A Pint of Hard Apple Cider

I bought my first alcohol since coming to England.  Balley Castle Irish Cream and a pint of hard apple cider.  The formerI mixed with a coffee liquer someone left at our house, and milk, and I swear it was like drinking an alcoholic milkshake, but in a good way.  Have yet to try the latter.  Felt much accomplished.

I also finished a project.  Yesterday, actually, but, well, actually technically very, very early this morning.  And by “finish” I mean it has a starting place and it goes somewhere and it ends.  There’s a lot of fleshing out and smoothing down and polishing work, but there’s still an enormous sense of satisfaction one gets when one stares at one’s laptop and thinks, “Holy Canoli, I just wrote a book.”

Well, novella, in this case, but the sense of triumph is no less fulfilling.

I also went to the Bodleian Library and read books about J.M. Barrie, the boys that inspired him, and, of course, the gradual creation of a story whose place in my heart is forever fixed, and only in competition with two others: Beauty and the Beast and The Princess Bride.  This story is, of course, Peter Pan, the inspiration for Amelia & the Piper, which is the previously-rejoiced-upon and completed novella.  It is very different than my normal style because I was consciously trying to imitate J.M. Barrie’s writing, because both what he wrote and how he wrote it almost always choke me up, and it seems to have had a similar effect on both the audience it was first introduced to long ago as well as audiences now, and a piece of literature that can do that is well worth mimicking—not in an attempt to beat it at its own game, but in a sense, to pay homage, acknowledging immediately that the attempt must fail because something like that cannot be done twice.  And although my story is a much shallower thing, it still gives me joy, and that makes it above all else worthwhile.

I am also becoming exciting about several other projects, most notably a possible graphic novel-in-the-making (one I would write the story/script for, not illustrate) called Soleil about a superhero who knows she will shortly die.  Also, a novel that I first started when I was struck with a scene in my study hall during my senior year of high school.  I wrote the entire first chapter in that 45 minute block and have done little with it since.  Now, I am working through an outline and weaving—so far—four connected and yet completely distinct storylines together, much in the same way that Tolkien told about Gandalf, Aragorn, and Frodo in different places at the same time under the framework of a much larger story.  This is by far the most ambitious work I have embarked upon, which is perhaps why it has lain dormant for so long.  I still have yet to figure out the villain, however.  Right now it is a faceless, nameless, and bodilles presence to the north, and it is a catalyst for change, but other than that I have no idea what the Great Enemy of my ensemble is.  I feel that once I figure that out, actually writing this thing will be like filling in a Mad Libs—enjoyable and quick.

What is not quick is a particularly aggravating little story that I have completely rewritten at least three times.  Being a novel, that’s a frustratingly large amount of words.  It was the first novel I ever seriously attempted, and I started it when I was twelve.  I got the idea for one of the last scenes in the book, and then built a story around it.  This was back when I was afraid to say “shit” and refused to let my parents read it because one of the characters used that most foul language once.  The three main characters have always stayed the same, but the premise is elusive.  I think I’ve got it pinned down and then it reeks of melodrama, or worse—teen romance, and I am back to square one.  I think I really need to go through boot camp—and I literally mean boot camp—before I can write that story.  I’m far too sentimental with it and thus it cannot decide if it wants to be a Tom Clancy novel or a Stephanie Plum.  And the mutant child that would produce has not turned out to be a pretty thing.

I also revised a short story called The Fort which is about three young girls who are trying very hard to act older than they are—and what happens when they actually receive the attention they’ve been craving.  I submitted it to a little no-name literarary magazine, and now I wait.  I kind of like it.  I like the narrator’s voice and I like the way it suddenly gets extremely dark.  I struggled with the ending for about a year, and I think I finally wrote one that does the rest of the tale justice.

Speaking of endings, I’ve got another short story with an ending I absolutely loathe, but a story that makes me giggle.  That’s the How to Become a Filmmaker one, and if I could just find a less fatalistic dénouement, then it would be a wonderful little piece.  As is, it reeks of giving up.

And gosh, the list goes on.  Lynnwood Atlanteans is a fun read but has no plot and therefore no end, Disconnect can’t decide which genre it is let alone what sort of voice is should have, The Queen of Spades is an awesome premise that rides on so much backstory and acute foreshadowing and thinking about things that will happen in seasons yet to come that I can’t even think about working on it because those kinds of things are normally worked out by an entire team of writers, not one little, busy college nitwit who can’t write endings.  And then there’s Velvet and it’s sequel Jersey.  Before I can work on Jersey again, I’ve got to cut about 75 pages from Velvet, if not more, and actually create some drama outside the tortured internal monologue of the narrator and—my weakness shows itself again—make it more than a sappy teen romance with a pint of blood thrown in.  It has substance, but it’s smothered under sighs and “he was unnaturally beautiful”s.  Gag me with a spoon.  What’s worse is, I wrote it. 

