Quirky Monday: Glitter and Flow

I didn't wear makeup until I was sixteen.

That's the official story. Any time I was in a show, I wore make-up. Stage make-up. So all I was really concerned about up to this point(being sixteen) was could you see my face from the last row? You could? Awesome, I'd done what I needed to to.

What I didn't realize is how good someone can look in "street makeup"(and I mean make-up that isn't used for the stage, not the other kind).

One of the many MANY make-up brands I use

I first got my ears pierced when I was eighteen years old.

I had been begging my mom for years to let me get my ears pierced because all the cool earrings I wanted required pierced ears. That, and everybody else had done it, so why not me?

What my brain hadn't processed was that after getting my ears pierced I had to wear the stupid studs for six to eight weeks. Agony!

Six weeks, guys.  I couldn't wear these for six weeks. 

I didn't buy my own clothes until my senior year high school.

Part of this, I will freely admit, was laziness. I'd look in the mirror and if there were clothes on my body, that was good enough. If we had old clothes lying around, or my mom had picked stuff from from a yard sale, or DI, and they fit, then hallelujah I had things to wear and the rest didn't matter.

What I didn't see in the mirror is what I could look like if I put in a little effort. And bought my own clothes.

Why do I bring all of this up?

Because until I realized these things, I wasn't able to appreciate what my own style. Style I didn't even know I had.

I have to glitter.

Literally.

I am an avid Gossip Girl fan; and I watch all the BBC dramas for two reasons. The men(because--GAH!!!!) and the glitter. The jewelry these girls wear! And the clothes! If something ain't glittering, it's flowing.

Every single bit of my wardrobe has something that does one or both of those things--makeup included. I'm a huge fan of the big hoop earrings, and the glittery bob earrings, and the zircon(that's the big glittery stuff that looks like diamonds but isn't.)

And yeah, I have calmed down a little bit since I hit "adulthood", and my flowy clothes are--more subtle(is that a possible description? whatever, I don't care). But my jewlery still glitters, and sometimes so does my makeup. 

If I had all the money in the world, it would go to glitter and flow. And chocolate. But that's for another post.

Quirky Monday: I am a Lizard

There are times I wear big wool sweaters.

And sweatshirts.

And various other layers.

In July.

I'm not kidding. I have worn a heavy sweatshirt in July because I'm freezing to death. In the summer.

My hands turn purple on a regular basis.

My feet have gone numbs with cold.

In August(that's the hottest month of the year people!)

I KNOW!?!?!?!?

Because I am a lizard.

A very, very cute lizard, but a lizard none the less.

For some stupid reason(thank you genetic make-up) I get really cold if the temperature drops below seventy degrees. Yes, I said seventy degrees.

My family went to Oregon for vacation a couple of years ago, and we decided to do a beach day. The boys were going to learn how to surf, and the girls were going to hang out on the beach.

The Oregon beach.

Not the California beach.

And yeah, it was fun, but I spent a good deal of "beach time" curled up in a fleece blanket and two jackets just wanting the wind to stop. 

On the beach. 

In July. 

I KNOW!?!?!?!?!?

Weather like this makes me happy:

I will be in heaven whenever a forecast like this happens. But when I see something like this:

I curl up and die. 

Curl up. 

And die. 

I guess that's why one of the family jokes is that I need to move to Cali, or Texas, or Arizona, or something. Somewhere with no snow, no ice, no sleet, and the weather stays WARM. 

Yeah. That would be so nice. 

Name of the Game: Parkour--And My Lack of Coordination

A few days ago, a friend of mine posted on her blog about her obsessions, which got me thinking about one of mine.

I obsess over things. All. The. Time. For aesthetics, celebrity, creativity, perfection, etc. And then there are the times I obsess over something because I can't do it for whatever reason--and I really really want to.

Currently, it is PARKOUR.

And yes, up until recently I had no idea what it was called. What I did know is the things that David Bell does in the following clip were really really friggin cool!!!!

Now, I've said before I am not the most coordinated person in the world(can't even dribble a basketball, remember?).  And right now I know myself well enough to know that with my awful coordination I can't ever do this and look as sipic as David Bell or Jeremy Renner do. Like what he does right here:

Not without hours and hours and hours of training anyway(and practice; and maybe a good stunt double).

Which brings me to part two of my parkour obsession. 

Question: If it can be done in films, why not put it on stage?

Even better, why not be the person to write about it and then put it on stage?

You see what my creative brain does to me? 

This week the name of the game is creative insanity!!!!

Also: Learning Parkour? Now on my Bucket List. 

