Love Spats

I have two more quizzes on Monday. That's another one for Biochemistry. The readings make my eyes bleed. I do this thing where I like to pinch together the pages of the chapter I'm supposed to read and then go, "Oh, that's not too bad. I can do this in an hour." And then I realize that the text is printed on what amounts to toilet paper or those nifty oil absorbing sheets and the pages are so paper thin, they go on and on and on ...

The French exam I took last week went well: 99. I misspelled juillet. But! My Biochem quiz totally thrashed my butt. I'm still recuperating while trying to memorize various things about laminopathies and the details of Spinal Muscular Atrophy. My brain is going through atrophy.

The other day, while I was downstairs trying to force myself to study, I overhead the most bizarre conversation. It was so awful, it was amusing.

A man had stopped right in front of my house at the fence to my driveway, probably thinking that the brick wall of the store next to my house served a good privacy bubble for his phone argument.

Not if he was practically bellowing his words out.

I sat by the window to my driveway, just several feet away from him, but hidden from him. I couldn't see him either though I did try to crane my neck, peering sideways to see if I could catch a glimpse of what might be the biggest asshole in the world.

So I was reading about the basal lamina when a loud voice suddenly snarled, "I owe you nothing! What do I owe you? What? Do I owe you something just because I had sex with you?"

Hmmm. Basal lamina or crazy lovers' spat? I dropped my pen.

He followed it up with more sparkling lines:

"Where are you now? Here. Just do me a favor and come back right this minute and meet me. Just walk back. I took the time to meet you and you're acting like a child."

"Yeah? Well, let me tell you something, you're not the first good looking chick I've gone out with!"

"I gave this my best efforts and I don't see you trying. We have a good friendship and you're ruining everything. You know what you told me last time. Remember? You said you were happiest being with me so why do you have to go and be like this? Stop crying. Stop crying! Just stop!"

"What the hell do I owe you? Friends don't owe friends anything! That's not how a friendship works. I don't owe you and you don't owe me!"

"You know what? We had a good thing, but you're too spoiled by men. Yeah, men catered to you. I don't do that. I don't cater to women."

"So are you coming or not? Come back and meet me at Dunkin Donuts. Start walking back right now."

And then there's my favorite:

"I wrote a poem the other day and let me tell you, it was pretty damn good. I write good poetry. Yeah, you don't know anything about me. It's your loss."

I have no idea how that came into the conversation/argument, but I presume he was trying to elaborate on the many awesome qualities he has.

I was chatting with a friend online while the man was still yelling away on his phone outside and he suggested that I step out onto my balcony and dump a bucket of ice water on his head before doing a giggle, duck and run.

Since the man was speaking on his cell phone, it was all one-sided and I have no idea what happened in the end, but I sincerely hope the girl didn't get suckered in and ended up trudging back to meet the guy. He was absolutely callous about her feelings and if they were "friends", then he was a friend she didn't need.



Anyway, I've fixed up some more parts of False Facades and in between studying for my quizzes, I'm working on the new chapters to TM and UF. Kaetlyn has been flung clear across the library and is still getting attacked in Unfinished Business. Meanwhile, in Through Me, Tristan is finally back at home and everyone is preparing for the first party of the season.

Until then, Happy Mid-Autumn Moon Festival to those who celebrate it!

Unfinished Business Chapter 9 and FP Anonymous

Unfinished Business Chapter 9 has finally been posted! Sorry about the cliffhanger, but the next stopping point I had in mind would make the chapter way too long.

I've been thinking a lot about my writings and why I have this almost fanatical desire for a certain level of anonymity. I've seen writers around on fictionpress who wouldn't think twice about offering up their facebook and myspace accounts, listing up all sorts of contact info from AIM to MSN to whatever. On some level inside me, I think that it must be nice to be able to make friends amongst fellow writers.

On another, I find it a bit scary opening yourself up so freely to the world wide web. Ever since the plagiarism issues, I've realized that not everyone around fictionpress lives by a good set of morals, let alone the random people who might float in from haphazard search engine inputs.

Ultimately though, I think it's brave what these people do. For me, I have a pet peeve about people finding out about my writings. I don't mind talking to readers and posting chapters if I could hide behind a penname and some level of anonymity, but to completely reveal my true identity ... wow.

