Hot hot heat

[cleolinda]

I hate when they turn the heat on. I hate it--I hate the smell of it, I hate the whistling noise it makes against the air vents once I close them, I hate that my windows are hermetically sealed and impossible to open. It's my sister who turns the heat on upstairs--she gets cold and I get hot, that's the story of our living together.

The weird thing is that I was in the tub and all of a sudden I just wanted to write this story. It's a story I tried writing several months ago and it just didn't take--the time period was different, the narrator was younger, there was too much back story, it got away from what I had wanted it to be; it just didn't work. So once I'm done with my bath, after sort of mentally composing several different chunks of it, I sat down, and by God if I didn't write the story I had wanted to originally write. Well, not all of it, but the interesting parts, which is what's important; my jaws are hurting like hell for some reason (sinus pressure?), so I eventually hit a point where I had nothing left to deal with but the rising action, which is only lightly sketched out in my mind, and decided I'd deal with that tomorrow when (I hope) I don't have a frickin' tension headache. (Yes, I'm strange. After "the interesting parts," generally I write the end first and the beginning second, and everything else falls into place afterward. A lot of writers talk about how drafting a story is a journey, and you end up places you didn't expect, and I'll admit I've done that, but only after I've done some preliminary brainstorming and then started traveling with a destination in mind. I just end up somewhere different, is all. I'm not sure I'm capable of writing something if I haven't figured out what the "so what" of it is, as one of my professors used to say.)

And then my jaw and the heater combined to piss me off so bad that I set it aside for tomorrow. Well, mostly the inspiration had petered out. But I was pleased with myself on the whole.


Note: If you take the most widely-read parody I've written, the one that was archived on Fiction Alley and linked on Mugglenet, and you go through the trouble of taking out all of my 5000 hidden copyright notices and you post it as your own work, but with a different title (MOO HA HA!), I am sure no one will notice. Seriously. You can bet the farm on that. Uh-huh.


In the mood for spooky and/or creepy reading, so here's a few links (and hit me with more if you have 'em):

Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Kids? Don't talk to strangers.

Ambrose Bierce: Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories. Creepiest are the "missing person" stories near the end, if only because Bierce disappeared in Mexico and was never heard from again.

Famous Modern Ghost Stories. Includes Bierce, Poe, Maupassant and Blackwood.


teleute12: "Hey Cleo, would you mind pimping The Breast Cancer Site? It works on the same principle as The Hunger Site, only with funding mammograms for women who couldn't afford them. For the month of October, each contribution is tripled, but they're way behind on their goal and really need help. Can you ask people to click every day for the rest of the month? Thanks a lot!" Sho' thing.

Friggin' huge-ass Harry Potter pics.

Friggin' medium-ass Harry Potter pics.

Anne Rice promises to now write only for the Lord.

Can you trust Wikipedia? Well, no, duh. The kind of things I'm usually looking up there aren't things I need deep accuracy on--last night I wanted to know what a dog rose looked like, and by God, Wikipedia had a picture. As one of the panelists says of one entry, "It's not terrible. But then I wouldn't have thought of using Wikipedia as a serious reference source."

Off to read more of The Lamplighter for class...



  

Comments

[rachelmap.livejournal.com]

Maybe you would like radiant heat flooring better. Every apartment I've lived in Korea has had it, and now I don't want to use anything else. It's wonderful.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

At least you have heat. Campus here is heated by steam, and apparently they've been doing some maintenance all summer and won't be able to have heat back up and running until next week. Which'd be fine, if it weren't 30°F this mornin'. Aie. Am considering using coffee only as hand-warming-liquid and not happy-drinky-bean-juice, which is nigh unto an unforgivable heresy. October makes heretics of us all.

Anne Rice promises to now write only for the Lord.

Amen. I guess I have to go build a church now, don't I?

[lacrimaeveneris.livejournal.com]

dude... my campus was all "It's going to be too expensive to heat this year. So some dorms have no heat.



...and we're in Maine.

[astael.livejournal.com]

Reading this was weird, because 1) the heater at work is giving me the exact same angst right now and 2) I write the same way you do, and I've never met or heard of anyone else who has.

