Life is But a Dream...

I wasn't going to post today, but I wrote a song the other day for a book I'm writing. Of course.

The idea behind it came from one of my infamous mid-night thinking sessions. Sometimes, I'll wake up at three o'clock in the morning with a thought that just won't go away until I battle it out of my head. The other night, I was thinking about memory and--- well, to avoid going into the ENTIRE philosophical debate I'd had with myself I'll skip a bit--- I came to the conclusion that the person I call ME is only ME because of my  thoughts and my memories.

We can definitely talk more about this in depth if you were curious how (or why) I just decided that randomly in the middle of the night, but the point, I guess, is that the revelation that I was merely memory made me think about that old nursery rhyme "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." If you don't remember it, here's the gist of it:

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream...

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.

This sparked a whole other discussion with myself that started with me freaking out about existence, my place in the world, et cetera, et cetera, but ended with me thanking the Lord God Almighty that life isn't nearly as serious as we paint it to be. Believe me. I understand the importance of LIVING life. Why not? You only die once, after all. But if I'm just a memory, then that F I got in high school is just a memory and I can move past it. If yesterday was a whole twenty four hours but I literally only retained about five foggy facts, then nothing that happens today can actually touch me when tomorrow comes, can it? Not if I don't let it. Not if I can leave it in the past and walk away.

I know there are things we have to face, have to deal with. I'm not saying we shouldn't deal. I'm saying we shouldn't dwell.

Here are the lyrics to the song inspired by this crazy night of existential thinking. Perhaps one day, I'll work up the nerve to sing it for you.

"Life is but a Dream" by an opticALlusion
Row, row your boat gently down the stream
It's a good thing we all know that life is but a dream
Although it's fun while it lasts it was
fun while it lasted, yeah.
So, so it goes we are tethered by these strings
Made from torn up pantyhose and some broken bits of things
But somehow we all manage we've
all seemed to manage, yeah.

And I plead with you--- don't you see the truth?
Who knew the sun was a lie?
Guess we always did. Chose not to notice it.

Oh, oh oh, oh oh oh oh... Yeah life is grand
Even when you're stuck in the middle.
Oh, oh oh, oh oh oh oh... It's all pretend
But we'll just dance up until the end---
Right up to the end.

Tap, tap your toes to the great cacophony
Of our long forgotten hopes and our dried up misery
Because we know it don't matter, no,
none of it matters, yeah.
Ha ha we're going so fast we cannot see
The blurry visions of our pasts, of the whos we used to be
Like a mirror they shatter, our
reflections have shattered, yeah.

Did we live at all, if the bluff's been called?
If we don't wake, at least we dreamed.
I can see the end; let the fun begin.

Oh, oh oh, oh oh oh oh... Yeah life is grand
Even when you're stuck in the middle.
Oh, oh oh, oh oh oh oh... It's all pretend
But we'll just dance up until the end---
Right up to the end.

Take care, Lovelies! Have a wonderful week,
Deserae
P.S. I love the song here. It's "The Man Who Isn't There" by Oren Lavie. If you love it, love it lots. If you don't love it, what is wrong with you?
P.P.S. I forgot! One more thing! If you like short story contests where each and every entry is judged and looked at, get a Figment account (or sign into your old one) and try your hand at their Defy the Dark contest. Entries are due September 1st, but that's so doable, and anyone can enter!

Commenting on Comments

Arianna- Haha! I am the Queen of Linkage. Do you think they will raise a monument to honor my linktitude?

Maya- Girl, get your YouTube account ah-sap! So many awesome things to get into. So much to see. So much to share with thee!!!

Robin- Aww, thank you for coming to see me! I loved your comments on the posts as well. Were you entered? Which story was yours? Personally, I'm not too thrilled about the thriller either! But that's just 'cause I'm a big ole scaredy cat. ISLA and this mysterious fifth Perkins novels are the projects I'm most looking forward to by her. I, too, enjoyed ANNA best, but is it horrible that I wasn't the biggest fan of Anna and Etienne? Don't get me wrong, I love the story as a whole. But whenever I think about THEM, about their relationship, about the process of them getting together... I don't know. I could never fully love them like everyone else did. Again, thanks for stopping by! I look forward to getting to know you via the glorious interwebs.

Quick-Write Wednesday #1

Don't Go To Sleep

"It’s much larger than it seemed. And for that, I am grateful.

            I slip off the drenched green coat that weighs down my shoulders, and toss it on top of the burlap bag that I’ve already set on the cave’s floor. I can’t start a fire without dry wood, and the torrential rain outside mocks my shaking figure as it slumps to the rocky ground and tries to relax into a comfortable position.

            My thoughts echo off the walls of my skull, restless and scattered, as if everything and nothing needed my immediate attention. Every breath I take disappears into the darkness, leaving me alone with them, telling me to sort them out. I want to, but I can’t. They fight me without need of a respite. They taunt me from the depths of my brain. They say they’ve forgiven but they don’t want to forget. They’re killing me from the inside out.

            A year ago things were different. I lived in the city with my wife and my kid. We were happy. I was whole. A second changes everything— one decision, one regret—

            I try not to look to the past for answers. The future holds more of them, anyway."

