kalon

Loved the first movie, okay with the second, loved the third. At World's End made me love Elizabeth, because she was just that [spoiler]spiffy as a Pirate king[/spoiler]. I also now want a Tia Dalma plush toy, complete with rock/crab accessory. Did anyone else feel like Keith Richards' moments were a little wasted? Keith was awesome, but those scenes were just so brief. Which is why we need a fourth movie. If nothing else, At World's End gave me an appreciation for peanuts.

[B]BigSky:[/b] I thought the bag monster was pretty amusing, although you do have a few grammar mistakes in there. "Fat-man" should really be fat man and "Irishkid" needs to be Irish kid. I like the idea of the word "un-onomatopoeia-able," but it seems a bit too lengthy, especially with the hyphens. It might be better to choose a word with about the same meaning. Other than that, you're writing style is pretty good, and your descriptions are original. [b]Cat14:[/b] If this was for creative writing, were some of the poems written from prompts? I just wondered if your teacher gave you the sort of food theme you have, or if you were just hungry ;). I like the way all of them are put together, although I can't reconcile the subjects with the titles in my head. It all seems stream-of-consciousness. Especially for "The Town Of Chew And Swallow," the phrases seem to have their own meanings depending on the reader. I can think of multiple ways to interpret each line, which makes me really enjoy them and want to reread them. My first offering is born of our school literary mag preferring really short short stories, and the fact that on our selection committee we seem to shoot down every other piece for being "emo" or "cliche," both words i think we need to ban in meetings. My second is not really supposed to be a story, it's more an experiment in writing style. I'm not looking for critique on the supposed story so much as thoughts on the way it is written. [b]Replacement[/b] (E) [i]Look at her, sitting there with him, like I never even existed. I knew from the start that she and I weren?t going to last; first relationships like ours never do. But still, it hurts to be replaced like this, and to see them, every day, it?s just? unfair. They always have lunch together, sit together, cuddle together. I mean, for fluff?s sake, they even wear color coordinated outfits! And here I am, torn to shreds, left on a shelf of solitude and loneliness, with no one to talk to. My conclusion: life is pain.[/i] Six-year-old Jane happily grabbed her new favorite stuffed animal, Mr. Kitty Whiskermeister, and ran out of her room to the tea party her mother was setting up downstairs. Her old toy, a stuffed bear named Baron von Cuddlesworth, who was her favorite until the dog ripped off his arm and one eye, watched bitterly from a shelf. [b]Untitled[/b] (E) It?s ten-oh-eight and sunny when the mail carrier arrives. There?re five credit card offers, the electric bill, and a brown box held with that clear industrial-strength tape that keeps things so secure even the package?s recipient can?t get into their stuff without stabbing the box with a pen. Opening the box reveals those visual kei CD?s ordered from Japan, a taste upon the ears different from other rock, and one of these little gachapon toys they have over there. This one is from a series of tiny plastic animals. It comes in a little plastic egg. More specifically, as the website reads, it?s a ?Japan Mini: Furuta Choco Egg - Animal Series - Chapter of New Pet (1 Randomly Out of 20).? It?s a fish. The Welsh corgi was cuter but you know?the random thing. It?s a tiny little fish, something tropical and midnight blue, looks sort of like a beta, but monochrome. It looks prettier when you look at it longer, and suddenly it?s the best random tiny plastic animal they could have sent. Assembling its plastic pieces?it?s like a mini model kit?takes less than ten seconds. It?s only a few inches big, but it?s a fish and there are lots of little fish in the world. It?s not like it?s one of those cheap things they have in American toy machines, those ones that cost a quarter and smell like chemical fumes or turn your skin green. It?s a well made toy, nice looking, worth something. It would have been worth the $8.50 they were charging on the site for it singularly, except for the fact that it came free with those two particular CD?s. You know that cliché about free things. Maybe the little blue fish wasn?t one of the [i]best[/i] things, per se, but it was still neat. So there aren?t that many things to do with a small fish replica, but there are these bottles like from some alchemist?s lab sitting in front of the window, and the fish is dropped down into one of those to live out eternity in glass with a cork ceiling. It sits beside another mini animal?same toy, different line and species. What was it?a ring-tailed lemur? That?s the best guess. The ability to read Japanese might have been helpful. But it?s mainly the fishes companion, sitting beside it for eternity in a glass bottle with a cork on top, only they can?t be too very close. You know, the whole being trapped in a bottle thing. There?s one day when the bottles with the animals are sitting in front of the window. That?s every day, but on this day kitty living in the apartment goes over there and taps at them without grasping the concept of glass. Apartment kitty keeps batting, until one of the bottles crashes to the floor, and kitty runs to hide under the couch because it doesn?t like the glass-breaking sound. On some level, apartment kitty knows it?s in trouble for breaking things. There?s a ring-tailed lemur in a glass bottle sitting alone in the window, and a monochrome blue beta lying in glass on the floor not breathing.

