy. I should have learned that awhile ago, Tumblr is most boring when used that way. I would know.
I want to be myself, without anything stopping me anymore. That's going to be the hardest one. I know that now, as typing those words make me anxious when I can't really envision myself doing that. What will that mean? What kind of person will I seem to be? What really am I? I'm fairly good at disgusing myself, playing roles that aren't really me in public. I wonder what I'll become. What I'll make myself be when I finally stop hiding. I have no idea, but the idea scares the crap out of me, but I suppose that's good. Being scared means you're doing something uncomfortable, and being uncomfortable pushes you in directions you've never been before. Hopefully, I'm in the right direction. I hope my anxiety is wrong.
Sayanora guys.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Control (Warning: This Will Be Rambly)
This is a post I've been wanting to make for a very, very long time, but I never found the real gut of the message until now.
We practice control. We need control. We need control over how the rest of our lives pan out because if we don't, we're letting our lives go wherever, and often times that means no where. We study on our finals to get the futures we want, and workworkwork in order to get grades, ignoring our fun distractions in pursuit of that A and acceptance letter.
If you knew me in AP Euro, you will remember that I was one of those kids. The bright, seemingly always funny and talkative members of the class, a true class participant to say the least. The teacher would make fun of me, as he did to all his favorite students, and I would do stupid things (mostly by accident) like say "cat" during a free association game when the prompt was "door" and be typecast as the crazy/out there roles during our projects, those little things. But I don't think anyone in my class noticed this, but the more outlandish and self-deprecating I was, the more tolerant I was of people making fun of me, the worse my grades were.
Not in AP Euro, but in general. For me, sophomore year was a time of trying to be happy, living in the moment or whatever. It was my happiest year with my worst grades. I didn't care because it didn't feel that important, college felt so distant and irrelevent, and why the heck should I care? It doesn't make a difference, right? There was little innovation that year, no great and sudden changes or creations, not like now or anything. I had no real commitments to anything. All my friends except for three were fleeting, people who only talked to me when we had the same lunch or class period. I was fine with it, because I thought things were okay. When my grades got bad, I distracted myself by being the class jester in the few classes that the teachers did encourage that kind of behavior, the teachers that didn't mind poking fun of what was strange or unfamiliar because it was strange and unfamiliar to them. I hated it, but tolerated it. Most people from those classes still think I'm smart, that I'm funny and bright and interesting. It's really not that simple.
We want control because, in the end, it's what we don't really have given to us. Every decision is unconscious or unaware of the implications, unaware of what we really want because we can't see past what's in front of us or can't see in that direction at all. We have control, more power than we're ever aware of, but most of us don't know how to fully harness it. We don't know how to do exactly the things we need to do to get the things we want, or to realize when we're working for something that we don't really want that thing at all. It's hard to realize, especially when you feel like you're drowning in a sandpit and you just have to keep going, going and going because one day this semester will end and everything will make sense. That's what I thought, and believed. I wish things were different. I wish I could be like the peers in my two AP classes that work hardhard because they know what they want, and they're constantly creating and acting to make it happen, already knee deep in what they want to do or make with their lives whether it be journalism or acting or writing. I wish I was like that.
I'm supposed to be studying for Physics, but my teacher's website isn't working when it needs to work, and it has everything on it so I can't practice and review until it works. I'm staying up until it does.
It makes me sad though, that I'm not really like other people in that matter. I can't just wish to do well in a class or know exactly how to study for a class I don't really understand. I wish I could control myself, so I could get the things I want out of myself. Like when you squeeze a orange or lemon or whatever, and all the lemon juice tripples out. You know what squeezing the lemon will do, so you do it because you want to see the consequences for yourself.
Life is weird. Maybe things will be different one day. I'll be friends with the cool people I want to be friends with and all that shnazz. Maybe. I can't tell.
***
After Finals: Books to Read
The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa
The False Prince
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human.
We practice control. We need control. We need control over how the rest of our lives pan out because if we don't, we're letting our lives go wherever, and often times that means no where. We study on our finals to get the futures we want, and workworkwork in order to get grades, ignoring our fun distractions in pursuit of that A and acceptance letter.
If you knew me in AP Euro, you will remember that I was one of those kids. The bright, seemingly always funny and talkative members of the class, a true class participant to say the least. The teacher would make fun of me, as he did to all his favorite students, and I would do stupid things (mostly by accident) like say "cat" during a free association game when the prompt was "door" and be typecast as the crazy/out there roles during our projects, those little things. But I don't think anyone in my class noticed this, but the more outlandish and self-deprecating I was, the more tolerant I was of people making fun of me, the worse my grades were.