To read more, click on the link WAY up above... And now... for the cover and prompt themselves...

Cover thanks to Google Images and Wallpaperweb.org.

Oh! And Paint. Gotta love Paint...

 The official prompt was given to me by Arianna over at Lisi's Blah-g:

"It's much larger than it seemed."

+cave +male perspective



 

Now I admit there was a lot of whining on my end before I even started writing. Because Ari KNOWS I am afraid of writing from the male POV. But she challenged me to it anyway and you know what?

It's not so bad.

Sure it's different... a little uncomfortable... But I learned that it's just WRITING. Weird, right? I know!

SO, if you're afraid of writing from a guy's perspective like I was, let it be known that it's not as bad as it seems. I know "Don't Go to Sleep" isn't my finest piece, but I'd still love to hear what you think of it and how you think I can improve upon my next Wednesday Write because Dudes and Dudettes, this is a learning process, and I intend on being schooled (Get it?! Schooled?! Oh man... HOW do I come up with these zingers?!).

If you'd like to be a part of next week's Quick-Write Wednesdays or if you'd like to suggest a prompt, please leave a comment! Also for the comments: do you think it's possible to forget things that you consider to be "unforgettable"?

A list of this week's Quick-Write participants:

Arianna with the prompt: "He lied when he said one kiss wouldn't kill me." -Deserae

Alice with the prompt: "It felt like we were standing at the end of the world." +sibling +told in "another world" -Deserae

Anyone can join in, and the prompts son muy fabuloso. Remember: Snapshot Saturdays are on... Saturday! Stop back in to see what I'm currently working on.

Love and Ladybugs,

Deserae McGlothen

Apologies, Questions, and Pictures

Hello, Everyone! Happy Thursday.

I'm feeling a little discombobulated. Can you believe summer is nearing its end? Some of you are starting school already. Some of you are out of school forever! I'm somewhere in between. That is, there are about 30 days left until I start my first year of college. Oi vey! If this post sounds all over the place, that's because it is. As am I. As are you. WE are all over the place. It's time we learn to embrace that.

First off, APOLOGIES! For everyone waiting for reviews on Figment. I did about ten or eleven reviews in a three day period last week and totally burned out. Now I can keep doing that, OR I can readjust my reviewing schedule so each of you gets your reviews. I think I'll do that later, thank you very much. Starting Saturday, I'll start reading again.

Secondly, QUESTIONS. Do any of you listen to Two Door Cinema Club? Don't they make you want to dance? Don't you want to spread their awesomeness by listening to songs like this? Or this? Or THIS?! Click any one of those if you're brave. It takes a singing-dance-aholic to really want to listen to TDCC. Also, has anyone seen The Help? I want to so badly. SO, so badly. And also, also (yes, I totally just went there), I'm wondering if any of you ever wake up in the morning and think things like me. Like, "If it's cloudy today, is that some sign from the cosmos that I'm better off staying in bed?" Or, "If I am only one person in one city in one state in one country, how the heck can anyone know or care about little 'ole me?" I told you this would be random. I warned you it would be. But these are the types of questions my mind is burdened with. What usually burdens your mind?

Last but not least, PICTURES. I don't usually put pictures of me up or whatever. Not full on, anyways (as you've seen). Usually, it's because I don't think I'm very photogenic, but most of the time, it's because I worry that if I don't put up the glamor shots, everyone is going to run away screaming. But I don't give you guys enough credit. Maybe the glamor shots are best suited for the celebrities. If I don't let you see me on even my worst hair days, how can I expect you to stick with me through them, too? So here is a picture of me and two other things. Just for kicks. :)

This is Desi trying to win Sweetly, by Jackson Pearce. She lost miserably. She wonders if the pout had anything to do with that, or the fact that the hat was covering her frizzes.

 Isn't this cool?! It's the comic book version of Pride and Prejudice! I almost fainted when my sister showed it to me. If only I could find the other four in the series... this is the third installment!

Finally! My sister's 16th birthday was on the 23rd, and she finally opened Victoria Schwab's package of amazingness. I was so honored to have that thing sitting on my bed. Ain't it purhty?

Yes folks. Sometimes Life is amazing. It seems like I say that a lot, but you just don't know how grateful I am for every new day. And that is why I leave you with this video. "Just let it go, let it go, let it go..."

Love!

Deserae



In Search of Sanity

I'm not sure when it was that I decided I wanted to write professionally, but I remember that the moment I realized it, everything changed. Gone were the days of simply wanting to tell a story. Replacing it was the need to tell the right story--- the story that mattered, the story that would change its reader for better or for worse.

I remember my fourth grade year, writing a "book" to amuse my friends. They were the cast, their lives highly exaggerated, and I was the puppeteer pulling the strings, trying to move them along with this new girl I created and force them into a world where they weren't exactly the stars. For the first time ever, I'd seen something through from beginning to end. I saw it in chapters and in words and in a hilarious way. I won many a callus writing the entire thing out by hand.