You're welcome!

Quirky/Tidbit Tuesday: Models

What with one thing and another, I didn't post yesterday. To make up for that, this is both about a quirk I have and a tidbit a Monday/Tuesday Mash if you will. It's also a little bit of a re-post, but hey, what can you do when you're working doubles and have this blog thing you do three times a week(I will not slack off again, I will not slack off again, I will not slack off again......)

So there's this website I absolutely LOVE!!!! I found it when I was on the website of one of my favorite authors four or five years ago, and every so often I go bad a waste an hour or so on it. The website is called StoryCasting. Want a gander? Just go here. You're welcome.

Basically all you do on this site is "cast" your favorite books.

Literally.

You pick a book--say, I don't know Shannon Hale's River Secrets(it helps if the book isn't already a movie or tv series/show--which rules out things like Game of Thrones and LOTR, but whatever) and you pick the celebrity you'd love to see play a specific character.

 Delightful waste of time?

I'd say so, yes.

Why do I bring this up?

I've said before I'm a visual writer. Not only do I say my dialogue out loud and ask my roommates(or anyone else who's game) to visually demonstrate something I want to put in one of my plays(within reason; there are lines I will not cross, period).

 I also have visual models for my characters.

Literal models.

I've already demonstrated this when I was writing Angels Alley--but it happens with anything and everything I write. There has got to be a clear picture in my head of the person I am writing about.

And the weird part is sometimes the people who are serving as "models" aren't celebrities--exactly.

They're people I know(and yes, I have said this before)--and sometimes it gets to a point where I have that person's voice inside my head when I'm writing the dialogue.

Needless to say, it is oh so helpful during the revision process. If I can't hear the words I've written coming out of a specific person's mouth, it means I have to change it now.

Does it happen with everything I write?

Not necessarily.

But when it does, it's pretty dang cool.

Name of the Game: Dark Horses

I don't know what it is, but a face like this just gets me.

Gets me right in the feels.

And ok, this is just one example(it's Ian Somerhaulder, by the way), but it's a great visual for one of this hopeless little romantic's big stupid weaknesses.

Dark Horses.

The Character Archtype, not an actual horse with a dark colored coat.

Maybe it's the fact that all the men in my family are brunettes.

Maybe it's the fact that half of the men in my family can be sarcastic jerks(that I love anyway).

Maybe it's the weird sort of sex appeal that these characters in books and films seem to project without a great deal of effort.

Maybe it's the fact that I am a hopeless romantic who turns into a great big pot of goo any time I see an attractive face(animated or otherwise).

Yeah, I know, he's not a brunette, but he's still the snarky little anti-hero that I love so much!!!

Or maybe it's a combination of all the things. But if you want me to read a book, or see a film, or play, and you want me to love it, be sure there is a Dark Horse in it.

Right. So I know there are some of who who don't exactly know what a "Dark Horse" is. They are the rogues, the anti-heroes, the characters you may or may not be able to trust. They are the characters who's motives are shady or unclear; who, once you end up trusting, are oh so glad you did. Still unsure? Let me enlighten you with a couple of (biased) visual examples. From films/TV Shows:

Supernatural-Dean Winchester
Australia-Rover
TMNT-Raph
Avengers- Well...All of them?
X-Men-Wolverine
The Vampire Diaries- Damon Salvator(see pic above)
Tangled-Flynn
A Midsummer Night's Dream-Demetrius
The Three Musketeers-Athos
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Angel(sorta)/ Spike(DEFO)
The Last Airbender-Zuko
Firefly Mal/ Jayne
Princess Mononoke-San/Ashitaka
The Breakfast Club-John Bender
Graceland-Briggs
Gossip Girl-CHUCK BASS
The 100-Bellamy
Star Wars-Han Solo
Once Upon a Time-Hook
Daredevil-Matt Murdock
BBC's Robin Hood-Guy/Alan
Much Ado About Nothing-Benedick
Any James Cagney Film Between 1930-1950

Yeah. There's the list. And a piece of insight into my taste in media. You're welcome.

But the thing that all these in this list have in common is that "Dark Horse" trait--or two. They have the tendency to be moody, sarcastic, occasionally violent, snarky, men-with-a-past-they-need-to-atone-for-and-always-have-questionable-motives-at-one-time-or-another type characters that for some reason I find incredibly sexy.

Because I'm a romantic.

Now, I couldn't live with one--I don't think; I've never tried--but my goodness they are so fun to see, read about, and write.

Tidbit Tuesday: From the "Writing Closet"- Angel's Alley Throwback

I am a packrat.

