mollyNot that I need an excuse to blow shit off, but blogging (re: my lack of) has taken a back seat to this whole novel-writing thingy. I go to sleep thinking about my Other World and my People. I wake up all itchy to know what’s happening with them.

Kinda like when I was in college and got all obsessed with this sim game (alright, YES, it was SimCity bc I am a hundred years old) and I nearly flunked out on account of being busy making my fake citizens happy.

But my Other World isn’t the result of a programmer’s algorithm, and my People are more real than any dumb avatar. And also *sigh* I love my People. #getalife #unstablewriter #pathetic

The story’s about this teen girl living in the small-ish + isolated town of Soldotna, Alaska. That’s where I grew up. Some of you grew up there, too, and IF/WHEN you read this book you’ll be all, “That’s not how it is/was in Soldotna.”

But that’s what’s great about making up my Other World and my People.  I get to fictionalize the hell out of things, and sometimes that means reconstructing the place I remember experiencing vs. the actual town.

It’s 1990. The girl is all twisted up about big things like sex and death and college. But also small things like kissing and Big Gulps and her bangs and hottubbing and dipnetting.

Notice there are more small things. But they SEEM big to here. Like how in The Breakfast Club (one of my favorite movies) everybody’s problems are SO SERIOUS. I mean, Anthony Michael Hall’s character was ready to off himself over a lamp. Which if you’ve seen the movie, totally makes sense. John Hughes brilliantly captured the young adult experience, so in his honor, I am going to treat you to a bit of fabulous dialogue from this excellent movie:

Claire Standish: Look, I’m not going to discuss my private life with total strangers.

Allison Reynolds: It’s kind of a double-edged sword isn’t it?

Claire Standish: A what?

Allison Reynolds: Well, if you say you haven’t, you’re a prude. If you say you have you’re a slut. It’s a trap. You want to but you can’t, and when you do you wish you didn’t, right?

Claire Standish: Wrong.

Allison Reynolds: Or are you a tease?

Andrew Clark: She’s a tease.

Claire Standish: I’m sure. Why don’t you just forget it.

Andrew Clark: Oh, you’re a tease and you know it. All girls are teases.

John Bender: She’s only a tease if what she does gets you hot.

Claire Standish: I don’t do anything.

Allison Reynolds: That’s why you’re a tease.

So anyway, I’m REALLY excited to finish the full draft of my novel. I’ve been working on this thing for THREE YEARS. That’s like an eternity. That’s more than the lifespan of your average rodent. That’s like all of high school for people who went tenth thru twelfth grade.

This project has taken every ounce of focus, determination, and deep thought that my hamster-wheel brain could turn out (FYI: extending that rodent image here), and I’m ready to be done.

But I’m not quite there yet.

My deadline is my thesis deadline: April 30. From now until then I’m gonna be tuned to the Novel Channel all the time, and though I’m fairly certain every writer in the history of bookwriters would, if given the opportunity, blabber on about writing and the challenges and blah blah blah, which would get boring…THIS IS ALL I GOT.

To clarify: I will be talking (a lot) more about The Novel.

Good day.

P.S. I’d like to cut my hair like Molly Ringwald’s in The Breakfast Club. I could totally resurrect that style, right?

breakfastclub

SimcityP.P.S Thinking about SimCity makes me want to start a city again. Maybe I have a god complex. And an unhealthy affinity for sim games.