I love my darlings, but sometimes I realize how truly bad they are.

And then—someone stop me—there’s the surrealist story, Underwater, that can’t decide if it’s a novel or a poem and to make matters worse, it is written in the present tense, in, what, second person?  What is it when the story goes, “You sit there, wondering what on earth I am saying.”  I guess that’s first person, then, but it’s such a confusing perspective that even I don’t know what I’m writing about.  I think I’ll have to make it a short.  Otherwise I’ll go mad writing it.

The last three I hardly dare mention.  Arden is a novel I’ve barely gotten into about a girl who’s “superpower” is to fall unconscious and temporarily inhabit the bodies of people who are about to die or commit suicide.  It’s a morbid little book and I don’t know what to do with it, because it’s supposed to be about overcoming loneliness and establishing identity (the fact that she doesn’t who she is supposed to be is mirrored in the fact that she inhabits everone else’s bodies and even thoughts and is incapable of escaping them).  I feel I shall some day finish it, but I do not have enough stored-up hope to tackle it, for I fear it will wear me down.

And then there’s The Baptist¸ on the complete opposite end of the scale.  It’s a stage play and a religious comedy about a young man who’s older, dying mother is a staunch Southern Baptist and the woman he is dating is a staunch Modern Non-Denominational and he loves them both but they can’t stand each other.  I’ve written maybe half an act and it tickles me, but I  honestly don’t think I know enough about Southern Baptists to finish the piece.  I should take the Sunset Limited down through New Mexico and Texas all the way to Louisiana and just visit as many church services as I can.  What a colorful trip that would be.

And Sirens.  That’s another I can’t decide the form for.  I started in an airport and said it was to be a television series something akin to The Vampire Diaries, except, of course, dealing with sirens.  But I wrote maybe 30 or 40 pages and I don’t think it would really work as a television drama, expensive underwater sequences withstanding.  It might turn into a feature.  It’s another case of not really knowing where I want it to go.  Great premise, great imagery, no plot.  There’s something about a war brewing, but I need to let my brain work it out a while longer.

And then, the one thing for which I have neither a title, a genre, a length, or an idea: my capstone script.  Everything I have thought of so far has been wonderful, but unusable, because it would tell at least an hour and a half to tell the story I want to tell, and it cannot be condensed into a 15-minute short.  As this is the most urgent project, it disturbs me that I have so little inspiration for it.  I had an idea for a music video, and I actually wrote a specific script for a specific song that I like, but I wouldn’t want that to be my main senior film project.  If anything, I’d film that in fall while I was preparing for the “real” film in spring.  But I have no “real” film because I have no “real” idea of what the heck I’m doing.

Curse you, Michael Smith.  If you hadn’t encouraged me, I would still be an unknown and wonderfully hobbit-like screenwriting major.  Now I have to submit things and direct things and put in effort because I now know I can and so I must and it’s most aggravating.

All filmmakers are drug addicts and masochists.  Addicted to that which reduces one to one’s most primal being and inflicts the greatest possible pain.  And we return to it like bees to nectar, or perhaps like flies to electric zappers, knowing we will be shocked and flying doggedly for the mesmerizing light anyway.

Pish-posh, my analogies grow tired, just like their author.  I am off to sleep now.  Good heavens, it’s 1 in the morning.  I keep intending to go to bed at the insane hour of eleven, and never manage to actually settle down until morning. 

Mm, I shall have tea with breakfast.  I just went shopping at Aldi’s and bought cereals and these delectable little whipped vanilla yoghurts with cherry sauce at the bottom and eggs and bread and garlic baguettes and frozen chicken breasts, 2 for 80pence!  And if it weren’t worrisome to drink before noon, I would try some of that Irish Cream in my coffee when I wake up.  But that seems like a bad trend, so I’ll stick with the tea.

I would just like to take this moment to thank Jesus for Microsoft Word.  I do believe it is one of my dearest companions.  Ball-point pens come in a close second in my heart.  And behind them, Phil.  Haha!  Just kidding.  Of course Phil comes before ball-point pens….

……..

Right.  So I’m going to sleep now.  Good night, dear waking world.  Have grand adventures while I dream.  Or eat chocolate.  Either option is sound.

- E.R.

 Disclaimer: only the Velvet picture is my own creation, the rest I stole from Google.