Which means I keep every little piece of paper I come across and then I forget about it until I do something like switch apartments.

Because then you have to separate your junk from everything else you own and get rid of it. Which in my case means you have to go through every drawer and open every folder and--well, read every piece of writing you come across to see if it's "keepable" or not.

Sometimes when you're clearing out all of your writing junk, you run across little things like this. So a little over two years ago, I wrote Angels Alley, and to help get my mind in the right place I wrote little life sketches for all my characters. Because, of course, that's what you do.

And then I lost half of them.

 Or so I thought.

So for this Tidbit Tuesday, we're going to do a mini-throwback. This is me apologizing to all my characters that I forgot(and Blogger keeps changing font color on me, so hopefully, it's readable; contains SPOILERS.)

NAME:  IVY CALLAHAN

ALSO KNOWN AS: Angel Eyes(Gyp)

AGE: 15-27(in series)

APPEARS IN: Not a Criminal, Angels Alley, Alley Cats

RELATIONSHIPS: Davey Callahan, older brother; deceased

Nick Callahan, older brother; SPOILER ALERT deceased by end of series

Johnny Moreno, childhood sweetheart, later husband

Julia and Mark Conlan, eventual brother and sister-in-law

MARITAL STATUS: Happily married to Johnny Moreno; Mother of six

IN LATER YEARS:  Wellesly College Graduate

Assists Johnny in running Junior Police

Mother of six; grandmother of fifteen; great-grandmother of two at time of

death.

DEATH: Natural causes; outlived husband Johnny Moreno by four years at time of death.
****************************************************************************************************

NAME:  TONY MERRICK

ALSO KNOWN AS: Gyp, Mickey, Maxwell Garrison II

AGE:  13-late 20s(in series)

APPEARS IN: Like Wolves, Not a Criminal, Angels Alley, Alley Cats, Fire Escape,

Spider’s Web

RELATIONSHIPS: Davey Callahan, mentor

Nick Callahan, nemesis(whom he eventually kills)

Lita Haller, girlfriend--kinda/sorta

Kit, childhood friend; dies before adulthood

Ivy Callahan, “romantic target”

MARITAL STATUS: In a “relationship” with Lita Haller

IN LATER YEARS: 
Arrest record at 13

Misdemeanor record at 13

Framed David Callahan for murder at 17
Served sentence for attempted murder of Johnny Moreno at 17; released

and changed name(Alley Cats); arrested for forgery and released on bail.Changed name again(Fire Escape/ Spider’s Web) SPOILER ALERT and killed Nick Callahan

DEATH: Gunned down SPOILER ALERT by Ash Valerio following his murder of Nick Callahan; died instantly--reported DOA

Survived by “girlfriend” Lita Haller

*******************************************************************************************************

NAME:  MARK CONLAN

ALSO KNOWN AS: N/A

AGE: 17-20s(in series)

APPEARS IN: Like Wolves, Not a Criminal, Angels Alley

RELATIONSHIPS:  Johnny Moreno, younger brother-in-law

         Julia Moreno-Conlan, wife

         Nick and Ivy Callahan, protegees

MARITAL STATUS: Married to Julia, and happily so

          father of two; widower at time of death

IN LATER YEARS: Commissioner of Police, retired

        Assisted Johnny in Junior Police Club

       Assisted Nick in undercover operations

DEATH: Natural causes; widower at time of death; outlived wife by ten years

*****************************************************************************

NAME: JULIA CONLAN

ALSO KNOWN AS: Julia Moreno

AGE:  16(?)=20s(in series)

APPEARS IN: Like Wolves, Not a Criminal, Angels Alley

RELATIONSHIPS: Johnny Moreno, younger brother

        Mark Conlan(Vecchio), husband

        Nick and Ivy Callahan, brother and sister-in-law

        Lee Breslin, friend

MARITAL STATUS: happily married to Mark Conlan; mother of two at time of death

IN LATER YEARS: Instructor at Wellesly College; Graduate of same; Integral in union work

DEATH: Cancer

************************************************************************************************************

NAME:  DAVID CALLAHAN

ALSO KNOWN AS: Davey

AGE: 17-23(in series)

APPEARS IN: Like Wolves, Not A Criminal

RELATIONSHIPS: Nick Callahan, younger brother

Ivy Callahan, younger sister

Mark Conlan, best friend

Tony “Gyp” Merrick, protegee

Lee Breslin, on-again-off-again-girlfriend

MARITAL STATUS: Unmarried at time of death

IN LATER YEARS: undercover operative with Mark Conlan; arrested for murder; tried and convicted

DEATH: Executed for murder 1942; exonerated posthumously

Quirky Monday: #nofilter OR Sarcasm

There are two things I suck at.