Thanks for the story links--it's going to be a loooong boring day and I left my book at home.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Francis Ford Coppola once said (of making movies), "I can count from one to ten, but not in that order." That's about the way of it. : )

[girlalmighty]

It's so brilliant when stories do that. I'm glad you got as much of it done as you did. I'm waiting for the heat myself, but that's because our school probably won't turn it on for another month. Meh.

Are people still trying to steal the M15Ms? That's ridiculous! I can't understand why someone would go to the trouble when they'll inevitably be discovered anyway and it isn't even their own work. What, they want to be praised for something they didn't write?

Anyway, good luck with the story.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I don't get it myself. I mean, are they so desperate for attention?

[punzerel.livejournal.com]

Eugh, in the winter, we seal off our windows with plastic for better insulation (I live in Montreal, it gets pretty cold). I get that it's useful and all, but I hate it. Especially since last year, my parents put the plastic sealing over the whole window.. including my blinds.. so they were closed the whole winter and I couldn't get at them. And I really, really go nuts if I can't get fresh air in my [shared and very stuffy] room.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

The heat just came on last night where I live, and it made me oversleep by an hour. It's also dried my skin out something awful. I do have open-able windows, so I guess I'm better off in that respect.

It's kind of sad what's happened to Rice. Most authors seem to have three main periods in their writing. In the beginning, they're still learning and each successive book improves. After a while, they plateau, or stop going up as quickly. Then, if the author lives that long, the books start to decline a bit-- they get repetitive, or the writing quality decreases, or the author chooses to stop writing altogether. (This is obviously no different from what happens to people in general, just specialized to writers.) Rice is peculiar because her books have always had highly variable quality (I mean, even on their own merits, without comparing to other people's work). And now she seems to have walked off a cliff. I dunno. Maybe Jesus will save?

[rockgeisha.livejournal.com]

Here (http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/schmid/sand_1.html) is the story of the man who inspired Arnold Friend. I recommend Crime Library in general for creepy reading. In the words of the marketing for the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, "it happened!"

I've given up on the massage therapy wiki because this creepy guy keeps editing my remarks whenever I try to add a correction to erotic massage--that it's not practiced by professional massage therapists. "Removed POV half-truth." Yeah, bite me, Woodstone.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Dude, THANK YOU. I'd heard that it was based on someone real, but didn't have any way of figuring out who. Yay!


I've given up on the massage therapy wiki because this creepy guy keeps editing my remarks whenever I try to add a correction to erotic massage--that it's not practiced by professional massage therapists. "Removed POV half-truth." Yeah, bite me, Woodstone.

So... he's trying to keep the Wiki saying that professionals do practice erotic massage? Ew. That doesn't sound like an agenda at all...

[all-ephemera.livejournal.com]

Anne Rice promises to write only for the Lord now. Well, you knew she had to start sometime because there was no way she was going to get into Heaven after subjecting us all to that crap for so long on purpose!

I got your book on Friday night! Uber squeeeee!!! I've also finished your book, and I have to say that I giggled like a freakin' lunatic over "BRAAAIIINS!"

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

You see now why I'm excited about the Sith DVD coming out in a week or so. ; )

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Psst. Email me your mailing address, and I'll send you your very own copy of All the Fishes Come Home to Roost, in exchange for my very own copy of M15M.

Rphoenix2@hotmail.com

[annapiranha.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't have a link to any creepy reading, but the room I'm living in right now (I'm in boarding school) is haunted by the ghost of a butler who hanged himself in our closet. See, the school used to be a manor, and the third floor (where I live) used to be the servants' quarters. Also, a little girl haunts the storage closet in the next room. Some people who've lived in my room in the past have heard choking noises and scuffing against the walls.

Real-life ghost stories are less fun when you're living them :P.

[alliemolloy.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, I think I'd move out...

We were given a campus ghost tour during frosh last year, and I think I had to sleep with the light on for a week afterward. *shudders*

[subtle--sarcasm.livejournal.com]

sorry only skipping through this post, need to get to go offline ( and do some reading... of a certain book that i got today... hint hint... ;) )

just have to say, the anne rice thing is just weird.... i am beyond in love with the vampire chronicles, and this is just... odd....

