Teens Writing for Teens, issue 6

amlptj

Speling & grammer murderer, Sorrie!
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HELLO! How are you today!?

And you don't sound crazy. I totally get what you mean, and i'm sure i'm way crazier with my characters. I know waaaaayyyy too much about them. Pip wet his bed till he was 10. Max when he was little used to "make out" with his one little sisters doll and pretend it was his crush Maria. Jul used to pickpocket money from her parents as a teen. Laura slept in her parents bed till she was 9 because she was terrified of the ghost in her room (that was really just her brother Rob screwing with her.) Tod at 6 got one of Jul's polly pockets stuck up his noise (and its probably still there)... I could go on for a very very long time but i'll stop.
 

Parametric

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I have two brothers, but I don't see a next generation in the Parametric family coming along any time soon. :tongue
 

Keagerz

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I love kids as long as they get to go home at the end of the day. I'd probably be an awful parent, but I do have a way with the kiddies.

I kind of wish I could write a novel. But the way my characters work kind of make it impossible to write a coherent novel. Each of my characters are intertwined with each other, yet everyone has their own separate story lines.

Like think of everyone as being neighbors in an apartment. They all know each other, but they all have their own separate lives. Some live together and are related, others are strangers. They moved in at different times, been through a lot in their lives.

I want to write a novel based on that, but I Honestly have no idea how since there's so much going on for every character. Especially the age range...my youngest is four, my oldest is about 46. :p

And haha I know random tidbits about my characters too that will never ever see the daylight. Here's one thing I find adorable though. My one guy, Kadin has been with his boyfriend, Ryder, for about seven years. But Kadin doesn't like romance! It embarrasses him and makes him shy! So whenever he flirts with Ryder, either sweet talk or dirty talk, he says it in French! But Ryder can't understand French, which is exactly why Kadin flirts in French.

Oh, and Ryder might have been a little delinquent who got expelled from high school, got into drugs an alcohol, but he's actually quite sensitive. Disney movies make him cry hysterically, so that bad boy persona he feels the need to put on? It's all a ton of bull. ;P
 

amlptj

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I love kids! Always have been a really big kid person. Probably because kids don't seem to notice how strange I am and think i'm awesome because i act like a big kid myself. I loved babysitting when i had that job. Getting payed to watch Disney movies and play games all day=freaking awesome!

Although i can yell at kids, I have that problem that Will's sister in law used to laugh at me about, because I just cant yell at something so freaking adorable. Although with older kids like the kids i worked with at the after school job i had, I still never yelled, i just had funny way of making the kids listen and behave. Like the little 7 year old brat that called me stupid.
 

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I get along fine with very small children. They're like puppies. You amuse them with bouncy balls and try to stay patient. :tongue Our puppy goes nuts for things to be thrown for her. She can fetch a toy and bring it back for hours. We also play hide-and-seek!
 

amlptj

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I love kids as long as they get to go home at the end of the day. I'd probably be an awful parent, but I do have a way with the kiddies.

I kind of wish I could write a novel. But the way my characters work kind of make it impossible to write a coherent novel. Each of my characters are intertwined with each other, yet everyone has their own separate story lines.

Like think of everyone as being neighbors in an apartment. They all know each other, but they all have their own separate lives. Some live together and are related, others are strangers. They moved in at different times, been through a lot in their lives.

I want to write a novel based on that, but I Honestly have no idea how since there's so much going on for every character. Especially the age range...my youngest is four, my oldest is about 46. :p

And haha I know random tidbits about my characters too that will never ever see the daylight. Here's one thing I find adorable though. My one guy, Kadin has been with his boyfriend, Ryder, for about seven years. But Kadin doesn't like romance! It embarrasses him and makes him shy! So whenever he flirts with Ryder, either sweet talk or dirty talk, he says it in French! But Ryder can't understand French, which is exactly why Kadin flirts in French.