One is being patient. Both my family and my close friends know this and get deal with it every day, all the time. Sorry, guys. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

The other one they get to see and deal with all day every day is my sarcasm filter.

And the fact that I don't have one.

A sarcasm filter, I mean.

I don't know what it is--probably something to do with my genetic make-up, thanks Dad!--but I get this weird thrill out of being snarky and sarcastic.

To anyone.

At any given opportunity.

People who know me really well are able to spot when I'm being sarcastic(something to do with my word choice, my teeth, and my eyebrows, apparently); other people, not so much.

Guys, I swear I'm working on it.

Except there are times when I'm sure my brain-to-mouth filter just plain doesn't exist.

And yeah, I know there are times when sarcasm should be avoided, and I'm getting better at spotting those; but that still doesn't keep me from getting in trouble, thanks to some snarky remark that shoots out of my mouth before I can stop it(open mouth, insert foot....)

Like the time I was in high school and got tested for my writing skills.

My school district had this ridiculous idea that the only way to tell if high school English teachers were doing their jobs was to give us a Writing Assessment(take the first three letters of that word-- "assessment"--and you'll know what me feelings are on that subject).

So each year we had to write a five paragraph essay no longer than three pages answering a question picked by the district. And we had an hour and a half to do it.

I get it. I do. School districts want to check up on how well the teachers in said school districts are doing their job; and the only way to check that is to look at student test scores, blah, blah, blah(and I have a whole other rant on what's wrong with this, but that's for another post)....

All I'm saying is that if you want to test these students and get serious results, then don't ask them stupid questions.

You guys, the questions were asinine! We had to be persuasive about things that--in the long run--didn't matter.

At all.

Want to know one of the really good ones? "Should high schools increase the amount of vending machines present in schools, or just raise the prices of the contents of said vending machines? Why or why not?"

Seriously!

That was the question!

We had to write a freaking three page five paragraph essay answering that question!

So what did I do?  Well, since:

I just wrote a bitingly sarcastic essay along the lines of: "of course we should increase the number of vending machines and raise the prices of it's contents; because everybody is secretly addicted to sugar anyway and we want to do everything in our power to feed it--not!"

That's all.

Yeah....

Apparently, those who read it didn't get satire.

Like, at all.

Or sarcasm.

Not the least little bit.

Results: one of the few Writing Tests I actually failed.

They placed me in the non-honors/low-level courses so I could learn to "become a more serious writer" and "increase my writing scores on the English and Writing portions of my upcoming ACT" (ha, ha, ha!).

But that's what happens to me all time! I get asked stupid questions, and react accordingly; or overhear stupid arguments, and react accordingly; or just have the snarky comment that wants to come out or I'll burst.

And I let it out!

In spades!

Open mouth, shove foot down throat....

I will say though, that there have also been times that sarcasm has worked to my advantage. Sometimes people take what I say seriously, even when I don't mean it that way. I made a sarcastic comment about a policy at one of my summer jobs once; and they changed it(for the better, it turns out), because they thought I was totally serious!

There are times I am so sarcastic I should not be allowed in public. But then there are also times when I'm glad I'm sarcastic, because I doubt I'd be the same person, and I'd really kind of miss that.

Just a little.

Name of the Game: Poetic Licence

Guess what?

There is no such thing as an original story.

Which means that when someone is adapting something, not only are they taking an idea that someone(or several someones) had, and then they make it their own.

This is called:

Every time I go see a play or a film that is an adaptation of another work, there are people--critics, friends of mine, etc.--who call it terrible because "it ruined the book". Yes. There are movies and plays that do ruin the book(*cough* Percy Jackson *cough*); however, there are also writers who take something and make it their own--and do a great job of it.

Example? The Count Of Monte Christo. That is a one thousand something page book--so how to make it a good movie? BBC tried, and kind of failed; they tried in the 1950s, and kinda failed; but in 2002 Jay Wolpert(of POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl fame) took that story and turned it into a rather brilliant two and a half hour movie.

Yes, it wasn't one hundred percent accurate, but it did stay true to the core of the story. AND it cut the eons of prison pages down to a minimum(because, really, do you want to spend that much time in a prison--unless it's Shawshank Redemption--but I digress.)

