The Unexpected Wednesday

I've had a really insane day. Aside from the normal hectic-ness of classes and being in college, I've begun to rework not just scenes but entire chapters of The Decoder. Although I know it's all for the best, rewriting 3,000 words, while tweaking a lot, in one sitting is a lot to handle. I sort of underestimated how much would be changing. Speaking of which, I'm also considering changing the title of the first book and calling the series The Decoder Files, or something along those lines. That's a pretty big Maybe, though.

Kelsey and I have face problems, Homecoming 2010

While I was pondering all of that, I received a handful of really intense text messages. All at once. One of them was from my mom, saying that my younger sister was in the hospital and had broken her nose at cheerleading practice. My sister is only twelve, so I was freaking out and ended up spending a couple of hours with her in the ER. Her face was swollen and she looked like Quasimodo. Thankfully, it isn't a horrible break, and they'll be able to put it back in place.
There are four kids in my family, and out of all of us we never figured she'd be the one to have the first surgery. My brother and I have both had concussions, he's had whiplash and a sprained wrist, I've sprained my ankles too many times to count and  torn ligaments. This has all given me a pretty good catalog of injuries to reference, but I haven't been to a hospital in a really long time. So really, going to the hospital at this time was a good thing. My sister is okay and I got to creep around the Emergency Room for awhile. Blessings often come in bloody, screaming little packages.

So I just rewatched an old episode of As Told By Ginger after Kelsey and I had a really great discussion about how it was the best episode ever.
It was, naturally, "And She Was Gone", in which Ginger enters a poetry contest. The poem is incredible, but also very dark and pretty soon everyone in the school thinks she's depressed because they all assume the poem is about her. I remember watching this when I was a little kid and freaking out because it was so amazing.


There's a quote at the end of the episode that is really, really something. Ginger says, "I think the reason my poem struck a nerve was because everyone related to the main character, including me. Cause maybe us writers do put a little of ourselves onto every page. And maybe I didn't write that story just for the contest, maybe I had something to say.", and I realized just how relevant it is now. I didn't really get it when I was ten, but now that I'm older and have been judged over something I've written, I can understand Ginger's side to the story. People who are not writers often assume that the writer is somehow talking about themselves when they share a story. I wish there was a way to explain that most often, my fiction is just fiction and if there's any similarity to my own life, it's there because it's something I know how to write about. I honestly think it isn't something most people will understand unless they've experienced it themselves.

On a semi-related note, I found an amazing blog today! It's full of great writing tips, advice, recommendations on books and movies, and recipes. I've only been browsing through a couple of posts, and I've already learned a lot. Check it out.

The bulk of the first drafts of The Decoder have been lost to a computer crash, but today I found a very early idea I had. Originally, Tammie and her friends were kind of a rag-tag team of wannabe revolutionaries. It was terrible. The core of the plot has remained the same, but a lot of the details have undergone an extreme overhaul; it's hardly the same story. It's got secret libraries, cave paintings and ill-fated games of Truth or Dare. Like, really?
Anyway, when I discovered this bit on my computer, I laughed so hard I cried. It has to be at least a year old, and it's so ridiculous. And now it's extremely out of character, for Tammie, Mark and the entire tone of the story. So I thought I would share it, the secret library scene:

“Why did you bring me here?” I ask after a moment.

Mark looks at me, and holds my gaze. I want to die right here, and hold this moment forever. I tell myself to calm down, but it really doesn't work.

“Because you can apparently read codes,” he answers, as though this should have been obvious. “Passwords are no problem for you, and you can see the secret messages in the words.”

“They aren’t always messages, sometimes they’re just random words.” I try to cut in.

“There are no accidents.” His eyes begin to gleam. I have a feeling that I have just discovered another side of Mark, perhaps a side that his jokes hide.

I am suddenly aware of how heavy the book in my lap is. “So what do you want me to do? Read every one of these books and find some great secret that will forever change our lives and the course of history as we know it? Because I don’t know if I can do that.”

“No, that’s not what I’m asking… I’m not asking for anything.”

“Then why are we here?”

There is a bit of hurt in his voice. “Because I thought you would like it here.”