It's a weird quirk of mine. Unless I have something completely polished and substantial to me, I don't like to offer it up with my real name attached to it. That usually doesn't include romances. Romances are probably one of my favorite kinds of stories to write for fun, but family stories are definitely my forte in the literary workshop/award/publishing domain. (Oh, quick happy note, a short story of mine has recently been accepted for publishing in a small literary magazine. I believe it's a really small publication, but I'm still happy they liked my work enough to accept it. The editor got back to me with a list of helpful revisions and I returned it to her several weeks back. It's all thanks to an English professor of mine who noticed it and submitted it on my behalf for me. I only wish I had more professors like that.)

Fictionpress to me is still a productive hobby and a way to practice my writing and a way to entertain myself and other readers out there, but my chapters are really rough. This is why I started posting writings online for two years before I dared to tell my cousin that I've been writing as a hobby.

It's why I posted for nearly four years before I let literally a handful of my closest friends find out I frequent fictionpress.

I didn't tell my ex at all that I liked to post my writings online. My cousin might have accidentally mentioned it to him once though or something because somehow, he found out and pestered me about giving him a link for a while. I still didn't tell him.

My cousin thinks I'm crazy and she usually lets it slip out sometimes to some friends that I write online and that they should read my writings. I try to shush her or cut her off a lot. It doesn't always work. One time, I believe I tried to tackle a mutual friend and then had to physically pry his fingers off the mouse to keep him from checking out the link immediately.

My cousin's a sweetie, but she doesn't take hints very well and the last time she started to talk about my stories to one of her friends again, I literally unleashed my full strength and karate-chopped her across the arm or something. It probably gave her a bruise on her arm for her efforts, but she got the hint.

It's weird, but I think I like having a sense of anonymity because there are still levels of writings I haven't explored yet and I'd rather not have to worry about the reactions of people I know, acquaintances and whatnot, finding their way to my writings and then attempting to offer their feedback and comments.

Because I haven't yet figured out for myself what completely works and what doesn't. Darker themes, sex scenes, more mature language ... I haven't really tried working with these elements at all. I haven't yet figured out when or if I would. Think of me as still sorting out my writing ideas. Baby steps. It's tough to write to an audience. And it may be tougher still when the audience knows you.

Thus, kudos to all the brave souls out there who can vent out their ideas and thoughts with no barriers. Maybe someday, I'd be just as secure about my FP writings too. :)

Writing note: Through Me Chapter 20 is coming along. It was around the same length as the UB Ch. 9 draft this morning and I chose to finish up Ch. 9 instead.

Random note: My friends and I went on a crazy karaoke marathon the other day because it was really cheap. On a weekday, you can get a room til 8 for only about $11 per person. That meant my crazy friends decided to meet up at like 2 and we literally stayed in the room for six hours. By the time we staggered out of the room, our voices were hoarse.

They also got me addicted to a song, Sara Bareilles' Love Song.



Over a weekend sleepover at a friend's place, we happened across her interview and she mentioned that the original idea behind the song was her feelings against all those people who were pressuring her to come out with a hit song even though she didn't have any particular inspiration then. I thought that was cool because in a way this could be taken as a song against writer's block. Bwahahaha, take that, evil block.

SKoW Nominations

I hope everyone's Fourth of July went well! :)

Unfinished Business Chapter 8 has been completed. After I review it once more, I will post it sometime soon when I get home from work and actually get a chance to sit down. I'm working on the next chapter to Through Me, specifically there's an idea that's caught my attention regarding it, so hopefully, I'll get that out soon.

Random tidbit: I work in a lab evaluating the neurotransmitters of Sprague Dawley rats. We fabricate these sensors that can be implanted so that a new rat doesn't have to be executed for each study and the cute thing gets to eateateat until it's nearly doubled its weight. The research findings are applied to theories regarding Parkinson's Disease and epilepsy treatments, etc. and we've recently gotten a paper published with my name listed after my mentor, the primary investigator, so that's been exciting.

And I'm exhausted. Nothing new.

On another awesome note, I've been notified by the judges, Cassie and Kyra, that I've been nominated in the Some Kind of Wonderful Awards Round Six under the category of Amazing Wordsmith and that Unfinished Business has been nominated for the story category of Most Humorous (Incomplete).

If you have any free time, please take the chance to check out the site and all the nominees to cast your vote. SKoW has been around for a long time and they've always generated an excellent reading list and nice awards, not to mention that I'm in love with this Round's Theme. Fairytales. Whoa.

I'm a Disney kid at heart and I absolutely adore the graphics that's around on the site right now. Annie Leibovitz's dreamy editorials have always made my heart flutter.

