gryffindorseeker's imagination journal.

a famous person once said that you should celebrate new challenges. if this is true, i'm going to party like it's 1999, because Life has dealt me some pretty challenging cards as of late!

challenge #1: my beautiful, 2-year-old MacBook has finally kicked the bucket. due to a lack of expendable funds, i do not foresee a time when i will have a functional computer again. (or at least one with a working hard drive.) this is one (major) reason why fanfic updates have taken so long and i've been so m.i.a. (not the singer, but congrats to her on her baby!) around the forums. i must say, thank goodness for friends' computers and public libraries!

challenge #1a: not having a computer has also complicated the responding to reviews process. i've fallen quite behind, admittedly, and i can't promise that i'll catch up soon. i'm prioritizing the next chapter of We Gryffies, which i hope everyone understands, but i will respond to every review eventually. it goes without saying that i love getting feedback on my writing, and i really appreciate everyone who takes the time to leave a review. i've always seen responding to reviews as a gesture of gratitude to you kind folks, and that gratitude is coming, albeit later than is ideal.

challenge #2: i'm a college student (or "university" student, to those of you in Britain or Commonwealth countries) so i find myself very busy with schoolwork and social engagements. i still work on We Gryffies whenever i can, but i sort of have to prioritize studying and such. i still think about the gryffies, like, all the time, and oddly enough almost always when i'm in the shower. (not in a weird way. the scent of shampoo just inspires me, okay?) so i have almost all the remaining chapters plotted out in my head, and the challenge is finding the time to write everything down.

challenge #3: i'm working on an original novel! well, i'm sort of co-writing it with my brother (he had the initial idea for the story) but i've taken over the bulk of the writing of the narrative. "but what about your fanfiction?" i hear you ask. well, it's really my priority when it comes to unscholarly writing, but whenever i have writer's block for We Gryffies i turn to my original work, and that sort of helps. if you care, it's a historical/political thriller set in an alternate universe where there's a successful communist revolution in the United States during the Great Depression. it's sort of like Brave New World meets A Clockwork Orange meets Star Wars, except with communism. don't worry, it will never be published because it's kind of horrible, but it's the very first time i've let my friends and my brother read any of my fiction, so that's kind of a big deal.

so these are the challenges i will celebrate! hmm, what else is new with me? i jumped up and down when Slumdog Millionaire won all those Oscars, i'm listening to "You're the Best Around" from The Karate Kid, and i'm reading James Joyce's Ulysses. so i'm pretentious, but not too bad, because my vice is obviously 80's music.

and since i probably won't blog within the next 12 days, happy st. patrick's day! oh, and my half birthday is in 2 days, and in my imaginary canon, James II's birthday is in 10 days. i love the month of march.

hi guys! i'm so sorry that i've been m.i.a. for so long - i've been so mad crazy busy that i haven't been able to update, which sucks. unfortunately, we gryffies ch. 24 is only about 30% done, which is not news you want to hear, but i swear i'm doing the best i can with the tornado of crazy that is my life right now. you've all been so patient and i thank you for that, and i think you'll find the final product to your liking. it will also be an extremely long chapter.

i suck for not updating, duh, but i've been slaving away on this screenplay for school and i kinda like it. i mean, i want to finish it and submit it to some hollywood studio that will immediately reject it, but hearing their criticism (a.k.a. "coverage") would be cool. it is tentatively titled "pygmalion: a documentary" and at least the kids in my class like it. here's a snippet of act one:

SALADIN: Yeah, 'cause the defenders won't know what hit 'em when they realize that Jack's a girl!

The guys begin laughing uproariously, except for Rob and, of course, Jack. Jack appears mildly perturbed while Rob is irritated by their insurrection.

HAT-TRICK PATRICK (to Saladin): Salad, who the hell has ever mistaken Jack for a girl? Come on!

L'IL TIMMY: Yeah, she's man-er than the rest of you jerkfaces!

HAT-TRICK PATRICK (to L'il Timmy): SILENCE FROSH! L'il Timmy, you look like a Keebler elf preparing for his bar mitzvah.

ROB: On that note, I declare practice to be officially over. Get a good night's rest on Sunday and I'd rather you didn't but if you must, cocaine. Uppers, not downers.

it's about a girl named jack (after famous cellist jacqueline du pré), her henry higgins-esque friend rob (after cold warrior robert mcnamara), and their comrades with funny names.

so i failed NaNoWriMo, but i did end up with a 40,000 word piece of mediocrity masquerading as a novella. it was a good experience and i learned many valuable lessons, at any rate.

[edit: i posted a lengthy tidbit from the upcoming wg chapter on my hpff forums blog. it's here, or if the link doesn't work, it's entitled Hello Blogosphere. and it's in the general list thing.]

fuck it, i know i just blogged a few days ago, but this warrants its own post.

'Arrested Development' film gets closer, says The Hollywood Reporter.


squee!!