Not in AP Euro, but in general. For me, sophomore year was a time of trying to be happy, living in the moment or whatever. It was my happiest year with my worst grades. I didn't care because it didn't feel that important, college felt so distant and irrelevent, and why the heck should I care? It doesn't make a difference, right? There was little innovation that year, no great and sudden changes or creations, not like now or anything. I had no real commitments to anything. All my friends except for three were fleeting, people who only talked to me when we had the same lunch or class period. I was fine with it, because I thought things were okay. When my grades got bad, I distracted myself by being the class jester in the few classes that the teachers did encourage that kind of behavior, the teachers that didn't mind poking fun of what was strange or unfamiliar because it was strange and unfamiliar to them. I hated it, but tolerated it. Most people from those classes still think I'm smart, that I'm funny and bright and interesting. It's really not that simple.
We want control because, in the end, it's what we don't really have given to us. Every decision is unconscious or unaware of the implications, unaware of what we really want because we can't see past what's in front of us or can't see in that direction at all. We have control, more power than we're ever aware of, but most of us don't know how to fully harness it. We don't know how to do exactly the things we need to do to get the things we want, or to realize when we're working for something that we don't really want that thing at all. It's hard to realize, especially when you feel like you're drowning in a sandpit and you just have to keep going, going and going because one day this semester will end and everything will make sense. That's what I thought, and believed. I wish things were different. I wish I could be like the peers in my two AP classes that work hardhard because they know what they want, and they're constantly creating and acting to make it happen, already knee deep in what they want to do or make with their lives whether it be journalism or acting or writing. I wish I was like that.
I'm supposed to be studying for Physics, but my teacher's website isn't working when it needs to work, and it has everything on it so I can't practice and review until it works. I'm staying up until it does.
It makes me sad though, that I'm not really like other people in that matter. I can't just wish to do well in a class or know exactly how to study for a class I don't really understand. I wish I could control myself, so I could get the things I want out of myself. Like when you squeeze a orange or lemon or whatever, and all the lemon juice tripples out. You know what squeezing the lemon will do, so you do it because you want to see the consequences for yourself.
Life is weird. Maybe things will be different one day. I'll be friends with the cool people I want to be friends with and all that shnazz. Maybe. I can't tell.
***
After Finals: Books to Read
The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa
The False Prince
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Rich Kid Books
You know the ones I'm talking about.
Clique. Private. The A-List.
We're all familiar with them, or at least their trope.
A bunch of rich, beautiful people go to an esteemed private school. This private school is esteemed, destined to lead its attendees to the Ivy League and into a glamorous life. The main character is estranged, having arrived at this school out of sheer coincidence or scholarship, and finds herself enchanted and horrified by her peers, particularly THE Group.
There all always variations of this group, but their members always embody these characteristics: Wealthy, gorgeous, ambitious, and smart. The alpha (There is always one) is the epitome of these traits to her peers; to them, she is unstoppable and superior. Nobody can top her. The main character inevitably finds herself wanting to be a part of this group. She wants to prove to them that however badly they might regard or treat her, she is not inferior. Eventually, with persistence and manuevering, they get in, as the plot goes.
I hate these books.
But I still read them.
I have a long history with reading these kinds of books. (The Clique series comes to mind easily) but for a long time, I'd abandoned these almost-political books in high school. That was when I started reading about real people with real lives, and if not, then those about urban fantasies. That changed this year, mostly by accident.
I had owned a copy of The A-List for some time now, but I hadn't actually read it until I was perusing through my bookshelf in winterbreak, bored and wanting something completely new to read. I noticed it, and with a chuckle, I started reading it. I found myself sucked in, not in admiration, but out of sheer disgust at what these people are.
They are wealthy and self-assured in their wealth and beauty through expensive cosmetics and lucky birth. They are arrogant because their wealth and status has assured them that they are important. They are ambitious and ruthless to keep it that way. These people have no qualms about doing whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.
It's easy for people born into these high-society bubbles to forget about the world around them. After all, it's undeniably hard to notice and act on the flaws of a society when its serving you well. At least for these people, the only thing standing in the way of their ambition and desires is their peers, not the faults in their stars. A Roman noble can easily say "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings," because the stars of his birth have not faulted him the way they fault so many others through disease and death and poverty.
There will always be an avid audience for these books because there will always be people who want to be like these people, however wrong and shaded they may be. Or rather, there will always be people who want what these people, despite their many faults, can hold on to.
Pride, and an ability to maintain it.
***This is my shaded way of highly highly recommending The Disreputable History of Frankie-Laudau Bank as a great book to read that intelligently subverts this trope with a highly-intelligent, ambitious girl turned renegade that ends up fighting against these ideals through clever pranks.
Clique. Private. The A-List.
We're all familiar with them, or at least their trope.
A bunch of rich, beautiful people go to an esteemed private school. This private school is esteemed, destined to lead its attendees to the Ivy League and into a glamorous life. The main character is estranged, having arrived at this school out of sheer coincidence or scholarship, and finds herself enchanted and horrified by her peers, particularly THE Group.
