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ROW80: Close, but…

by Jennette,

The week started out well. I got a bit done on my short story revision each evening, saving the last–and longest–scene for Saturday. I also put off some of the other tasks until Saturday.

Of course, plans change. I’d planned to spend the afternoon with my mom, but forgot to take that into consideration when setting the week’s goals. And then we ended up spending the evening with friends, which I hadn’t planned for, sooooo…..

Anyway. Here’s what I did this week:

  • Read Lesson 12 of How to Think Sideways – no
  • Short story – revisions, first pass – almost! But not quite. Edit: finished around 12:30 this AM
  • Request beta reads for short story – partial – requested one.
  • Get It Together exercise 9 & 10 – no
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – ugh. No on this one, too. Just two intervals.
  • Format a friend’s book for print if she gets me what I need – didn’t get the back cover text so this goes over to next week.
  • Critique a chapter for another writing friend – Done!
  • Prepare another friend’s business cards for printer – Done!

Here are my goals for the quarter overall:

  • Work through Lesson 18 of How to Think Sideways – done through Lesson 10.
  • Complete Saturn Society short story – revision almost complete
  • Release Times Two (combined ebook of Time’s Enemy and Time’s Fugitive) – waiting until I get other projects done
  • Complete Get It Together exercises and data gathering – completed sections 3 – 8.
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts per week – ongoing
  • BONUS: Release Hangar 18: Legacy – Needs revision based on beta reads – waiting until I get other projects done
  • BONUS: Plot out and begin writing first book in new series
And here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:
  • Read Lesson 12 of How to Think Sideways (Lesson 11 is how to prepare a submission for traditional publishers – been there, done that, and I’m done with that, so I’m skipping it)
  • Short story – complete revisions – first pass and second
  • Request beta reads for short story
  • Get It Together exercise 9 & 10
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
  • Format a friend’s book for print if she gets me what I need

How are you doing, whether or not you’re doing ROW80? How do you recover when something changes your plans?

Edit: I wrote this at about 10:30 PM last night. After my husband went to bed, I wasn’t sleepy, so I stayed up and completed my revision pass! So even if it was after midnight, I’m going to go back and mark that one as done!

Why is it so Hard to Ask for Help?

by Jennette,

A couple weeks ago, I blogged about courting burnout. As writers, we face a lot of obstacles when it comes to getting the words on the page, massaged into something worth reading, and out the door. Actually, this is true for many people, especially those who work multiple jobs (I consider writing a second job), have kids of an age that require a lot of hands-on attention, or have a time-consuming hobby. More often than not, it seems there just aren’t enough hours in a day.

A little help makes a career – and other things! – grow

Go long enough like that, and it gets stressful. To heap logs on the stress-fire, many writers get stressed out even more if they go for more than a few days without writing. It’s not a deadline issue, the not-writing in itself adds to the stress, making the writer like the can of pop that’s been left in the freezer too long.

One way to alleviate the not-enough-hours-in-the-day problem is to ask for help. When I got help on an issue I was having in my day job, this went a long way to reduce stress. My helper didn’t even end up doing anything; I was able to fix some of the problems, and others resolved themselves, but just knowing someone else was helping made all the difference.

At home when there’s too much to do and my family can see me getting stressed, they sometimes offer to help. Sometimes, there’s nothing they can do – the writing stuff, I have to do, and other tasks (typically involving computer work) fall outside of their technical capabilities. But I did have my daughter spend some time uploading photos to a client’s website, and it took a great load off, even though it only took her an hour. And yes, I paid her, since I was being paid for the work, a win-win.

So why is it so hard to ask for help?

I didn’t need to very often as a kid – my responsibilities mainly consisted of simple chores and getting my homework done. Occasionally, I needed help with math, and I had no problem asking my dad for help. But this was only occasional.

Maybe I never learned to ask for help.

Or it may have stemmed from my first “real” job. I was a one-woman art department for a building products manufacturing company. I worked in the marketing department, but I was the only graphic designer – everyone else was more focused on business-to-business sales. I had investigated professional organizations, but they really didn’t do anything for me. I didn’t have a professional network, seeing as this was my first job in the field. So there simply wasn’t anyone I could ask for for help.

