Tuesday 11 September 2012

I have a summertime ritual.It isn't going to the beach. or eating a ton of icecream. or getting my hair completly braided.

Althought I wouldn't mind doing any of this.


But my ritual is to re-read one of my books from the Meg Cabot shelf.

meg cabot / j.k.rowling shelf in my room

They sit there all year, looking so pink and shinny, until the hottest days come, and I finally pick one up.
Only one. Each year.

When I was younger I idolized Meg Cabot. I think I still do.. a tiny bit.. and that's why a never re-read the Princess Diaries. Those were my favourites and it would break my hearth to read them now and realise they suck. So I go on re-reading all the others she wrote, for nostalgia sake.

Last year was great! I chose Avalon High and it's about an american high school where everybody is the reencarnation of a character in the arthurian tale. It's the original King Arthur story repeating itself in an contemporary setting. There's sword fights and cheerleaders, isn't it awesome?!

This year...
it's High Stakes!


About a badass sixteen year's old mediator/ghost hunter that gets into fights with the undead, makes brazilian exorcisms, and basicly kicks ass. She also has a extremly good looking spanish ghost living in her house and the book features long descriptions of his abs. ahahaha! i looove it.

People are geeky about diferent things. I'm geeky about young adult fiction.
When I was younger, after reading this books I felt truly inspired and compeled to write. I wanted to write a book like Meg Cabot's. A book that I could fit in my shelf next to hers and it would be equally good.
IT WOULD BE MY MASTERPIECE...

I think over the years I started a endless number of this book projects.
I liked thinking of a story line, imagining characters, drawing portraits of them... I could go months daydreaming about it, but once I actually started the writing I lost all my interest imediatly. Most of my so-called books never got past the first chapter.
But there are 3, that I probably worked on for more time than the others, that I can sort of remember:

age of 11
I wrote the firts two chapters of a story about a girl that lived in a big mansion by the sea. The place was very odd, it had an insane amount of windows, all diferent in shape and size. There was something magical in the plot, (I was reading Harry Potter at the time.) I think the girl found a portal to some fantastic new world, but I honestly can't remember very well.
It was written during my summer holidays, in a notebook, and I gave it for my mum to read. It was the only writting project that I shared with anyone.

age of 14 (or 15?)
I drafted a story about a girl named Clara that moved to a new city because her mother got married again. In one of her ramblings around the bay she accidently witnesses a crime. (somebody was dropping a body from a boat!!) The story was partly about trying to find out what happened (and being chased by the mafia) and partly adapting to her new life, and falling in love with her step-brother (whom she hated at first, but there was a lot of sexual tension between the two). IT'S NOT DISGUSTING BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T BLOOD RELATED! Right? Plus, he had a band! and a bike!

I think I didn't write much past the wedding part, in the begining. I planned the whole story with post-its on my bedroom wall, but only found it fun to write the making-out-with-the-step-brother scenes. ahahah I'm a pervert.

age of 16
A-ah! By this time I got serious. Well, sort of. I wanted to write a screenplay. I had a proper software to do it and all.
It was about a group of friends and it all went around a Truth or Dare game. I think it was sort of a secret thing they had: They got together, played the game, and accepted the consequences no matter how embarrassing, degrading or illegal they were. The game turned into something addictive that controlled they're lifes to a certain degree. So, everything in the story was somehow influenced by it, and every episode things got nastier.
I remember there was something about kids shoplifting in a chinese store. And one of the girls falls in love with her teacher (that was going to be played by Pedro Granger!) and later gets pregnant and kicked out of her house by her catholic grandmother.
One of the characters had moved in recently and was running away from an abusive father. There was also some guy that dyed his hair blue and I'm pretty sure, at some point in the story, there was drug abbuse.

In general, all the things my boring, innocent high-school existence didn't really have.

Not that I'm complaning.
 
Around that time I also wrote a short story about a girl that fell in love with a ninja. He moved very fast and dressed all in black.
I'm not kidding. I really have this written in one of my diaries.
Their first date was at the mall.
Because, you know, ninjas love malls.


So, I'm curious. 
Does this happen to you too? Having big projects that you enjoy daydreaming about, but deep down you know that if you actually start doing it they're going to be nerve wracking and annoying?
Or, am I just very lazy?
I think, no matter how much you love doing something - from horse-riding to cooking pastries - there's always a moment when hard work is hard work, and things don't go so well and it's frustrating.

How do you do pass that point of :"oooooh.. this isn't fun anymore!!! I wanna give uuuup!"?

3 comments:

  1. this summer you started a blog. one step forward! : )
    but i got really interested in the ninja one - it would have very peculiar kissing scenes

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  2. And one day maybe your blog becomes a book!! : )

    But my answer to your question is yes! Happens to me all the time! The last time i also started to do a book to, but it was a cooking book for collage students! (yes, I wanted to do a recipes book!! ) Anyway.....at the beginning it was pretty great! I was very excited, I had everything planed, all the basic recipes, all the illustrations...i actually draw and write all of them. But when the part of putting all together came, i just lost all my interest immediately.. like you.

    I think that if you really want to do a big project like these you have to fool yourself, and think of the project like a gift to someone else. Like this: "Mom, next christmas i'm gonna give you a recipes book made by me!!" And you mom get very excited and then she starts to put a lot of pressure on you...and them you don't have any other option....You have to do it!! Moms are very god at this kind of things!

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  3. I thought it was just me, but apparently not. Every day I understand a bit more why we get along so well.
    I have three different books started, a dozen of paints for a exhibition that I was supposedly having at the city house and a lot of other things lost, deep in the boxes, piled up in my attic that I can't even recall. Maybe one day when I am older and moody (well more moody than I'm now) perhaps I will get a hang on it again and get it done, just so I can die with that peaceful sense of self-realization.
    And again the writing is extremely funny and enticing. It holds the reader and has that particular relate-ability that is almost like you are voicing the reader's thoughts.
    Excellent work and keep them coming.

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