[font=Book Antiqua][color=DarkSlateGray][B]Name:[/B] Ceyla Grey [B]Age:[/B] 43 [B]Gender: [/B] Female [B]Race:[/B] Human [B]City:[/B] The Kingdom of Mecki--King Tyran [B]Class:[/B] Assassin [B]Personality:[/B] Ceyla has softened in her interactions with people as she has gotten older--at least, with the ones she's not set on killing. Her affinity for children is even stronger, as is her tendency to help those in need. Still, she never let go of her life as an assassin, and though her targets are those causing harm to other people, it doesn't change the fact that her profession is in slaughter. Kind in daylight, sharp in shadows. She has a special weakness in her heart for her husband, but, being prideful, tries to hide it. [B]Appearance:[/B] Her hair is still about the same sandy blond, but her eyes are now almost pure gray, and there are telltale wrinkles at their edges. She is as strong and agile as ever, which is not too surprising considering assassination is excellent for keeping a good physique. She is on eye-level with most males. Her clothing, keeping with her class, is nondescript. [B]Weapons:[/B] [url=http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i258/silver_blade_clone/stiletto.jpg]Stiletto[/url], the same one she has had since Mecki, but is still the best of weapons, and a [url=http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i258/silver_blade_clone/katar.jpg]katar[/url]. [b]Magic:[/b] None [B]Bio:[/B] After a delightful childhood of escaping her would-be forced marriage, Ceyla grew into a contradictory assassin. Along with several other highly skilled warriors, Ceyla was eventually hired to rescue the Princess of Mecki. Of course, it is common knowledge that the group eventually rescued the princess and defeated the former corrupt ruler of the city. Less commonly known is the fact that Ceyla fell in love with one of her comrades, the paladin Dalanius, whom she grew to love over their long journey. Once the tumultuous events involving king Samuel were finished, they married. Ceyla, having loved children all her life, had two of her own, although they are grown and gone off to seek their own fortunes. Ceyla considers herself blessed to have such a good life, especially since assassins are rarely known for having contented, peaceful lives. [B]Snippet:[/B] The day was exceedingly pleasant, without a cloud to mar the blue of the sky. Mecki had settled into a peaceful lull in the years after the defeat of King Samuel, and Ceyla took some satisfaction in knowing that she and Dalanius had helped to make it so. Especially when she saw the children of the neighborhood, and thought of how her own children had been able to have a mostly tranquil childhood, she felt pride welling within her. Some things never changed. For instance, she still had a soft spot for children. At her side, helping her line clothes, was a girl of eight, whom Ceyla was watching for a neighbor. Ceyla found domesticity a refreshing change from her earlier years. This did not mean, however, that all traces of her former career had left. Shadows are hard habits to break. "So Sam took my doll, but I chased him and tripped him into the pond, and I got it back. Girls can too fight, can't they, Missus Ceyla?" Mari continued her monologue without waiting for an answer. Ceyla smiled. The child had chattering down to an art. Mari's voice combined with the voices of others at work or play, and soft rush of wind through the trees. It was soft, everyday lull. It made Ceyla notice all the more acutely the softest clink of mail approaching. With one hand, she pinned a shirt to the line. With the other, she drew the stiletto strapped under the sleeve of her left arm and flicked it behind her. She held her finger gently to one side of the blade, making sure she did not actually cut into the neck of whoever it was behind her. Turning, she found a soldier looking worriedly at the blade. Ceyla returned it to its hidden position at her arm. [i]Not bad,[/i] she thought, inwardly smirking. Her skills had not diminished. "If you're one of the soldiers my husband trains, I advise that you not make him overly aware of this," Ceyla said. "It won't reflect too well upon your record to have been taken off guard. If you need to speak with Dalanius, he's training right now." Her informality seemed to have shaken the soldier a bit, but he regained composure quickly. "King Tyran sent me for you, ma'am. He asks for you to go to the palace." "Regarding?" "I don't know much, but there have been attacks on other cities, human and elven, most recently Haserth." Ceyla nodded to the soldier's salute as he left. She sent Mari, who had been watching open-mouthed, back to her mother's. Ceyla felt a chill run down her spine. Bloodshed was nothing she feared for herself, but it was certainly nothing she welcomed. It both relieved her and worried her more to see Dalanius hurrying towards her down the road. OOC: Sorry this took so long. My virus is not cooperating.[/font][/color]