I was also the only person in my company who used a Mac – back then, you couldn’t run professional-level graphic design programs on a Windows computer. For many years, no one in our IT department knew much about Macs, so I was on my own there, too. About a year before I left the company, they hired an IT guy who welcomed the challenge of working with my Mac. He helped me get the Mac online, which led to me learning HTML and making a career change. But at my next job – my first in web development –  I started out, once again, as the only person in the company with graphic design experience.

By then, my reluctance to ask for help was fully ingrained. I wanted to move more into the developer side of the business, because there wasn’t enough design work to keep me busy full-time. Also, the more I got into programming, the more I liked it. Some of my coworkers were glad to help when I had questions. But others would say, “that’s what we have programmers for,” like I was beneath that exalted status.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t try to figure out things on our own first – or at least search for answers on the web. Figuring it out ourselves is the best way to make what we’re learning stick. But when we’re spending too much time trying to find answers and not getting anywhere, it makes more sense – both for us, and for the company and clients who are paying us – to ask for help.

At that first job in software development, I gained several technical certifications and the respect of several of my coworkers. Management never saw me as anything other than a graphic artist who could do a bit of development. But at my next job, I was hired as a developer, and treated as an equal of the other developers. At that job and in my current one, I’m part of a team, and while I might sometimes spend more time than I should trying to figure out something on my own, I have great resources on which to call for help.

It’s still hard to do, but I think I’m getting better.

What about you? Do you have a hard time asking for help? Why do you think that is? Or if not, do you have any suggestions for us recovering holdouts?

Photo by fotolia.com via Microsoft Office Clipart

Misfit Monday: Running with the Big Dogs… or Not

by Jennette,

If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch (or the couch)… or so the old saying goes.

I have a confession to make. My husband runs with the big dogs (heck, he’s one of ’em).

I’m the one on… well, maybe not the old wooden rocker, but on the porch swing, or maybe one of those cheap plastic resin chairs.

Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee

Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My husband went to the NASCAR race in Bristol, Tennessee this weekend. He went with three friends, two of whom were women.

I was happy to stay home.

For starters, I haven’t been real fond of camping since the time my family went to Put-in-Bay up on Lake Erie, and it rained all freakin’ weekend. The older I get, the less appeal “roughin’ it” has for me. But the kicker is that at Bristol – probably any NASCAR race – the campground is nothing but party central, all weekend long, with the main activity being the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol.

I have nothing against drinking, as long as one’s not doing something stupid, like driving. But I’ve always been a lightweight, and that too, has become more the case as I get older. A couple drinks is enough for me, because the older I get, the less alcohol it takes to make me feel really bad.

On Friday night, my husband was pounding beer, moonshine, jello shots, and who knows what as he wandered around the campground being his sociable self. I worked on my short story.

On Saturday morning, my husband wanted someone to shoot him. I worked on my short story. 😀

When I was in college, staying in on the weekend to do something like write or – gasp! – study, maybe! – made you a nerd, and not in a cool, Revenge 0f the Nerds kind of way. After I graduated college, being single and staying home on the weekend meant you were a loser. (Well, that is if you actually cared what anyone else thought – which most of the time, I didn’t.) Only when you had young children did it become acceptable to stay in on the weekends – because the kid(s) provided an excuse. By the time my daughter was old enough not to need a babysitter, I was okay with admitting to other people that I’m not a partier, and staying in when I want. Which is most of the time, unless I’m going out with my husband.

Once my husband got “the hair of the dog” and some food in him on Saturday, he felt better and enjoyed the race. He used some restraint in partying Saturday night, because he and his friends were planning to leave early Sunday morning for the trip home. And overall, he had a great time.

I finished making revision notes on my short story, plus got a bunch of other stuff taken care of. I had a great day, too!

What about you? Do you run with the dogs, or stay on the porch? And if the latter, how long did it take you to stop caring if you were uncool?

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ROW80: Catch-up Day

by Jennette,

When I was a kid, I didn’t like Sundays very much, because they were boring. Even in college, at least starting out, I wasn’t crazy about weekends because I wasn’t a partier. My attitude on this changed by the time I graduated, and once I entered the work world and got a social life, I’m all for weekends.

For those of us with a traditional 8-5, Monday-Friday paycheck job, weekends are when we catch up on stuff around the house, spend time with family, and maybe once in a while, get to spend time with friends or do something fun just for us.

