Why Do I Suck?

For years, I've been reading romantic (teen) fiction, and wondering: why can't I write like these amazing writers whose stuff I'm reading?  Some of these women really hit it out of the park every time, and I have to try so hard to remind myself that I've written good passages, too!  Of course, in terms of mechanics, I feel I'm streets ahead of these gals; grammar, syntax, spelling, vocabulary: I can do all that with both hands tied behind my back.   (Not really really.)

Well, I've had a sad epiphany: there's been hardly any teen drama when I was in school.  My school days were a lot like I described in Yraid: I despised most of my classmates, and had a few unrequited crushes on some others.  It wasn't fun.  It wasn't terrible, either; I just drifted along, imagining being in love with various people—you know how that goes!  (Actually, Helen was invented for that purpose!)  But, like I said, all the juicy stuff got taken out, because, well, it was too embarrassing!  If I had to do it all over again, I'd leave the junk in. 

Kay

Galactic Voyager

I had never noticed before how pompous that title sounded!  Most scifi titles do tend to be a little on the grandiose side.  Not really grandiose; impressive, really.  SciFi aficionados wouldn't notice anything that wasn't on an impressive scale!

I still remember writing this story—again, in chunks—but I specifically remember introducing the character of Lena!  I love kids, and Lena is one of the children whom I adored the most.  (Lena and Summer were created together, and they're both wonderful characters.  If I were a good artist, I'd try to draw Summer; Lena is a little too much of a perfect child, but Summer, I should be able to manage.  She was a thin-ish, shapeless kid, always dressed in a TShirt, and jeans and a jeans jacket, grey eyes, dirty blonde, blonde eyebrows that disappeared into her bangs, a short bob hairstyle.)

Helen started a choir on the ship.  Over the winter break (they created winter on the ship, by reducing the number of hours the heating and lighting was on) they were rehearsing choral numbers in the early morning.  Here's a paragraph describing it:

Summer was in the chorus, though Lena had been deemed a little too young to take the grueling schedule of rehearsals. She didn’t care; she sang along softly as she waited for her friend, all arms and legs and hair. Her hair was long now, a chestnut mane of straight, silky stuff that everyone loved to play with. Little girls often braided it and re-braided it, while Lena blissfully sang.

The words blissfully sang just puts me back into a special place in my mind, where I was when I was writing this chapter; I think I had just realized what a marvelous creation Lena was.  I could not have imagined how her character would develop; Helen and Lena are both major strands in the story.

So is Summer; so is Lena's mother, Daisy, and so are Sheila Connors, and her family!

If any of you had tried to read the story, but been discouraged by the introduction, go find the place where Helen is revived, and start reading there; I give you full permission!

Kay Kay, Kay.

Flowershop Girl

She's once again running away with the statistics (which means 'stats').  I'm going to put on a nominal charge for it. 

Kay

Serious Aspects of the Helen Story Sequence

Of course, the musical parts of the Helen stories are serious; in fact the whole story is serious.  In each story, though—and I didn't set out to have it turn out this way, trust me—Helen slowly matures.  I had noticed that Helen was a big baby, in the earlier stories, and tried to get her to be more responsible, and somehow it turned out that in each story, Helen was painfully learning to join the dots, and to take pleasure in the happiness of the people around her. 

I recently wrote a blog post over on the other blog ('Don't wait for the Movie') on the subject of adulting, and there were lots of references to the Helen stories, so I thought I may as well sort of cross-post that post over here.

Its title is Adulting.

K H B

Just Keeping in Touch

Actually, a lot happened today, most importantly, I watched the Barbie movie!  I have to let that sink in some, so I'll give you my take on it tomorrow. 

I was at my friend's just at meal time again, so I got to feed the pets!  The dogs were cute, as always, but the kitten was just so perfect!!!  There's nothing fancy, you know; you serve the food out, and the dogs just inhale it.  But the cat just slowly and deliberately eats it, but it's super cute!  Oh man; whoever invented cats needs to get some sort of reward!

Well, that's the other thing; the only pets that I noticed in 'Barbieland' were horses!  How stupid is that?  I suppose Mattel never made Barbie kittens, then?

See you tomorrow!

K

Sheila

Just read Flowershop Girl.  Somehow, I had deleted my own copy, so I had to (1) set the price to 0, (2) go back on the Smashwords website, (3) actually buy the story—which should have been free to me, as the author— (4) download it, and read it.  There's one more step: (5) set the price to what it was.  I'll do it tomorrow!

Sheila, the Flowershop Girl, is just such a 💓!  (What's that emoji?  I should read all the available emoji research ...)  In addition to Sheila and Helen, the story also colors in Lorna's personality a lot!

Kay.

Just an Update

Well, I took a peek at the downloading statistics, and I was struck by the fact that two copies of Helen at the Beach was downloaded on three consecutive days, which has never happened before!  The word is getting out, at least about that story.  It's a story about a love pentagon, not even a love triangle; all these people continue to be important characters (they would have been even importanter, if I hadn't purged some references to some of them.)  I think I can guess what the attraction is, in this book, but let it pass. 

I do not condone Helen-like morals or behavior; I think, at that time, I just couldn't resist.  Writing about Merit had got my libido fired up!  If ever you find yourself wanting to do something libidinous, just go into retreat, and write a story about it. 

K.