Well, for water you could use the classic water droplet shape, and for air, perhaps a swirl? Although really, these symbols are a bit overused. Maybe you could consider using somewhat unrelated shapes (like triangle for fire, octagon for water, things of that nature). It would add a bit more uniqueness to your world, since the other symbols are pretty common.

I am by no means a vegetarian, but I cannot eat anything that is in animal shape. Specifically, I cannot eat the white chocolate cookies and cream rabbit my mother put in my Easter basket. I was halfway thinking I had grown out of the inability to eat a candy rabbit, and was almost looking forward to it since I have not had any white chocolate in almost a year even though it's my favorite kind. That is, I was looking forward to it until she picked it up and (jokingly) made some comments about the rabbit pleading for its life in a baby bunny voice. She thought I would have grown out of this by now. I haven't. I halfway cried when she did that, because I just can't bring myself to bite into a face. Now then, what events or things upset all of you on the OB? I'm not talking about common fears or phobias, but the really odd things that make you upset that to other people seem to be, well, silly.

[spoiler]Bradley is Pride. Envy's original, true form looks like Ed, so that's probably who you saw, and someone just mislabeled the picture.[/spoiler]

Due to our lovely school scheduling, we have June and July of, then we start back as soon as possible in August, usually registering somewhere in the middle of the last week of July. By school registration week, I hope to have written at least another three chapters of my novel. Summer for me will be all about sleep and writing. Other than that, my mom wants to go to the zoo in Nashville, and I want to go to the zoo in Memphis, so maybe we can do both. And then, also in Memphis, there's a My Little Pony convention coming up, and I want to see the cuteness. Possibly, I will go to California and spend time with relatives I have never been in contact with.

My mom recently had to pay $250 for some medicine that was for one half of the prescription she need to fix an infection in her thumb. On the second half, after many, [i]many[/i] hours of talking to both her insurance and the pharmacist, she got them to cover the second half where she had only a ten dollar co-pay. She's still working on getting something back on the $250 she already paid before they decided that yes, an infection that made it difficult and extremely painful for her to use her thumb, so much that she cloud barely open her car door, was worth being covered by insurance. Is a thumb [i]worth[/i] paying five hundred dollars? Yes. But it seems not all of us have the money to buy working thumbs.