To my knowledge, SKoW hasn't started its voting process yet so please keep an eye out for when it starts. Until then, happy reading and judging!

Updates

Through Me Chapter Seventeen has been posted finally.

Also, Unfinished Business Chapter Seven has been added as well. In addition, I reread bits and pieces of it and found that there were parts of it that irked me. I've rewritten it, but for now, I'm posting up the revised version of just Chapter One to it.

I'm also working on the revisions for False Facades, but that will take a bit more time.

Thank you all for the continued support. You're the best.

False Facades and other Fictionpress Stories

False Facades

This is probably the story that I'm fondest of ... and yet, it's also the piece I'm perhaps the most embarrassed of. Honestly, I'm honored and humbled by the huge positive response I've received for this work and I think I was incredibly lucky to have so much support and encouragement as a new author back then because your feedback motivated me to work harder at improving my writing and, not to mention, to keep up with constant updates. (Until then, I had the tendency to lose stamina halfway and never complete long works so thank you all.)

That being said, long after the story had been completed, I'd received some emails or reviews saying either A) It was an unoriginal story or B) I didn't deserve so many reviews and that frankly, they were surprised that I had managed to get so many reviews in the first place because they didn't like the story at all and that there were other stories that deserved more attention, etc. etc. Okay, fair enough. I, myself, admit that when I look back at the story, I cringe sometimes, wondering what the heck was I thinking haha. And I don't expect everyone to enjoy the way I write; everyone has his own likes and dislikes.

So here, more like a warning rather than a defense, I'd like to inform any future readers that False Facades was first written when I was a high school freshman, back when I was thirteen or fourteen-ish when I was kinda big on anime fanfics, and published on Fictionpress in 2003. Hence, and ouch, you'd see multiple exclamation marks, poor grammar, characters that ran amok in wild antics (well, I still haven't quite lost my taste for those crazy scenes haha), lightning speed character development, and ... okay, I'll throw this one in as well - thoughts in brackets - even though it wasn't my intention. Fictionpress, back in the days, had some weird format thing so instead of italics, I had to put the thoughts in brackets and scene dividers as stars.

However, I do promise, that if you stick with the story, probably past Chapter Twenty or so, you'd hopefully see my writing mature. The format suddenly changes. And this is why I'm so glad I posted False Facades up here, because with you guys as reviewers, as witnesses, as fans, and as critics, I was able to shape the story - and my writing skills - into what they are today. And I hope to keep on improving since I still have quite a lot of things to work on.

Good points to False Facades? It was simple. It was simple and sweet. There's a quality of innocence and reckless style in it that reminds me of my younger days, back when I typed simply for the heck of it. I thought nothing about what would come next and wrote that scene in that moment. Over the top, but it's endearing sometimes and it still brings a smile to my face when I'm not grimacing.

That being said, I'm still quite surprised how there are people who've plagiarized this work - even with all the craptastic writing in the beginning - so many times (The Winglin incident has finally died down. I believe the person or the site admins have finally taken down the story. Thank you all for your support.) and it's unnerved me. I would like to revise this story in the future just to make it less cringe-worthy, but I might not post it. I don't understand the liberties some people have taken with posted fiction online. Just because authors here have chosen to share their writings and their stories online with the community doesn't mean we don't wish to retain our rights. Please be courteous and have respect. Be kind, rewind.

And that ... had absolutely nothing to do with anything, but I thought I might as well throw in something else in my preaching.

Long note, eh? If you stuck through it, more power to you. Thank you for reading.

(March 28 2008: The last 29 chapters were removed from Fictionpress due to the plagiarism incidents. As of now, I am working on certain plans for it and may repost it sometime in the future.)

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Unfinished Business

The title says it all. Sorry! I'm thinking about finishing up Through Me first to see how it goes. I might or might not continue with this. It's been left alone for quite some time already (understatement of the year) and I feel any readers following it might have already gotten fed up and dropped this story.

Update: Thank you for those who suddenly reviewed or sent me Private Messages demanding for another chapter. Haha, I'm so sorry about the wait, but at least, you've refreshed my interest in the story and I'm contemplating about reworking this piece now. We'll see how it goes.

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Through Me

Still in progress. The characters are running me up and down a hill though haha.

Update as of March 10: Through Me Chapter 15 has been posted.
Update as of March 16: Through Me Chapter 16 has been posted.