The "Arrested Development" feature has moved closer to reality, with Mitch Hurwitz and Ron Howard reportedly closing deals for the long-gestating project from Imagine and Fox Searchlight.

reportedly closing deals?? and mitch hurwitz is going to write the screenplay and maybe direct with help from ron howard???

oh happy day!! finally, FINALLY, the arrested development movie is moving from myth to reality! if (when?) this unquestionably prolific film hits theaters, i am going to scream and squeal and giggle like a twilight fangirl every time jason bateman comes onscreen and when george-michael and maeby inevitably kiss and when tobias pulls his analrapist stocking over his head! (note: that's anahlrapist, a contraction of analyst/therapist)

considering that they've already had charlize theron, ben stiller, liza minelli, carl weathers, henry winkler, et al., i wonder what famous hollywood stars they'll get to co-star in the movie!

let's play "guess what movie roger ebert is reviewing!"

Should a woman fall in love with a man because he desires her so much? Men seem to think so. It's not about the woman, it's about the man's desire. [...] [At its core, this movie is] about two good-looking kids who want each other so much because they want each other so much. Sometimes that's all it's about, isn't it? They're in love with being in love.

while you mull it over, watch this video of suburban youths hurling compliments at pedestrians:



that was dickishly charming. okay, ready to hear the title of the mystery movie?

twilight. but roger does concede that the movie is "lush and beautiful" and well-cast, and that robert pattinson "is not unaware of how handsome he is."

it's official: everyone has jumped on the "r.pattz is smexy" bandwagon except me.

i know i rag on twilight a lot and i genuinely don't want to offend anyone, what with its small and generally dispassionate fan base,* but this franchise is EVERYWHERE and it's driving me CRAZY. maybe i love to hate twilight as much as bella & edward love to love each other, but roger's first quote sums up what i don't like about the story. that and its racist portrayl of native americans. (to be fair, twilight does better than pocahontas. have i ranted about how disney brainwashes kids with its racist and misogynistic agendas, in addition to taking all of the cool violence out the films based on fairy tales and all of the fact out of those based upon history?)

in other news, we gryffies will probably be pushed further back because i won't even be able to begin writing it until mid to late december. i know i suck and that this post is just full of happy thoughts, but i presume you'd all prefer honesty to false promises. also, i'm having a rare "i hate the world" sort of day. later, biznitches.

*tee hee, that's meiosis!†
†and that's sarcasm!‡
‡which is original!§
§now i'm just being obnoxious.‖
‖shame on you if you didn't catch the dr. horrible reference.

dear log,

it is Day 11 of National Novel Writing Month (i.e. NaNoWriMo) and much to everyone's surprise, i have not quit yet. this is my first attempt EVER at an original piece of fiction and it's going almost well. in fact, the thing i like the least about my novel is its title (The Wicked Witch of West Hollywood) which i am thinking of replacing with something like Seurat's Monkey (which makes sense if you read the narrative, i promise). my NaNo page is here, if you want to friend me or laugh at my pitiful word count.

i am so sorry that i am so behind with answering reviews, i really am. please don't be offended if it takes me several weeks to respond to your review(s), but NaNo + school are both absolutely killing me right now. i think i have a decent track record of responding to reviews overall, so please bear with me during this masochistic month of november.

hmm, i don't have any fun stories to share, since NaNo sort of dominates your life by necessity. everyone seemed to like the story about my english teacher from a few posts ago, so i'll make a list of the many life lessons he has taught us. (we haven't learned as much about literature, sadly - he spent the first HOUR of yesterday's class on various tangents. they were entertaining, but the class is only an HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES long.)

13 life lessons i've learned in english class this semester:

1. your life is meaningless. there is no higher power, there is no afterlife, and karl marx was right when he said that "religion is the opium of the masses." (this went over REALLY well considering that 95% of my class is RELIGIOUS.)
2. all white people should feel guilty for the genocide of native americans and the rape of their culture. (this also went over well considering that 100% of my class is WHITE, including our TEACHER.)
3. never follow the directions for daily contact lenses - don't throw them out and wear them until they start to hurt or get sucked behind your eyeball. (you'll save a fortune!)
4. watch out for your australian buddy from graduate school - he is probably secretly dating your little sister and will probably marry her one day. (this was actually a cute story.)
5. suburbia is just an outlet for men to prove their masculinity, by having the greenest, most well-maintained lawn in the neighborhood. men are always trying to prove their masculinity.
   
6. a subaru outback wagon is not effeminate. not compared to a minivan.
7. bono and aragorn are the two ideals all men should aspire to.
8. you can never read ernest j. gaines's "a lesson before dying" too many times or feel too guilty for racism/segregation/slavery, if you are a white person.
9. if you want to make a woman fall in love with you, leave shakespearean sonnets in her mailbox. if this doesn't work, she is obviously a robot. (only 10% of our class is male, but i suppose that statistically, some of the girls are gay.)
10. if you want to make a woman think you're perverted, leave a copy of john donne's "the flea" in her mailbox. (personally, i prefer donne to shakespeare, but maybe i'm a perverted robot.)
11. there are three different kinds of moles, and all are bad.
12. don't buy your children toys. they will pick a stick they found in the woods over a store-bought toy every time.
13. the most effective way to kill the animal variety of mole is not by poison or guillotine, but by beating it with a stick.

and this guy isn't even the weirdest teacher i've ever had - far from it. see why i always write weird characters? either i'm surrounded by weird people, or just notice the weirdness more than other people do...