[QUOTE=Allamorph] [FONT=Arial]I ran into a five-some of these last year at a local Renaissance festival.[/FONT][/QUOTE] The one in Triune? That's the one I go to, and you just made me think of something that grinds my gears: hopeless romantic friends. Last year, I went to the festival with my mom and a friend of mind. After touring the castle, we rode the bus back, and she claimed that while we were on the bus, her eyes "met with this really hot guy wearing gray pants in the line for the buses going to the castle." She made it her personal mission to search for him the rest of the day. I had to go along with her, because even though she told me I could go with our other friends, my mom did not want us separated since my mom was in charge of her. We spent over four hours searching for him, not even looking in booths, but just walking around. We never found him. I missed glass blowing, a show with trained birds, and several other really spiffy events because she could not give up the idea of finding the guy in gray pants who locked eyes with her. Needless to say, we never found him. I did get to go to the final joust of the day, but I could tell she was unhappy about it, and she kept sighing, which ruined my fun of watching the men on the pretty horses grab rings with lances and try to knock each other to the ground. Then she lamented about it for days afterward. And this is why hopeless romantics really grind my gears.

My weapon? A personal ninja guardian who could take everyone down at once, have time to get me a strawberry citrus breeze from Baskin-Robbins, and disappear back into the shadows in less than two seconds. Alternatively I would like to have my own assistant ninjirate, so I would always have the best of ninjas and pirates combined into one.