And once in a great while, we get a little gift of pure blessing: a day when we don’t have to go anywhere or do anything other than what’s on our own agenda.

I hardly ever get those days. But yesterday, I did, and I totally cranked on my ROW80 goals! Here’s what I did this week:

  • Work through Lesson 10 of How to Think Sideways – Done. There wasn’t much to do beyond reading, in relation to my current WIP
  • Print out short story and do initial read-through for revisions – Done!
  • Get It Together exercise 7 & 8 – Done!
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – Done!
  • Format a friend’s book for print – Done, as much as I can until she decides on what trim size she wants and gets me back cover copy, etc.

Here are my goals for the quarter overall:

  • Work through Lesson 18 of How to Think Sideways – done through Lesson 10.
  • Complete Saturn Society short story – revision started!
  • Release Times Two (combined ebook of Time’s Enemy and Time’s Fugitive) – waiting until I get other projects done
  • Complete Get It Together exercises and data gathering – completed sections 3 – 8.
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts per week – ongoing
  • BONUS: Release Hangar 18: Legacy – Needs revision based on beta reads – waiting until I get other projects done
  • BONUS: Plot out and begin writing first book in new series
And here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:
  • Read Lesson 12 of How to Think Sideways (Lesson 11 is how to prepare a submission for traditional publishers – been there, done that, and I’m done with that, so I’m skipping it)
  • Short story – revisions, first pass
  • Request beta reads for short story
  • Get It Together exercise 9 & 10
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
  • Format a friend’s book for print if she gets me what I need
  • Critique a chapter for another writing friend
  • Prepare another friend’s business cards for printer

How are you doing, whether or not you’re doing ROW80? Have you had a catch-up day lately? Are you someone who likes a day where you don’t have to go anywhere or do you get antsy staying home all day?

Look! Christmas can be Murder

by Jennette,

How? you might ask. Well, if you’re Taylor Gressman, and you inadvertently go back in time a couple decades, you might find yourself in the midst of the Christmas Killings, the worst killing spree in Dayton’s history. The killers, four of whom were caught and convicted, murdered six people between December 23 and 26 in 1992 for little more than a few bucks, a pair of shoes, and a jacket.

No one’s ever accused me of being too nice to my characters.

This is the premise of my upcoming short story, “Time’s Holiday,” and urban fantasy author Debra Kristi gave me the perfect opportunity to introduce it by tagging me in the LOOK! meme (Thanks, Debra!).

The rules are pretty simple. Just do a search for the word “look” in your work-in-progress, and paste it in with the surrounding paragraph or two. Then, of course, you get to tag others. First, a little bit of “Time’s Holiday:”

She opened her eyes to find a blond girl about her age staring at her from across the small… bedroom, she guessed, although there wasn’t any furniture. The worn carpet beneath her head was an indeterminate grayish-brown, and riddled with what looked like cigarette burns. The drywall above the blond girl’s shoulder was cracked, and someone had punched a hole through it just above her head. “Where…” Taylor began. She swallowed, her mouth dry. “Where am I?”

The girl half-shrugged. “Bill’s place.”

Taylor tried to shake off the lethargy. “Where’s… that?”

The girl cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t remember coming here? Man, you must’ve gotten some strong stuff.”

Taylor struggled to brace a hand on the floor. Had she been drugged? Finally, she pushed herself up. As she caught her breath, she looked down.

She still wore her black peacoat, her frilly black skirt billowing from beneath it. Her granny boots remained laced on her feet. A tiny, red hair clip shaped like a buttefly lay beside her. She lifted her hand to her head–ugh, why was it so hard?–and patted her hair. One of her ponytails had come out. And she realized that the girl across the room wasn’t blurry, so she still had her glasses on. “I…” Taylor stared at her hands. “No, I don’t remember.” The last thing she remembered was going to Courthouse Square to look for her angel, then some bum handing her a flyer…

Thanks again, Debra, for the tag!

image from Microsft Clip Art (office.microsoft.com)And now I get to tag people. I’ll just do a few, since I’d love to get a taste of what these authors are working on:

If you don’t have time or something ready to share, no worries!

My goal with “Time’s Holiday”  is to give those who’ve already read the Saturn Society books a fun glimpse into a minor character’s backstory, while piquing the interest of those who haven’t read the books.