Oh, and Ryder might have been a little delinquent who got expelled from high school, got into drugs an alcohol, but he's actually quite sensitive. Disney movies make him cry hysterically, so that bad boy persona he feels the need to put on? It's all a ton of bull. ;P

Hahahahahaha! You know. Maybe you could write about an apartment complex. Apartment complex is said to be bought out by some huge corporation and everyone of your characters is going to be evicted, they they ban together to stop it.

Or someone in the apartment dies and either a mystery ensues to figure out who in the apartment did it, or the apartment people team up to find out or something like that???

I know this isn't a completely relevant example, but its the only one i can think of right now. Game of Thrones. You have totally separate characters with totally separate lives and they all come together to battle for the throne, and as my friend tells me the book is written where every chapter is a different persons story/POV.

Or... have you ever seen the movie 11:15? (or at least i think that's what its called) or a better example seen the TV show Touch? In those you end up with about 10 different seemingly unrelated stories, then something big happens and by the end you see how each one of those people somehow fits into the overall story in some amazing way. (Its hard to explain, just watch Touch, and your'll understand what i'm trying to say)
 

Keagerz

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Aww Para that's adorable! My dog always failed miserably at fetch when he was a pup. He liked Tug of war instead. His version of playing Fetch is to catch the toy, and make you chase him for it haha!

My pup's gonna be 10 on the 24th. He's getting old. :( I've had him since I was nine years old, and he's my best friend. He's helped me through my darkest times.

ETA: Hmm...I think my plot ideas would be too boring for anyone to care. I feel as if I have no control over what happens in my stories. I am simply a news reporter reporting what they do. It's all just very average, average people trying to live an ordinary life. Nothing excited. People trying to heal from past traumas, people trying to find their place in the world, finding their voice, learning about the world around them. It's all very ordinary. I feel like it would be boring for other people to read, but for me it's fascinating.
 

amlptj

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Well you could always just write it for yourself. And seriously watch the show Touch, you pretty much described the plot sort of.
 

Keagerz

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Man I am someone who needs pets in their life. I haven't had many pets. I had like three lizards and a fish when I was in preschool. Got a hamster in 2nd grade, and got a dog in between 3rd and 4th grade.

Yeah I plan on writing it for myself. I really don't want to be published anymore. I'm too close to my characters, and I don't think I could deal with an agent or an editor telling me to change my plot or my characters for an easier sell. If things didn't happen that way, they didn't happen that way. You can't write an academic history book and say England won the Revolutionary War simply because they did not. So I'm not going to do that to my characters or my stories either, because that's just how real they are to me.
 

Thalia

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You can't drink water, Ally? That sucks, since you're on a diet. Not drinking enough water makes a person gain an average of 9 pounds a year.

As for my sister... it's not that she won't eat the food (though it bugs me, since she won't even swallow things under a bunch of ketchup and on the island we live on, it is the worst possible insult you can give to not eat the food someone's made for you), it's that she complains if she SEES something she doesn't like. As in, if we have a veggie platter and there's dip on the table, nowhere near the veggies, she has a screaming, crying fit.

She's 14. She can't even SMELL it. I mean, seriously, she should be able to suck it up and deal with it by now. THAT'S what I mean by making people's lives difficult.

And I believe that yes, some of the foods she doesn't like she just honestly doesn't like, but some of it is also the choice to be difficult.

Anyway, on another note, had some MAAH epiphanies and am scribbling in edits as fast as I can.

ETA: That's interesting, Keagerz! I like hearing about the way other people write. Me, I write because I have a story to share with others, so if people tell me to change small things, I don't mind, because the overall story is the same.

(obviously, if someone asks me to change a major character thing, especially if it's offensive (there are agents and publishers who try to make writers make their gay characters straight! it's just SO unbelievably gross of them I could puke) I won't change it. but, say, if someone said "you, child, you have too much talking in your climax scene" I shall say "okie-dokie, lemme fix that~)
 

amlptj

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I can drink it but don't, i mean would you want to drink a cup that tastes like blood? I'm so not cut out to ever be a vampire. hehehehe. But there is water in other products then just water. Ice Tea being mainly water and all that, so its not like i'm ever dehydrated.