This is the rough draft of the story I want to submit for my creative writing class. I finally was able to churn something out after several of you OB members gave me some excellent advice. I had a plot idea, I strangled it, beat it, and made it into a smoothie, which brings you to this rough draft. While writing this, I was purposely trying to break some of the suggested "rules" of short stories (the things that are hard to pull off, and not suggested). Any constructive criticism or comments are welcomed. [size=3][CENTER]A Dream I Just Woke Up From[/CENTER][/size] The best thing about school is going home. I walk in, take the two minutes required to divest myself of my tightly-laced shoes (that make me miss my old ratty sneakers which I could kick off easily) and drop back on the couch. No essays are due, no biology projects, no more homework, no more? ?Books, no more teachers? dirty looks,? I finish aloud. I must correct my earlier statement: the best thing about school is going home on the day summer vacation starts. I twist on the couch to find a comfortable position. It?s covered with several books, comics, a few video games, some magazines from six months back? It?ll take too long to list everything. Point is, I shift around until I?m only lying on the fluffy oddly textured pillow that?s comfy even though it?s blue and stands out against the green-brown floral pattern of the couch. Not that it matters. Relaxation over fashion, always. I don?t sleep, just listen to the murmur of actors turned to the barest of volumes on the TV. Daydreaming suits me, it?s all I ever do, and I can lie for hours doing nothing more than thinking in lethargy or explosion. I watch the cream ceiling change to gold, then yellow, then blue as dusk falls as slow and silent as ash. The ceiling?s odd, not flat, but ridged haphazardly, but not sharply, just smoothly, a really good ceiling if you have to do a blending project in art class and want some good value. Eventually the blue evaporates, leaving behind only tints and shades, black, and gray, and not-quite-white. It?s the time in the evening when nothing is moving, and at the same time, the silence of the world is fresh, a stillness that is not suffocating. With lazy realization I remember I forgot to check the mail, so, standing on tiptoe to stretch my calves tingling from a cut-off blood supply from being cramped on the couch, I walk into the hall connecting my apartment to all the others. Like my ceiling, the hallway and the stairs leading to other levels of the building are in shades of gray now, and white, and shadow that is beyond gray but not black. I turn up the stairwell that twists upward for several flights and start ascending. I reach a door, old and oak, covered in shades. The paint on the wall around it is peeling, and it makes another area good for a blending project. I open the door to another set of stairs and stare at the white coat with tails with the black trim the man in wearing. It matches the stairwell. He nods to me, tipping his top hat that goes from gray to black. He turns away, and I have already forgotten his face. I grab his shoulder, and he turns. He?s wearing a Mardi Gras mask, half red and half gold, all darkened by shadow. I feel a sudden apprehension as he steps towards me, uncomfortably close, but he smiles, and there is no more harm because I know he is good. I stretch out and notice with vague interest that I?m lying on the couch in the apartment, and the ceiling is the shade of post-twilight gray. The days of summer are never long or short. They simply are, and they simply run together in a never-ending cycle. I do not think of life as eras, not at all, because time never stops, and though it can be measured, it cannot be divided. Of course, that does not stop me from separating all the hourglass sand minutes of summer. The second best day of the break is the first day going on a trip, not that it matters where or when as long as there are other people you love there with you. I find myself on a bus, going for a visit with my friends to a state park. First thing, I want to feed the geese bread from a paddle boat. I did that once, when I was little with my mom, and about twenty of them swam after us in a parade of water fowl. I?m squishing my bag of crusts, because I put it in the middle of the seat while I?m sitting next to the window with one of my friends beside me. The car is lulling, and peaceful. Everyone is used to me drifting in and out on car trips. The bus could drive off a ravine without me noticing. I hear my friends? chatter in my ears like the soft rushing of a stream and it?s comforting. Eventually, the vehicle jerks to a stop. My friend and seatmate Ryan nudges me to get up and ?Don?t forget your breadcrumbs, Gretel.? I hit her for calling me Gretel, but she and I and everyone else are laughing as we leave the magic of public transportation. We start down a stone path to get to the water. Somewhere along the way, I?ve dropped my bread, so I go wandering back the way I came in order to find it. I really want to feed the geese. My friends don?t mind; they?re used to me meandering around by myself after all these years. I skip?yes, skip, no laughing?down the smoothed brown stone glancing around for the bag with the bunny on it. All I really seem to notice is the sky. It holds my attention with its cloudiness, yet the light is washing down in streaks of warm orange like a Thomas Kinkade painting. There are high brick walls about the pathway, and in this golden light, I am suddenly afraid. I act on instinct and start running. I head down the alleyway. The full moon overhead casts everything in pearlescent light. The world is in shades of blue as I dash up the fire escapes and reach the top of the building. I see the man again. He has no top hat, no Mardi Gras mask, but I recognize that smile. It is the smile of a Harlequin, a trickster smile, but playful. I feel the fear recede. He?s whispering something. I know what it is, but I can?t hear, and I forget as soon as? ?Hey, sleepy, get up! And don?t forget your bread, Gretel!? Ryan yells, shaking me awake as the bus jolts to a stop. My friends and I leave behind public transportation. There are no brown stone pathways or trees or randomly appearing alleyways. There is a concrete walk to the water that we walk down until we reach the water and the place to rent paddleboats. The sky is pure blue, no clouds today. We do rent a paddleboat, and we do feed ducks, and we play tag, and I?m pretty sure we just ruined the romantic lakeside picnic a young couple was having when we start playing hide-and-seek and use the concrete picnic table they are sitting at as a hiding place?hey, the park is public. Eventually we collapse on the grass. If there were clouds, we might point at them and call out shapes, but there are no clouds. Green horizon and blue sky, nothing else. Afternoon rolls around and rolls right into sundown. The sky is tinged yellow and the sun is a neon orange bouncy ball, the kind from twenty-five cent toy machines. I like the world the way it is right now, silent and golden, and it?s not until too late that I realize I?m in the way of the speeding bus (I hate public transportation) with its harsh lights in my face making my pupils contract. At the last second, I melt into the pavement and avoid getting hit. I sit up and I?m back in the grass with the sky so blue over my head. There is the paddleboat rental place to my left and a picnic table to my right and right next to me the man with the caring smile. I think he?s either younger than me or older or ageless or beyond comprehension. We stare up at the cloudless sky in silence. When I finally turn to look at him the sky goes black. He still smiles but grabs my arm and hurries me along as we start to run. He speaks like before. It is different, because this time I hear him. ?Are you dreaming?? I sit up on my couch in the lazy humid afternoon. On the television actors are murmuring with the sound almost mute. The calendar in the kitchen has today?s date circled, because I always have today?s date circled. It is the third day of summer break. My wallet is missing enough money for the bus to and from the park and a paddleboat rental. Even in summer, I snuggle deep under a thick blanket. The fan is on, so I?m not quite suffocating, but kept in that warm drowsiness that I always am. It?s not quite sleep or awake or dream. At the moment, I think it?s the latter. I am fairly certain. Especially certain, since something much too big to be my cat is shifting next to me on my bed. When I grudgingly open my eyes, I?m not surprised to be walking down the street arm in arm with the man from before. ?Do you know of Descartes?? ? ?I think therefore I am,? isn?t that the quote he?s famous for?? I ask. ?Sometimes,? he says, and I wish to wipe the smile off of his face. Suddenly, I cannot see his features clearly. His form blurs like a spirit in Elysium. ?But also, it has been quoted, ?Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.? ? I?ve never heard it said that way before. Too bad I don?t speak Latin (or whatever it was Descartes spoke). I blink and the stranger has disappeared like smoke in rain. I do not question why I am not under my blanket at home but in front of my friend Pat?s house. I knock on the door to find that, although I don?t remember when, Pat has been expecting me. We watch some movies I rented who-knows-when. I know I don?t. It?s not waking up in a field that bothers me. I mean, it?s summer, it?s cool since the sun is just rising, and there is a pleasant breeze wafting over the field. No, it?s the cows that bug me. Stupid cattle standing there all nonchalant, eating grass. Like I?m not even here. And the cows probably aren?t going to answer any of my questions. In fact, I know they aren?t, because they?re all moving away now, tails swishing, and of course a giant black hole has opened under my feet. I fall for awhile, and eventually, I end up sitting at a table at the coffeehouse near my apartment. It?s still dawn, but I?m sitting there with a fresh cup of?from the smell it?s French vanilla, which is soothing (and sounds so much better than Freedom vanilla). He?s sitting across from me again, and I?m not sure whether to like him, dislike him, or be neutral. I make a decision. My decision is to take a drink of the coffee, which is at the perfect temperature with just the right amount of sweetener. It?s a normal early morning, with the early traffic commuters around, some joggers, an old lady that I don?t know personally but I know her yappy obnoxious dog that?s torn into my yard before. I hate that dog like I hate those cows like I think I hate the guy sitting across from me. ?You?ve been acting weird. Have you been getting enough sleep?? he asks. He smiles, and the smile is still nice, and caring, and something else entirely. By now I?m just so tired. ?I will pour this delicious?and delightfully scalding?French vanilla roast coffee over your head if you don?t back off.? ?Someone?s moody today,? he says. ?Seriously,? agrees Ryan. I did not notice her before. Or Pat. But there they are. ?We?re off for the summer. We don?t have any exams or professors or anything for months. Relax. It?s not like you?re still in chemistry with this guy.? She swats the smiling man who I somehow blame for the cows playfully on his arm. I futilely try to set his gold and red wristbands (that he will not stop playing) with aflame with my mind. It does not work. ?Yeah, I remember when you two blew up that beaker. Man, that was an awesome fire,? adds Pat. I?m pretty sure it was Pat and Ryan who set the lab on fire, especially since I know I always worked alone. I take another sip of coffee. A bird cries overhead. I look up. When I look back down, it?s five in the afternoon by my watch, and I?m in my backyard with the annoying smiling guy beside me. I think I?m about to give up on questioning him. ?I don?t want you to give up, just think some more.? ?What was that different quote of Descartes??? I ask. ?I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am. I don?t know that I doubt half as much as you, but I think enough to give myself an existence.? ?Did I make us blow up the chemistry lab?? ?No, I did. I turned the burner on twice as high as it should have been, and you know, temperature is important. Remember how made Mr. Mackenzie was.? That last sentence was something of a command. More like a request. I can see it, Mr. Mackenzie being mad at me and the odd guy next to me instead of Ryan and Pat. I say, ?I think it?s my fault, because I tried to set you on fire when we went out for coffee, so I got fire, but got it wrong.? ?Of course,? he says, and smiles. ?I can feel thoughts pretty well. I wanted to outthink you. I do not want to be crispy.? ?So? what?s been the point?? ?What am I trying to tell you?? I shrug, and we sit back down on the sand. The waves crash up to drench our toes. I do not like salt water. ?So?? I try again, leaning my hands against the patio table. He?s dogpaddling in the swimming pool. ?So what?? he counters. He gives me a hand up from the grass. ?So nothing. So it?s whatever you want.? Overhead, the sky is the gray of post-twilight. I blink, a decisive blink. The sky is such a lovely splatter of pink and teal. Just one thing I would like to know. ?What?s your name?? I ask, and he smiles.