[kilted.livejournal.com]

I had to read "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" in my lit class... kinda gives you the jibbles, doesn't it?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

For some reason, the moment when she realized he was thirty and not a "boy" was the part where my stomach dropped. That, and the boots.

[jedilora.livejournal.com]

Am reading my copy of the book RIGHT NOW.

I loooove you. The Spittosaurus Pen-right on.

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

Because I know you LOOOOVE fonts:

Did you see the Edward Gorey (http://www.emeraldrain.com/fm/content/goreyttf.html) font Neil linked over at his journal.

EEEE! Just in time for Halloween, too. :)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I did! I snatched that thing up sofast. : )

[skyblade.livejournal.com]

WHat's funny is, the weather outside is probablyw hat we have our heat up to. Oh well, time to put on my one of many, many fleece outfits.

[lotusbiosm.livejournal.com]

I saw Neil Gaiman at the National Book Festival, and he was talking about how writing a story is like taking a trip from DC to California, only you're only taking back roads and you're not sure if your car will make the trip, and you don't actually know what roads you're going to take.

[mouseykins1.livejournal.com]

If there's one part of the head that I HATE when it hurts, its the jaw. Mine cracks all the time for no reason whatsoever.
I use Wikipedia for fan-fiction writing. It has good info on minor book characters. But, no, it isn't accurate. And most of the time, there are paragraphs of plain nonesense. Sometimes, they will have a few paragrahs arguing one point, then just undo all they have just stated. IS CONFUSED!
Eeek! Ghost stories! I feel really bad about them, though. Usually, I'll read them and be like, "Eep!" Then the rest of the story is just filler to explain, and I straight fall-asleep.

[ambiguousreason.livejournal.com]

I know how you feel - my effing dorm room is always way too hot, so whenever I come back I immediately have to open all the windows and take off my jacket and/or sweatshirt so I don't overheat and die.

My God, you weren't kidding when you said "friggin' huge-ass Harry Potter pics."

[mllemoony.livejournal.com]

"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" is one of favorite stories ever. Nothing beats finishing it the first time and sitting there with all the creepiness floating around you.

[trede.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh. I've used Wikipedia for referencing before..

Nothing more than verifying facts, eg "Emil Nolde was born in..." and I'll list the source as Wikipedia.

... *is dumb ._.*

[faded-memories.livejournal.com]

Joyce Carol Oates owns my soul.

[vampychick.livejournal.com]

*bounces around like a fucking lunatic*

My book came in! My book came in! Wheeeee!

[theblackdoll.livejournal.com]

Anne Rice is the flakiest flake that ever flaked.

*offends everyone*

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Nah, I'm pretty sure that's the general consensus.

[violetsocks.livejournal.com]

re: Anne Rice

The Infancy Stories of St. Thomas! No! She hath defiled my favorite Apocrphyal stories! Noooooo!

On the other hand....

*doubles over in hysterics*

*bangs head repeatedly against desk*

*Sides...split...no...breath...ahhhhhhhh*

Jesus, the...ULTIMATE immortal! "Their vision is not my vision!"

It's like the logic of the Babelfish:
God: Proof undermines faith, and without faith I am nothing!
Humanity: But Anne Rice could not have evolved into something so unceasingly entertaining by pure chance, it proves You exist!
God: Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that. *disappears in a puff of logic, Anne Rice's novels appear in His place*.

Why opt for logic, when you can have the logic of a madwoman instead? *continues to laugh ass off*

[chocotaku.livejournal.com]

Jesus Christ was the ultimate zombie after all.

Completely unrelated, but...

[fxchip.livejournal.com]

This is completely unrelated to this entry, but I just got my copy of the book in today, a full week before I expected it. :D

And I love it already. :D So far, my favorite quote is "THE RED ACID IS THE BAD ACID! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" mwahahahahahaha

Very well done. Congrats and thanks for the wonderful book. :D

Re: Completely unrelated, but...

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks. : )