On another note, when I did my search, the word “look” or a variation of it appeared24 times in 23 pages. Too much? What do you think? Do you like holiday stories? Is this too gruesome a topic for one (there’s no on-the-page violence)? While it isn’t the swee goodness and light that many holiday stories are full of, it does have its moments of Christmas cheer and goodwill.

My Town Monday: The Road, Nature, and History

by Jennette,

Last Thursday, I blogged about courting burnout, and some things I did in an effort to alleviate it.

One of those things was to take time out to play. I’d only ridden my Harley twice all summer, which my husband had been giving me shit about. Part of the reason is because it’s just been too darn hot for much of the summer – riding in that is like pointing a blow dryer into your face. In other words, not much fun. But even when I had decent weather, it seemed I always had too much to do.

So I decided to blow it all off and ride. This is what my husband does to blow off stress – just hop on the bike and see where the road takes you.

The road took me up north of Dayton, to Huber Heights, and to Carriage Hill and Metropark. The park is a goodly swath of green land and undeveloped, uncultivated, natural prairie; hiking and horse trails; and picnic areas. It’s also home to Carriage Hill Farm, a historically-accurate, operating 1880s-era farm.

I remember going there on field trips more than once during my elementary school days. Mostly what I remember about it was the farm animals — sheep, horses, cattle, pigs, and chickens. It was a great experience for any suburban or city schoolkid. There were a lot of things there now that weren’t when I was in school – the surrounding park, for one, and also the restored windmill, and a separate museum building and store. I’m pretty sure they also didn’t have the functional steam-thresher, which people were demoing that day and was pretty cool!

I took my time just wandering around the place. Although I have to confess: I took a few pictures, so it wasn’t 100% not-work. But it was fun and relaxing, and that’s what counts. Also, I got to enjoy three of my favorite things: the road, nature, and history!

Does your hometown have anything like this, where city and suburban folks can learn about history and farm life? Have you done anything to just get away and have fun lately?

 

Click any of the photos below to see a slideshow.

ROW80: I’m Back!

by Jennette,

I ‘m back from my much-needed, thankfully-brief break.

Between a quick trip to Chicago and courting burnout, I did not accomplish very much, writing-wise, the last couple of weeks. My to-do list was overflowing and overwhelming, and even if I’d decided to ditch the to-do list, it still would have been lingering mentally. So taking a little time off from posting goals seemed the better option.

And it paid off. After venting a little bit, I ended up getting quite a bit done these past couple of weeks:

  • Finished first draft of short story
  • Got three interval workouts and two short workouts in last week, two intervals and two shorter workouts this past week
  • Picked up my new author photos from my photographer – very happy! I’ve begun updating my online profiles with the new headshot. Some of you may have seen it.
  • Finished web design/copywriting side job and uploaded to client’s web host
  • Finished several projects promised to friends – a book cover design, a business card design, and started on print formatting for another friend. These are all things I’m doing in exchange for editing, beta reads, etc.

Here are my goals for the quarter overall:

  • Work through Lesson 18 of How to Think Sideways – haven’t made much progress on this lately – need to pick back up.
  • Complete Saturn Society short story for holiday anthology – first draft done!
  • Release Times Two (combined ebook of Time’s Enemy and Time’s Fugitive) – waiting until I get other projects done
  • Complete Get It Together exercises and data gathering – haven’t made much progress on this either – will get back into it this week.
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts per week – ongoing
  • BONUS: Release Hangar 18: Legacy (Got it back from last beta reader – t’s going to need a lot of edits.)
  • BONUS: Plot out and begin writing first book in new series
And here’s what I hope to accomplish this week:
  • Work through Lesson 10 of How to Think Sideways
  • Print out short story and do initial read-through for revisions
  • Get It Together exercise 7 & 8
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
  • Format a friend’s book for print (this is a beta reader – she’s helped me; this is how I’ll return the favor)

How are you doing, whether or not you’re doing ROW80?

Burnout: Better than Fading Away?

by Jennette,

Monday was the second time I’ve missed a blog since I started over a year ago.

I had time to write a post the day before. I decided to play computer games instead.

My brother, in our dad’s old Camaro. Unfortunately, this is not the kind of burnout I’m talking about.