Thank you to all who have replied, because you have been tremendous help. First off, as many people have mentioned it, I do enjoy the random words idea, because linking words that aren't necessarily alike forces you to think. We've already done two journal entries like that, using incredibly random words. Also, because [b]Retribution's[/b] idea has clawed into my head, I believe I will someday write a fruit versus veggie genocide story, because it continues to eat at my mind what role tomatoes would play. I have finally found what i want to write, which in the end, is going to be messing with dreams and psychology as [b]Boo[/b] suggested, and also related to a dream I just woke up from, as [b]Rachmaninoff[/b] had proposed. I'm trying to make it a more serious story, because our dear teacher Mr. Walker is hoping for stories to match Anton Chekov, to whom he has a memorial in class. Luckily, the date's been moved back, so I can polish it a bit more, and then maybe post it on OB. (You can then decide whether it was worth your time to give me advice. ^_~ ) Also, before I forget (not that I ever could, you know), [b]Allamorph[/b]: the teacher knows of my novel, and specifically told me to write something different. He wanted us to break out of the ordinary (or our individual ordinaries) in writing these. Therefore, no Everwonder residents will be used, set on fire, or stabbed by Hilde in the making of this short story. (Although technically, a guy that reminds me somewhat of Harlequin's real personality will be a major character.)