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings did make a valiant effort to remain true to the original Tolkien work. I mean, why else would the films all be two to three hours each? And yes, for the most part, they were very true. Except for the additional characters, and scenes--and cutting about seventy pages out of The Fellowship so we could get to Aragorn faster. But it was ten times better than the cartoons--which, yes, were made in the 70s and had to be animation because there was no CGI, but still, they cut a third of each of the books and "Two Towers" wasn't even made!!!! Maybe they had a reason for that; maybe not. Whatever.

And ok, maybe he did go a little overboard with the Hobbit trilogy, but he did get all the good stuff in, and he did also make an amazing effort to keep the core of the story(except, I'm sorry, Tauriel was a little--ok a lot--much and I really didn't care about Gandalf stuff. Like at all. But whatever, it's Peter Jackson's adaptation; I can make myself live with that.)

As an experiment, I did a quick look up of various adaptions to see if any of the them--any of them--have come close to being totally faithful to the original work. I found one.

Winnie the Pooh.

And you know what? Even that one had something in it that the book didn't have.



The character Gopher is not in the books.  He really isn't!! Gopher's not in the book! He even says that! Watch:

And you know, I went back and checked. Twice. As I kid, I thought the line "I'm not in the book" was just one of those catchphrase type of things, and then when I watched it as an adult(thank you Netflix) and you know what?He isn't there.

Not in any of the original Winnie the Pooh Stories.

At all.

But he is in the movies, the old television series, the Christmas Specials, etc, etc, etc.

I guess this was Disney's way of making the story his own.

 Because really, that's what poetic licence is all about.

You make the thing your own.

Which is kinda the whole point, I guess.

Tidbit Tuesday: 120 Page Answer

My Muse asks me a question, and I answer it.

Only my answer is 120 pages long.

It happens with characters, plots, or just something I happen to be curious about. This whole little quirk of mine started because I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and do some of those "writing exercises" that English professors and the like tell you to do.

You know what's funny? It totally works!

Only problem is that sometimes the answer to one teeny tiny little question can be between 60 and 120 pages long. Yeah, there are times when the answer is short-ish--say 10-20 pages?--but then there are also times...well, check this out:

"Two guys get locked in a heating duct. Then what?" That was Duct Up. 15 pages.

"What makes film noir so  good?" Angels Alley. 133 pages

"The worst thing that can happen during Kick the Can?" Wired. 10 pages

"You're stuck in one spot for eternity. Now what?" Polterguys 105 so far(not polished as yet)

"Ok. So who is this guy?" That's at least three of the Angel's Alley sequels; all ranging between 90-134 pages

"That's it?!? Then what?" That's the other two. 60-98 pages

"Tagging animals happens. What about....?" This project has no official title yet. And no page count.

And on, and on, and on; et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

This is how my writing happens; and this is why I have fifteen thousand different projects going on in my head. Which is cool, I guess. It means that I never ever really have initial Writer's Slough--because there is not such thing as "Writer's Block", period--just Revision Blockage.

Which everyone gets to deal with anyway.

Quirky Monday: The "M" word

No, I swear it isn't what you think.

I don't generally hold with superstitions. Mostly because--well, they're made up(in my opinion). I don't think you will have bad luck if a black cat encounters you, and the walking under the ladder thing is, frankly, kind of stupid. "Knock on wood", ok fine. It works for them. I roll my eyes.

Except for one thing. There is one word I will never ever say--especially if I happen to be in a theatre setting. The "M" word. No, not "marriage"--the other one. This one:

Guys, saying "Macbeth" in a theatre setting is legit bad luck--to put it mildly. When I was a theatre major(before I switched majors), if we "dropped the 'M' bomb", we had to go outside, spit, swear, and turn around three times counterclockwise before we were allowed back in the building. And yes, we had to do it in that order.

I'm not kidding; there were some crazy people who made us do that.

At least, before now I thought they were crazy.

 For a long time, I held the belief that, like everything else, it's a stupid superstition. But, I have been in three productions now where some smart aleck decided to "test the curse".

You know what's funny?

It was the same smart aleck.

Every time.

 And something went wrong.

Every time.

The lights stopped working; and people got injured(the smart aleck sprained his hand and another actor walked into a stage weight and cut his head open--just to name a few); and during one production(Macbeth, ironically enough), one of the swords split down the middle and Macduff nearly got impaled in the process(ok, so the swords were made of wood, but none the less....).

Now, I'm not saying everyone should hold with this superstition--and I'm not saying everyone does.

I do.

Because I've seen it happen.

So when people say "Macbeth" in a theatre or theatre setting, I'm not going to lie, it kinda freaks me out.  Except I don't do this: