Make Up! (Not what you put on your face)

Time to write!

Did you know that writing is hard for me to remember to do when it is Christmas and the weekend and I'm at home? Yes. It is a problem. However, I think there is some news worth noting. While I haven't been diligent here on the blog I have been diligent in a novel I've started. I completed the 50th page last night. It is going incredibly well! But now I need to get back on track for this challenge... Here goes nothing.

Day 6: Begin your story with "He glanced at his watch impatiently."

He glanced at his watch impatiently. Where was she? She had promised to be here, and this time he had actually believed her.
Snow was falling and sticking to his long black coat, and freezing in his well combed, dark hair.
To anyone passing him on the street, he would look like a handsome, successful businessman. He was clean-shaven, with thick dark hair and eyebrows. He wore an expensive black suit under his coat, and his briefcase was free from any scuff marks or scratches.
Despite all appearances, however, Mr. James Wright - for this was his name- did not consider himself successful, and he carried with him a lot more than just a briefcase. Day by day he carried with him pain and the sting of failure.
Where was Sheila?
She should be here.
This time meeting had been her idea. He just needed a chance to talk to her, to see if he could make things alright again. Rose missed her mommy, and James just wanted his wife to come home.
He was already late for work, and he had missed the bus, but still he stood on the corner, waiting for Sheila to arrive.
A tinny song began playing from his pocket. Pulling off one wool glove, James reached his hand into the pocket to retrieve the cell phone.
Opening up the text message, James' heart sank.
Sorry James. Cant make it this morning. -S

Day 7: Create a superhero. Have your hero save the day.

BubbleBeam was not a very well known superhero. That's because BubbleBeam was never bitten by a radioactive spider, nor was she from another planet. Another thing BubbleBeam lacked was billionaire status, with access to insane amounts of weaponry and technology.
The truth was, people didn't really think BubbleBeam counted as a real superhero. She was looked down on by all the other heroes. One day there was a Superhero conference, and BubbleBeam wasn't a bit surprised to find herself not invited.
While all the other superheroes were packing up their carry on bags and boarding a plane (or flying themselves in the case of Superman, Ironman, Thor, and various others), BubbleBeam was sitting alone in her apartment, drinking a mug of hot chocolate and trying not to think about how this always happened to her.
Heroes, with no thought for her feelings, whizzed past her New York apartment window. By midmorning she knew she was the only one left. A terrible sense of loneliness overwhelmed her. It just wasn't fair.
In an effort to distract herself, BubbleBeam flipped on her television, settling comfortably into her couch and trying to find something amusing. Nothing amusing was to be found, however, instead on almost every channel a news broadcast was playing.
The words "Breaking News" flashed on the bottom of the screen in red letters. BubbleBeam sat forward, wondering what was going on. She gasped as the screen flashed a picture of MuckMan, the terrible mud monster from the swamps of the Everglades. The story was that Superman had cleaned up his act and banished him to where he could no longer do any harm, but the screen showed differently.
BubbleBeam waited for the image of a superhero to flash across the screen, but none did.
This was her big chance!!
Luckily she was already wearing her bright blue spandex suit, so she hopped in her bubble hovercraft which was parked just outside her 30th level window.
Bloop bloop bloop the little hovercraft sounded, it's propellers spinning and expelling multicolored bubbles behind it as BubbleBeam drove off toward the street where MuckMan was ravaging the city.
"Hey! MuckMan!" she shouted.
"Raaaar!" the goopy monster responded, waving his sticky, dirty hands in the air above his head.
"It's time for you to take a bath!" BubbleBeam stuck out her hands and shot streams of bubbles at the monster, which was at least three times her size.
It was beautiful and ever so effective.
The bubbles engulfed the mud monster, bringing him falling to his knees in despair. He was shrinking, as the bubbles removed layer upon layer of mud.
BubbleBeam kept shooting until the MuckMan could no longer be referred to that way. Now he just looked like a little mud baby.
Civilians were clapping, and the police stepped in to take MuckBaby into custody.
"We'll keep him in the cleanest jail cell possible where he won't be able to grow anymore," the police said. 'That way our city will be safe."
"Thanks to BubbleBeam," another police office chimed in.
BubbleBeam beamed. She was a real hero after all.

Possibly the most touching and emotionally charged thing I've ever written.

Paddington Academy

Time to write!

Sorry, I know I've missed a couple days. I've been ill and sleeping every spare minute. I just now got up to use the loo and decided to do a quick five minute-r so that I don't get in the bad habit of not updating (sorry mom-literally five minutes!)

Cherise was under no delusion that her first day at Paddington Academy was going to be normal. She knew it was a school for those with "special talents". Special enough that they weren't appreciated by normal society. From an extremely optimistic point of view, Cherise supposed that one could look at it as a school for Superheroes. Unfortunately, the more common way of approaching Paddington Academy was resigning yourself as an outcast- an alumnus at a school for freaks.

Going to Paddington Academy wasn't a choice. It wasn't something "gifted" children looked forward to, or that "gifted" parents hoped their kids would one day attend.

Paddington Academy was an institution. It's stone walls, barred windows, heavy wooden doors with triple enforced locks, and special detainment facilities awaited only those whom the government deemed unfit to be around civilian people.

You were sent to Paddington Academy not because anyone really believed you were special, or talented, or gifted. You were sent because someone believed you were dangerous. A threat. A menace. You weren't placed in the rolls of Paddington Academy because somebody hoped you would someday save the world. Rather that you might someday endanger it.

Internet Problems

Time to write!

They say you can find anything on the internet.

That's what they say, but I don't believe it.

Why, just today, I was trying to do my homework, and the internet was not exactly what I'd call "helpful". All  I wanted to do was find a well-written article on why Spiderman is the best superhero of all time. Know what I got? A lot of reviews, and lists of the best superhero movies ever. That isn't what I wanted. That wasn't going to help me for my homework assignment at all.

