Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Another Year Older

I'm now nineteen years, twenty three hours and forty five minutes old, aproximately. At least as I wrote that sentence. What a bizarrely accurate person I am...

I meant to blog on V-Day, but I couldn't have been arsed explaining why I don't like the idea of a day to celebrate love. Why only one day? Why do people think Hallmark needs more money? If you want to show someone you care, don't just wait for February 14. Okay, end micro rant.

I turned nineteen yesterday. Normally I look upon my birthdays with disdain. I'm supposed to be like Peter Pan, not growing older. Andy Walker suggested I couldn't quite get the green tights to work... he's right. The closest I ever got to green tights were purple leggings for drama. And they weren't comfortable. No wonder I'm nineteen.

The day was... well, the day was mostly boring, but the night was fun. I'll start with the boring day, which does have some interesting, and therefore redeeming, points in it. Started like every other day that I'm not in college or work - I awoke earlier than I planned to. I knew it was my birthday, and I was so tempted to stay in bed for another hour.. or three, even though it was eight in the morning. Or maybe that was just when I got out of bed. I might have had that neccessary lie in afterall.

Parents room; it's the first place we have to go to together (Conor and I... being twins and all that jazz). I had my breakfast beforehand. Crunchie Nut Cornflakes if you must know. Boring. Then we got our presents. The grand list of gifts will be posted later, so I won't bore you with the details now. I'll just move swiftly onwards, with the mention of only one present - Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, from Conor.

I read the first chapter in its entirity yesterday. Finished the second a few minutes ago. But the first one... that did something to me. It's started this Life Affirming Transformation within me that I can't ignore. It's taught me to look at ideas differently. See, I write Sci-Fi best, so long as it's Heroes type Sci-Fi, and not Star Trek Sci-Fi. I don't write outer space, or even alien worlds. I write people, and I write them with abilities.

Back in November, I did NaNoWriMo. I had a wonderful scene of silence and flashing lights and a deep emotional outburst by my protagonist. It was amazing. I know that myself. Visually, in my head, imagining this scene, it was heaven. The book around it, though, is classified Epic Fail.

But the scene... Russell T Davies, in his discussion of a character that never existed, taught me a lesson about Context. My ideas can be recycled into something I like, something useful, something Sci-Fi, if I really want them to. That scene with the silence has brought about a character. I might change the sex. I might change the sexual orientation, just to try something different. (Yes, this means a gay character). But it's not a person who slots easily into The Jump. Not in the cycle of books already floating around in my head. It's a standalone novel, based on The Jump. It's actually the second idea of its kind for The Jump, after a few minutes on... I think it was Wednesday.. or Thursday... sometime last week anyway... where was I? Yeah, after a few minutes of planning, thinking, plotting, I came up with a Heroine for her own novel.

While reading chapter two of the book today, I might add, I got an idea for a third book of this kind. A darker book. Much darker. It's not a lovely dovy one like the first, or a Holy Cow What the Hell is Happening I'm Weird Enough story, like the second. This is more of a What the Hell Did I Do Why Do I Care and What Can I Do to Make Things Easier on Myself kind of story. Yeah, all of that. And it won't even be written in the normal style. I'm thinking letters. Letters. Fantastically strange to write, because the reader will never know the fate of the character, despite the first person nature of the book. It's going to be Deep Psychological Shizz. (I say Shizz, because I don't like swearing).

Anyway, back to the birthday. See, we spent the rest of the day getting ready for the night. We had a party, you see. We had loads of friends over, lots of food, and we still ordered six large pizzas. There was music playing and people talking, lots of laughing, some crazy dancing, lots of photographs being taken, and some pretty wicked gifts that I wasn't expecting anyone to have to get. And four gatecrashers, who I'd felt guilty about not inviting.

In the end, I had a sugar crash, and I was surprised to wake up in time to see my parents leave for the West... at lunch time. Yeah, I really thought I'd sleep that long.

Now, the presents. I'm going to make a list. It's been a while since I did that.
  • Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale - Book
  • Heroes Season 3 - DVD Box Set
  • Fringe Season 1 - DVD Box Set
  • Doctor Who: The Complete Specials - DVD Box Set
  • Al Pacino DVD Box Set
  • Up - DVD
  • How Not to Write a Novel - Book
  • Jordan: Pushed to the Limits - Book (I kid you not!!)
  • The Secret History - Book
  • A Lynx set
  • Doctor Who figurines - The Doctor, Damaged Dalek Thal, Human-Dalek Sek, Pig Guard (from Daleks in Manhatten)
  • A t-shirt with "Happy 19th Birthday Paul" written on it
  • Another t-shirt, the kind not written on with t-shirt marker
  • Two pairs of funky socks
  • Three bottles of varying drinks, non-alcoholic
  • A bag of sweets (candy, for American readers)
  • A lolli-pop
  • A bag of cookies that cannot be eaten... physically cannot be eaten
  • A box of Cadbury Heroes
  • An Eason giftcard
  • A HMV giftcard
  • Various amounts of money from friends and relatives
  • Love

That last one is my favourite. Everyone gave that. Even people on Twitter who "don't really know me." It made my day.

So, there you go. That blog took half an hour to write. That's longer than I intended to spend writing it. I hope you're happy... (Nah, I don't mind. Really, I love it)

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