I had a topic lined up. Between a motorcycle I’d ridden only twice all summer, and this post by Kristen Lamb, I knew I needed a “play” break, and I took a nice ride Saturday to do just that. And wound up taking photos to go with a My Town Monday blog post. But honestly, it was a play break.

But when it came down to it, I Just. Didn’t. Want to.

When I am not sitting at my computer at a place where I can write a blog, I have all kinds of great ideas. If it’s something new, I note it on my Blog Ideas document on my phone, which gets backed up to Dropbox and is always available on my computer. But when I’m not at my computer in a place where I can write a blog, I also get great words for said blogs. Then I go home and when I am sitting at my computer, I Just. Don’t. Want to.

So this week I didn’t.

I’ve been having this kind of blah feeling way too often. It’s been bad all summer, and I don’t think it’s a “summertime blues” thing. It’s not just blogging, either. It’s the day job (which I like!), other things around home, and even writing fiction. No motivation to do anything!

A lot of times when I’m trying to figure out what to do in a case like this, I ask myself what would I tell a friend who told me these things.

In this case, I would ask her, could she be depressed?

But I have not been feeling sad. Just unmotivated – to do anything – and tired, both physically and mentally.

One thing I have managed to do this summer is to (mostly) keep up with exercise. I do three interval workouts on the treadmill every week, plus a couple of shorter workouts doing things like pushups, crunches, lunges, etc. The main reason I started was because I hoped it would help me be less tired.

It hasn’t helped noticeably. (I get to read on the treadmill, so that helps keep me motivated.)

Then I read this blog by Louise Behiel and saw myself all over it. I took the quiz linked from the blog, and the results did not surprise me.

I’m heading toward burnout.

It’s not my job – at least, not by itself.

It’s not the writing – I haven’t been doing that much of it.

It’s not the social media – I’ve cut way back on that, feeling this whole burnout thing coming on.

It’s the combination.

At work, I have one project where the client keeps having one problem after another with a web application my team developed (and I am currently the sole developer on). None of these problems appeared during testing, and I haven’t been able to reproduce them outside of his installation. But I’ve seen the issues, and it’s incredibly frustrating on many counts. I take a lot of pride in my day job work, and I take it personally when I can’t meet a client’s expectations, even when it’s no fault of my own. The client’s been great to work with – really, very understanding through all of this – and I hate letting people down, especially people I like. And, I know how frustrating it is to not be able to do my job because of something stupid like computer problems that are out of my control, and I hate it that my product is putting my client into that situation.

At home and with the writing, I have the age-old too much to do, not enough time to do it.

But like Louise’s post said, burnout is not a fun place to be, so I had to do something about it – three things, in fact:

1. At work, I asked for help, something I have a very hard time doing. The areas of the application where the problems occur are areas that aren’t in my main expertise, so hopefully my colleagues will be able to figure out something I wasn’t able, and I can move on to other things that will help my client.

2. At home, I’m making a concerted effort to focus on one thing at a time – and when I’m done, go ahead and play computer games.

I also got a call from my doctor yesterday with some news that surprised me: I have borderline hypo-thyroidism. After further discussion, we decided to just test again in six weeks or so to see if it’s still low, rather than jump into medication right away. It’s not low enough to necessarily have noticeable effects, but then again it could be adding to my tiredness. So #3 is, check to see if there’s a physiological cause.

What about you? Are you, or have you come close to burnout? What did/are you doing about it?

Weird Things We Love: Lolita Fashion

by Jennette,
two gothlolitas

Two Goth Lolitas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, as mentioned on my Monday post, the car trip to Chicago didn’t start out with The Worst. Fanfic. Ever. The girls spent the first hour or so on the 3G tablet, surfing the web for com sales and checking out fashion.

I heard enough of my daughter and her one friend’s conversations during our France trip to know that this specifically refers to community sales – of Lolita fashions put up for sale by individuals, usually on LiveJournal pages.

I would never have heard of “Lolita fashion” if my daughter weren’t into it. To start with, it has nothing to do with Nabokov’s novel or creepy pedophiles with  schoolgirl fantasies. If anything, it’s on the opposite end of the spectrum in that Lolita fashions are very modest, Victorian-inspired dresses, skirts, blouses and accessories.