The biology of water retention is amazing but once understood easy to beat. Yeah I'm a science geek... you know what else is amazing? Fish. Like i know that sounds stupid the fish bio is utterly fascinating! Birds are pretty cool too.

ETA: OH! And the diet (well its not as much as a diet as in i'm just not really hungry anymore.) Anyway whatever it is, its working. Tried on pants i haven't been able to fit into for two years..... and they fit! YAY! Went down a pant size in two weeks, and i didnt even have to eat Special K.
 

Thalia

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I drink 3-4 litres of pure water a day. Just because I like it.

Yeah, sometimes it does taste a bit like blood to me (in metal hater bottles especially) but I don't mind the taste of blood... I taste it enough with my wisdom teeth growing in.

Metal water bottles often make water taste like soggy cheese to me though :( I don't know why.

ETA: It's good that your diet is working, Ally! Just make sure what you're losing is fat, not muscle.

I'm at 16% body fat right now :D
 

amlptj

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I only force it down if its super cold, because it tastes less horrible that way. Somehow blood doesn't taste as bad as water does to me. Oddly enough. I just really really really hate water!

I love Ice Tea.
 

Keagerz

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Well, Ally, at least we don't have to worry about you *~*sparkling*~* anytime soon. :p

And oh yeah, I don't mind fixing up dialogue and grammatical issues that occur with the writing process, because even in academic history books and news reports much of the real dialogue has been omitted. I just will not change the plot, scenes, characters, or personalities in any possible way. They are who they are. If something seems cliche, too bad. I know parents dying in car accidents is a cliche in movies and novels, but for someone who's parents legitimately died in a car crash, I'd have to slap anyone who walks up to that person and says, "God, you're such a cliche" or "Wow, your life story is so unoriginal and overdone!"

I don't think cliche is necessarily bad, especially when writing contemporary fiction like I do because things become cliche because they happen to real people, and that gets reflected in writing all the time. It's how it's written, how the characters recover, move on, grow from the experience that matters.

I have many "cliche" moments of my life if I were to write a biography of myself. For example, what makes me anymore special than any of the other millions of kids who have been bullied? Well, nothing makes me any more special, but it's how we deal with it that makes us all different.

And speaking of weight loss, I've been losing weight like crazy lately. I'm scared my eating disorder is flaring up again since I've been so stressed and depressed. I'm trying to at least eat half of what I"m supposed to be eating in a day but it's hard because I'm just not hungry. And when I am hungry, I'm too depressed to eat or make anything for myself. o_O; But I ate two meals yesterday, so yay! I usually only eat one small meal a day. I'm also certain it's related to gender anxiety. I wish I could just start my hormones and get my surgery already. :/
 

Thalia

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I love ice tea too!

Especially iced green teas... or peppermint tea... YUM.

I am a tea FANATIC.

hang on, soon I'll take a picture of this container of Alice In Wonderland tea I got in Disneyworld. So cool.

(I also got an Alice in Wonderland painting and a Mad Hatter hat. my mom was like "This is just because you wrote that book.)

ETA: I hope your ED isn't flaring up again, K :( Mine's very under control right now. I've basically taken on this approach of "I SHALL NEVER BE PERFECTLY SKINNY, SO I SHALL ME A TOUGH FIT MUSCULAR BEAST". thank you hunger games for reminding me that if I'm ever stuck fighting to the death in an arena while being broadcast on national tv, being skin and bones won't be a good thing.

I know your reasons are different, but I hope you can overcome this. *hugs*
 

Taylor_Writes

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Not a single Barnes & Noble has any first edition nook cases....

My frustration cannot be put into words right now.
 

Thalia

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let me try...

GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
 

Keagerz

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I'm debating on buying a new E-Reader. I don't know if I want another Kindle of if I want to try out the Nook though. o.o; I kinda want the Kindle Fire, but all I want to do is read books on it lol. But I do want color and backlight functions.