You see, we have to bring an article to class tomorrow which demonstrates great writing technique and style, but is on a topic we don't actually agree with.

And Spiderman clearly isn't the best superhero of all time. What do you think Batman is doing here for? Being the best, obviously.

The internet has other problems too.

Like half the time when you want to find a perfectly normal picture of something and type "cute rabbit", for example, you don't get what you were looking for at all.

I don't know about you, but when I type "cute rabbit" I'm looking for a cute rabbit. Not a next-to-naked girl with bunny ears and a little cotton ball tail!

Ew.

They say you can find anything on the internet. Well maybe it's all there, but someone needs to redefine the search system, because this is getting ridiculous.

Time to write!



This isn't your typical story, where the girl somehow gets transported back in time, feels helpless for awhile, makes a whole bunch of social mistakes, makes a friend with a high class lady, and falls in love with the nineteenth century hunk. Those girls go back in time and immediately start worrying about how they're going to get home again. Those girls try to blend in, to be a part of the system until they can somehow return. Those girls meet some Mr. Darcy or a knight in shining armor and realize they never want to leave. Then those girls are inevitably just as swiftly transported back into their own time, where they meet a modern day parallel of their man. This aspect even more than time travel disproves these stories entirely.

But you see, this is my story. This isn't one of those teeny-bopper feel good stories that makes you laugh and makes you cry and wish that YOU TOO could go back in time so that next week the love of your life will approach you in high school, complete with Mr. Rochester mannerisms, and an innate tendency to wear boots without looking gay.

This is my story, and I'm not one of those girls. Because when I went back in time, I realized I had so much the advantage. I had history and the developments of the future on my side, and I realized I didn't have to blend in. I could change the world. Heck. Forget changing the world. I could rule it.
***
Before you go off and label me as inherently evil, I guess I should pin the blame on someone else, and say this all boils down to my love for old Marvel comics. In the comic books you have two kinds of characters. You have those who try to blend in despite having incredible powers, and therefore cover their faces whenever they're fighting. They're big into secret identities and have weird rules about only ever putting the villains in jail, or allowing the villains to do something dumb that leads to their ultimate demise. Then there are the characters who are like "Yo. I'm here. Deal with it." Ironman definitely falls into this category, but my favorite example here is Loki.

When Thor falls to earth he finds normal clothes and learns how to function in society. Then Loki comes down. Bam. Completely unapologetic, green cape, random gold horned helmet, the works. And I say good for you, man.

If there's one thing Junior year taught me, it's that being ashamed of who you are or trying to be someone else isn't going to make you any more popular or suddenly help you have friends.

If there are two things Junior year taught me, the other would be that justice in this world really is only a mere concept, an ideal we can aspire to, but something we'll never fully reach. Bad things happen to good people and nothing actually fixes it. Sure, in stories it happens. In movies. In the heads of all delusional girls.

Many people, too many people, go home from school and tell themselves that tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow is the day for making friends. Tomorrow is when that guy will finally notice that those other girls aren't as nice or as smart.

It's a pretty idea, really it is, but its naive.

So after Junior year I decided it was over. I'm not going to be Peter Parker anymore. I'm going to be Tony Stark. I'm going to reveal my face and say "What the heck. Yep. I'm Ironman." Except I'm not really Ironman, but the imagery remains. I'm going to march in wearing that awkward Loki helmet like it's the coolest piece of armory ever conceived and I'm going to own it.

This was my philosophy going into Senior year, but when I suddenly found myself in nineteenth century London, the same concept applied.

There I was, wearing black skinny jeans and black leather boots, a yellow and red t shirt and a black leather jacket and instead of darting off to the nearest clothing shop where I could trade my foreign garments for a petticoat and bloomers, I put on my sunglasses and smiled.

Because this was my Loki moment.

I was Tyra Rizmont, and I was going to take over the world.

Captain Sparky Pants

Time to write!


Well. If you insist....

Captain Sparky Pants missed the glory days. Truly he did. Used to be that whenever he'd don his suit, children would run up wanting his autograph and the citizens would cheer, for he was their hero. He was the magnificent Captain Sparky Pants.

Of course, it also used to be that his suit was a brilliant shade of blue, and fit him fantastically, his muscles bulging beneath the extra-durable fabric.

But those were the fifties.

Now his suit was a faded, stormy blue, veering on gray, and didn't fit him nearly so well. The only thing bulging beneath the now thinning suit was his belly, and it wasn't something Captain Sparky Pants was proud of.

His only consolation was that once when he'd pull his mask up over his eyes, an effective method of concealing his secret identity- mild-mannered Jim Betrowski- he did so a the peril of covering up his exquisite head of dark, wavy hair. Now his cap covered his bald scalp. That at least was an improvement.

Captain Sparky Pants missed the old days so much that every Wednesday afternoon he'd put on his super suit, even though no one cheered anymore, and the only kids who ran up to him told him he looked ridiculous or kicked him in the shins. He'd put on his suit and he would walk down to Velma's Diner. Velma was gone now, she'd passed away back in 1977, but her daughter ran the place and she always smiled at Captain Sparky pants and passed him a bowl of oranges.

And so there he'd sit, in his super suit, peeling oranges and eating the segments. Feeling the juice squish onto his fingers and the softness of the fruit's flesh between his teeth, he would sit and reminisce, becoming nostalgic in the way that only truly old men who were once truly great can.

He missed the glory days, that was for sure, and he missed Velma, and he missed Barb, and he missed his old sidekick, Nick Thunder Drum, who had grown up and become a cartoonist and a lawyer on the weekends. He'd give anything to have those times and those people back.