And let me point out here that the “weird” in “Weird Things We Love” should not be taken negatively, but rather in the spirit of things that are unusual or not mainstream. Originating in Japan, and popular with anime fans, Lolita fashions are (depending on one’s taste) beautiful, elegant garments, often hand-made, and made with high quality lace and trims. The fabric prints are a big deal, as many are custom-designed, limited editions. As someone who sews, it’s easy to see the care taken in the construction of the dresses, skirts and blouses – these won’t come apart in the wash (not that I’d put them in a regular washer!).

Sweet Lolitas em Harajuku

Sweet Lolitas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are three major sub-styles of Lolita fashion: goth, sweet, and classic.

Goth is, as one might guess, mostly black or dark colors, and is a blending of the overall Lolita look with goth. However, people who dress goth Lolita don’t do the extreme cosmetics, but keep toward a more mainstream look as far as makeup is concerned. The character Taylor Gressman in my books Time’s Enemy and Time’s Fugitive dresses in goth Lolita style.

Sweet Lolita is probably the most widely-recognized form of Lolita fashion. Its emphasis is on being not only pretty, but cute – and I mean extreme, saccharine cute in some cases. Sweet Lolita prints are typically stuff like cakes, cupcakes, and candy or puppies, kittens and unicorns. Pink is, of course, the quintessential sweet Lolita color; peach, baby blue, and mint green are also popular. Think cotton candy. A LOT of it.

Classic Lolita is somewhat of a cross between Goth and Sweet, with a more “mature” look and less in-your-face cuteness. I would consider the dress my daughter bought in Paris to be classic Loli, although the maker is technically considered sweet. Hence, one stop on our France trip that my daughter and her friend were most excited about: shopping at Baby the Stars Shine Bright.

BtSSB is one of the premier brands of Loli fashion, and like the others, is based in Tokyo, with stores in San Francisco and Paris. Going to the BtSSB store was a big highlight of the trip for my daughter and her friend, who’s also into Loli clothes.

Arriving at Baby, the Stars Shine Bright

What was even more exciting was when we went in the store, and she found a limited-edition print she’d seen online and was hoping she’d find: the Romeo and Juliet print.

Of course, she had to try it on.

The blouse was perfect – no small feat for my daughter, who’s pretty curvy. One thing nice about Lolita blouses and dresses is that they usually have a lot of shirring (or gathers), so that they’ll fit a wide range of sizes. Even cooler, many of the blouses – this one included – feature detachable sleeves, so they can be worn long- or short-sleeved.

The jumper was a bit tight around the bust, so we loosened the corset ribbons in the back and managed to zip it. Then one of the other girls in our group pulled the ribbons to tie them, and disaster struck: a tiny, delicate strip of lace broke.

The Romeo and Juliet dress

We had to buy the dress. At full price. Did I mention these are limited-edition, custom designed prints (and therefore, designer clothes)? My daughter assured me that if I could fix the lace (I could), she could re-sell it at home for at least what we paid for it, if not more. So she planned to get online with her own community page and find a buyer for her own “com sale.” We bought the dress with that plan, along with the blouse, which I said she could keep since she could wear it with anything.

The print features scenes and quotes from the play

When we got home, she tried on the dress again to show her dad. This time, she took the ribbons out altogether… and the dress fit!

He took one look and said “you’re not selling that.”

That dress was more than I’d paid for any dress before besides my wedding dress. But it turned out to be a happy accident, and hopefully something she’ll enjoy for many years. Just hope she doesn’t gain the Freshman 15 when she goes off to college!

Had you ever heard of Lolita fashions? What do you think of them?

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Misfit Monday: Worst. Fanfic. Ever.

by Jennette,

Last week, I took a break from the usual daily grind and minutiae of everyday life to take three teen girls to Chicago for a college visit. The trip went well, my daughter and her two friends had a great time (I did, too!), and we were impressed with DePaul University.

But one thing that will probably stand out in my mind most of all was the drive there and back.

It’s a 5-6 hour drive, depending on traffic and road construction. Add a 3G-enabled tablet and YouTube, and things get interesting.

For the first hour or so of the drive there, they surfed the web looking at fashion (more on this Thursday!). Then my daughter and her friend with the tablet discovered that their other friend (and I) and never heard of The Worst. Fanfic. Ever: My Immortal. So they needed to enlighten us. Now this is probably old news to many, but I hadn’t heard of it before, so for those who also haven’t, here it is:

English: Created by modifying this image Itali...