Ambiguously pegged around the 20th, I have a short story assignment due. My mind. Is. Blank. I cannot think of a single idea I want to write on. If I do think of an idea, it's way overused or won't pan out the way I want it to or one of endless other mind-confuzzling things. I don't have writer's block, just good idea block, which is so much worse. Since the Anthology has so many excellent writers, I thought I'd ask for advice for making my brain's idea center something with more solidity than tapioca pudding. It can be anything: good ways to brain storm, writing prompts (preferably better than "It was a dark and stormy night."), inspirational quotes, anything good for getting out of a slump.

If you aren't caring about your friends, I think it's heartless. If someone dies, and you don't know them, it's normal to not really feel any loss. You can't lose what you never had. But if you have a friend who is upset over the death, and you're not caring about that friend, then to me, that [i]is[/i] heartless. And even then, it's normal to not feel "loss," but I would hope that as humans we all have some universal sympathy that lets us care when someone is hurting. For instance, my English teacher's father died not too long ago, and many of his students went to visit him (our teacher) at the funeral. It wasn't that we even knew the deceased, but that we cared about our teacher, and could sympathize or empathize with the loss of a loved one. So I didn't feel too broken up about the man having died, but I felt sad because Mr. Walker was having a hard time. But [b]DaSilva[/b], you might just want to keep quiet about not caring when a friend's loved one dies. It's plain rude to say, "I like you and all, but I really don't care if your grandma's dead."

I just ordered my three-day pass for the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention, which is technically my first [i]con[/i]. I'm going to be there cosplaying as an FFIII white mage (specifically, Luneth). As far as I know, MTAC is the only anime convention in Tennessee. Someone at my school said it wasn't that great, but I'll be there as a white mage with an Anna Kyoyama and a Tenten and possibly a Haruhi Fujioka. Then in May there's the Renaissance Festival in Triune, and I always go to that. Hopefully I'll be able to go in costume here, too. I'm probably going as a peasant who can have an outfit made of cotton. Long sleeves of satin in Tennessee when it's almost summertime do not make for a fun day. I also hope to see the ocarina seller again, because he is living bishie (excuse me for the fangirl moment) and he can play the ocarina really well. Hopefully my mom won't call him "Miss" this year. (You would think the fact that he wore an open shirt would have tipped her off, but he was really pretty with long hair). And there's the jousting. I love watching people riding horses while trying to knock each other down with long sharp objects. Also, there's a My Little Pony convention in Memphis, I believe it is, this summer, and hopefully I'll be going to that with two of my friends. I'm not that pony-crazy, but my friends are, and I'll have fun just because of their enthusiasm.