And thanks Tally. <3 My issues with food are so complicated I don't think I could even begin to explain them all in a coherent way haha. I'm glad yours is under control though! Makes me very happy to hear! I think my main problem is me trying to stop self-harming. I've self-harmed for 12 years, and recently began trying to quit because it's controlling every aspect of my life. I'm addicted to it, so throw in psychological withdrawal, gender anxiety/dysphoria, and general stress of life and you've got what I'm going through right now with food! So frustrating! But I'll make it through this. :)
 

Keagerz

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I have no idea when I can start hormones. I've been trying to explain to my psychiatrist how much of a desperate need this is for me, but she's just like "Nope you're borderline. You cut. You're not transgendered. I don't care if you transition. Not my job. I just need you stable. Why can't you just be a lesbian."

Needless to say we aren't getting along right now. :/ However everyone else in my treatment team has agreed that it's becoming a medical issue for me to be able to transition. She just will not give me the approval, and you cannot start hormones or get sex reassignment surgery without a psychiatrist's approval.
 

amlptj

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I agree with what you mean which is why I've been going through what i call "An early life writing crisis" lately. Just the thought of changing anything i have written or have planned for my series scares the shit out of me. And that's the thought that started my Early life writing crisis. What if an editor hates the second book? But the third book if built off the second... and the 10 on the third... so what the hell then!?!?!?! And the whole series ends up tying every book together! What if they only like my first and no others? Holy shit what if no one even likes my first?!

I want LotF to take off soooooo bad, but lately all i keep thinking is that is never ever will. So what did i just spend the last 10 years of my life doing? Writing it just for kicks? Well sort of because I'm madly obsessed with and love my series, and characters, but I've always wanted it to be published, I always thought it had amazing potential, but if i'm wrong then what? Self-publish? I was just totally bashed down for my idea to self publish a different book and as the person said "Dont even worry about your grammar issues because if your looking to self publish no one is going to read it anyway."

That result i really don give a shit about UZ, but for LotF... oh no... I just couldn't handle that. Then someone in my writing class asked what the series was about, i explained and she flat out laughed at me and said "Well that sounds kind of... silly" That took my final last ounce of confidence away. Plus it doesn't help that I had only one fan of my books and now that fan is out of my life, and I'm back down to zero.

Now i have no idea what to think or feel anymore.... I thought TAJ would take my mind off of things, but it just made everything horrible worst. SOOOOO much worst, because everyone who even knows i write instantly loved and wanted to hear more about TAJ, but never gave a shit about LotF. Then recently i got a beta who is reading both and said he totally loved TAJ alot more. That's great I'm glad people like it, but that's not the one I want to succeed. That's one i wrote on a whim in hope it would clear my mind for a little. So then after i finished that I coudnt even go back to LotF: The House, because i was having SOOOOOOO many doubts! So then i thought i just needed to clear my mind more and so decided to re-write UZ... which I've lost all motivation in now with all the shit going on in my life so because of all the shit i wrote RBSL, and now i cant even find the motivation to write that anymore... Think i just might give up writing. Maybe my head will get clear and I'll pick it all back up but i dont know.

As for eating I'm the EXACT same way. I literally have no apatite at all. And because i'm so busy usually the only reason i ate was because i felt hungry or before was because Will came over and was hungry so i ate too. Now i dont feel hungry and decide to sleep in all my spare time because i'm tired of staring up at the ceiling with no motivation to do anything. So then the next morning i'll wake up go about my hectic schedule come back and sleep again, then the other day my friend was like "Ally you look like shit." I thought i just needed coffee and as we went to Wawa suddenly realized i hadn't even eaten in two days. Then i tried to eat and still just wasn't hungry and my stomach shrunk so i couldn't eat much anyway. So my diets actually been "Remember to eat something today" Hahahahahah Ironically now i'm going to make myself something to eat, again wasn't till this i remembered all i had was gum and coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

Sorry Long Rant is over. Its been one of those really crappy days. Professor from hell and i got into a fight in class, i have nothing to do till 1am, and i'm tired still.
 
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