Photo credit: Wikipedia

My Immortal is (loosely-based) Harry Potter fan fiction, and was originally posted on fanfiction.net in 2006. (It was later removed, and that’s a whole story in itself.) It is an example of everything we’re taught not to do as writers, whether of fanfic or fiction featuring our own, original characters and worlds. It is so badly written that many have theorized that it’s not a real attempt at honest-to-goodness fanfic, but an intentional effort to write the Worst. Fanfic. Ever., much in the vein of  Atlanta Nights. Normally I would only discuss a book I don’t like in a “what can I learn from this” spirit, and do my best not to identify the book or author. But after having experienced My Immortal, I’m going with the Tara-is-a-troll theory.

We listened to the series of YouTube videos, narrated by an English guy. The best part was, he pronounced the misspellings phonetically, so we got to enjoy those, too. And boy, were there a lot of them – starting with the main character’s name.

This obvious Mary Sue character was a seventeen-year-old girl named Ebony Dark’ness (sic) Dementia Raven Way – or sometimes, “Enoby.” Her main love interest was Draco Malfoy (or Darko), whom she’s excited to spot her first day at Hogwarts (and that pretty much sums up the first chapter). Some of the other characters keep their original names (or misspellings thereof) – Dumbledore is sometimes Dumblydore, Dumldeor, or Dumbledork; Professor McGonnagal is McGoggle, and Snape is sometimes Snope, Snoop, Snake, or Snap. Other characters have completely new names: Harry is “Vampire,” Ron Weasley is “Diabolo,” and Hermione is “B’loody (sic) Mary,” and they are all gothic, satanic vampires.

Most of the story’s “plot” – and I use the term loosely – consists of Enoby “doing it” with Drako, Vampyr, Snap, or Voldemort; going to see concerts by Good Charlotte or My Chemical Romance; and drawn-out descriptions of her “goffik” outfit (all of which were purchased at Hot Topic). There are frequent author intrusions (e.g., “if u dnot get this, then u r a prep!”), and each chapter begins with a hilarious “Author’s Note” that is usually something on the lines of “STOP FLAMMIN DA STORY” (sic) and threats not to post any more installments until a number of good reviews are received.

There’s effusive use of adverbs – people are always doing something “goffically” or “sexily,” and the only description is of characters’ eyes (usually a “goffik red”) and extensive descriptions of Enoby’s outfits (black leather miniskirt, ripped red fishnets, and “corset stuff”). There’s time travel, with a cameo appearance by “Morty McFli” of Back to the Future in his “tim machine” (sic)  that’s painted “blak” so as to be suitably gothic. There are anachronisms, like bands playing in the 80’s that didn’t exist until a decade or more later. There are logistical impossibilities, like Enoby stepping out of Drako’s flying Mercedes while it’s flying and walking away, or when two characters “talked to each other in silence.” While listening (I was driving part of the way, so I didn’t see the videos), I noticed there were many mentions of “one hundred and eleven” and sometimes, “eleven thousand, one hundred and eleven.” The kids explained that this was actually supposed to be exclamation points – many of them – that were typed without the shift key.

And… oh, the malapropisms! Here are a few of my favorites:

  • “Dumbledore had constipated the cideo camera they took of me naked.”
  • “Snap was spying on me and he was taking a video tape of me! And Loopin was masticating to it!”
  • “I had to do somefing more impotent”
  • Many times, the main character wants to “silt” her wrists
  • “Snap” frequently “laughed statistically”
  • She also mentions the time she “lost my virility”
  • One chapter starts with a warning in the author’s note: “Viower Excretion Advisd.”

Of course, there are also characters acting out of character, random insertion of other characters, characters appearing out of nowhere, clothes that were taken off (or rather, “of”) and never put back on, only to be taken “of” again in the next chapter, and general writing that looks more like text-message spelling than anything recognizable.

And then there are the sexytimes. I can’t type it, I’d be laughing so hard, so I’ll just leave it to you to read from the beginning, if you dare — or, in My Immortal style, “ef u dar.” Or, watch and listen to the same readings we did on YouTube. The commentary alone is worth it!

So what do you think? Could something this bad have possibly have been written unintentionally? Did you dare to read any of it – and if so, how long did it take you to stop laughing?

 

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