There all always variations of this group, but their members always embody these characteristics: Wealthy, gorgeous, ambitious, and smart. The alpha (There is always one) is the epitome of these traits to her peers; to them, she is unstoppable and superior. Nobody can top her. The main character inevitably finds herself wanting to be a part of this group. She wants to prove to them that however badly they might regard or treat her, she is not inferior. Eventually, with persistence and manuevering, they get in, as the plot goes.
I hate these books.
But I still read them.
I have a long history with reading these kinds of books. (The Clique series comes to mind easily) but for a long time, I'd abandoned these almost-political books in high school. That was when I started reading about real people with real lives, and if not, then those about urban fantasies. That changed this year, mostly by accident.
I had owned a copy of The A-List for some time now, but I hadn't actually read it until I was perusing through my bookshelf in winterbreak, bored and wanting something completely new to read. I noticed it, and with a chuckle, I started reading it. I found myself sucked in, not in admiration, but out of sheer disgust at what these people are.
They are wealthy and self-assured in their wealth and beauty through expensive cosmetics and lucky birth. They are arrogant because their wealth and status has assured them that they are important. They are ambitious and ruthless to keep it that way. These people have no qualms about doing whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.
It's easy for people born into these high-society bubbles to forget about the world around them. After all, it's undeniably hard to notice and act on the flaws of a society when its serving you well. At least for these people, the only thing standing in the way of their ambition and desires is their peers, not the faults in their stars. A Roman noble can easily say "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings," because the stars of his birth have not faulted him the way they fault so many others through disease and death and poverty.
There will always be an avid audience for these books because there will always be people who want to be like these people, however wrong and shaded they may be. Or rather, there will always be people who want what these people, despite their many faults, can hold on to.
Pride, and an ability to maintain it.
***This is my shaded way of highly highly recommending The Disreputable History of Frankie-Laudau Bank as a great book to read that intelligently subverts this trope with a highly-intelligent, ambitious girl turned renegade that ends up fighting against these ideals through clever pranks.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Writing a novel
Writing a novel is annoyingly hard, not because its hard to write, but its hard to write what you want to write.
Cliche, stupid things bore me. Most first drafts are made up of stupid, cliche things. Therefore, my first draft is filled with cliche, stupid things, and maybe that's why I'm bored with it.
(This is implying that I have a real first draft, that somewhere on my computer there is a 50,000 word sucky narrative. That's not the case. What is the case is that I have 50,000 words of scenes that I wanted to write and did even though in retrospect, they all suck. Plot-wise, 99% of it is useless, and rightly so.)
I still want to write a novel. I still want to write about those characters (albeit the very few) that have survived these tumultuous last few months and are actually complex and interesting. I still have those vivid ideas that pushed me to the keyboard in the first place, the ones brimming with possibility even now.
But I don't have a story. I realize this now as I sit down on Blogger and try to figure it out. Maybe I haven't done enough universe building, and that costs me. I hate outlines, but I suck at coming up with things as I go that are also funny and intelligent. (Another reason I can't do improv) I have to universe-build. I know I'm not going to have time to write in the next year or two though (and probably weeks as soon as break is over) because of finals and school and ACT and doing-well-enough-to-go-to-a-good-college. I might have a legit excuse not to write fiction if I get in Honors Seminar in Non-Fiction Writing.
But I like fiction. I like making up a world that makes sense to me even in its wrongness and writing about things that are meaningful to me and the reader. I like making up and writing about characters that are complex but cool, crafting something out of the weird mess that is my life. I like making sense of my life through fiction. I'm just very bad at it.
Cliche, stupid things bore me. Most first drafts are made up of stupid, cliche things. Therefore, my first draft is filled with cliche, stupid things, and maybe that's why I'm bored with it.
(This is implying that I have a real first draft, that somewhere on my computer there is a 50,000 word sucky narrative. That's not the case. What is the case is that I have 50,000 words of scenes that I wanted to write and did even though in retrospect, they all suck. Plot-wise, 99% of it is useless, and rightly so.)
I still want to write a novel. I still want to write about those characters (albeit the very few) that have survived these tumultuous last few months and are actually complex and interesting. I still have those vivid ideas that pushed me to the keyboard in the first place, the ones brimming with possibility even now.
But I don't have a story. I realize this now as I sit down on Blogger and try to figure it out. Maybe I haven't done enough universe building, and that costs me. I hate outlines, but I suck at coming up with things as I go that are also funny and intelligent. (Another reason I can't do improv) I have to universe-build. I know I'm not going to have time to write in the next year or two though (and probably weeks as soon as break is over) because of finals and school and ACT and doing-well-enough-to-go-to-a-good-college. I might have a legit excuse not to write fiction if I get in Honors Seminar in Non-Fiction Writing.
But I like fiction. I like making up a world that makes sense to me even in its wrongness and writing about things that are meaningful to me and the reader. I like making up and writing about characters that are complex but cool, crafting something out of the weird mess that is my life. I like making sense of my life through fiction. I'm just very bad at it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)