And even though I can't remember when it hit me, I woke up one day and decided I wanted to be an author. Not a writer. An author. I had been a writer since grade two when I wrote poems on the backs of my arithmetic tests, and penned short narratives for my friends in grade four. Heck. I was a writer (or a story teller which is what a writer is in their simplest form) when my friend Stephanie and I kept up the hugest (fictional) story of both of us attending an after school program called G.E.M.S. We piggy-backed off of one another on a weekly basis, retelling our adventures to anyone who was unfortunate enough to try to engage in our conversations. I wanted to move beyond writing. I wanted writing to be my craft, and story-telling to be my art. I wanted to be an author, and I wanted to be good at it. So I didn't sit back and wait for author to happen to me; I went out there in the big bad world and learned how to do it.

What I learned right away were the following three things: you don't have to be an adult to be an author, you have to write to be an author, and there are two types of authors--- published and unpublished.

Currently, I'm unpublished. Do I want to be published one day? Absolutely. That's the goal, I'm not going to lie, but I realize that in order to reach that goal, I had to actually write a book first. So I did. And I liked how that went so I wrote another one. And then I liked how that went and re-read the first one. It was terrible. I went back to the beginning and started from scratch, revamping a story I cherished and cared for and although it's better, it either A.) needs professional help or B.) should forever hold its peace.

And seriously, that's alright. Everything I've written has come to be because I wanted to write it. I didn't set a word to paper that, at one point, I wasn't absolutely proud of. I've just grown A LOT from point A (wanting to be an author) to point B (actually becoming one). Am I good at it? I'll be honest and say that's for the reader to decide. I've had people read and love my stuff, and others read and hate it. And since I simply write for my own sanity, what do I know about the quality? I make it a point not to compare myself to other authors because what I write is what I write. I KNOW it's not perfect, but it's a reflection of me. I'm not perfect, it's not perfect, and, for now, I'm okay with that. Like I do in my own life, I review, I analyze, I spot the problem, and I make a couple of changes. There's no harm in being wrong the first time as long as the second time around, we're definitely getting better and one step closer to amazing.

The truth is, the journey to finding myself here at Author Type II (the unpublished) has lead me directly and incidentally to finding me. I was looking for something, I think, in the realm of fiction to help me hide away from the things of the world around me, but, as with all good things, it lead me straight back around to the heart of what I was running from and made me face it, head on. I had to take a hard look at the things that were surrounding me and the person I was turning into because of circumstance and weak knees and I had to pull out a pen and show myself what was going on. In a way, I had to look at myself through the mirror. I had to use my words to see what was happening to me.

I think I'm just thankful to language, itself, for giving us an outlet--- a way to say what we mean and express how we feel. But I've always been thankful that writing kind of found me, because it's saved me from myself, from those ruts others talk about, and, ultimately, from being someone else. It's weird to say "I like myself," but I do. I like who I am. And I found all that through my quest for sanity; and I found sanity through a mess of words that let me untangle them long enough to see the light of day.

I hope writing's done something just as magical for you. I can't express how much I love hearing great stories about how words have changed someone's life, so if you have a tale for me, feel free to leave it in the comments.

'Til next time, Bloggers,
~Deserae McGlothen

You Never Forget your First...

Because yesterday was the first of the month, I wanted to share some of my own firsts with you. The list is short, but I feel that our firsts are more monumental than we make them out to be. Yes, I'm saying this is one of the VERY few things the human race takes way too lightly; the way we handle things, approach situations, make impressions, blah blah blah for the first time, is essentially pretty tell-tale about our character. And this, of course, got me thinking about my characters and my approach to writing and why I inadvertently have weaved in something that someone's never done into a major plot-point... it's because knowing that a character has never done something and/or seeing them do (that) something for the first time SHOWS us who that person is without telling us who they are. It's a cool thing, so I'm going to share a little with you today.

My First...
...kiss has never happened.
...blog follower is Elena Solodow who is also on Twitter and who I've come to find is a really cool person. I am very glad the blogosphere has people who are very into writing just as I am.
...story was about a girl who's cool best friend stole her crush.
...dance was the last dance I've been to. That was during the beginning of my sophomore year; I am now a senior.
...day of freshman year in high school was intimidating until I walked into my first class and saw this boy I vaguely knew from middle school. He and I became the best of friends and were inseperable until just recently. That first day was also a little uncomfortable because I was wearing a skirt and knee high socks (something I do VERY rarely) and a teacher called me out for the length of my skirt in front of everyone in the 300 Building. The worse part was I didn't even know him, but he must have known I was already self-conscious about that particular thing. Bleh.
...SAT Test went rather well, actually. I scored an 1800 the first go.
...serious crush was a boy in my fourth grade class who I knew liked me. I liked him back for three whole years, until he met Porche and I met Raven (who was a lot less cool than I thought he was).
...party (like party-party, not birthday party) was hosted by one of my younger sister's friends. The photo of me in the left side bar was taken there. She had a runway--- a runway!--- and I was invited to model. Very cool, very fun, and very unforgettable. There wasn't any alcohol or dirty dancing (you young kids... not all parties are about getting down with your bad self!)... it was just fun. I love having (controlled, adult-supervised, mature, G-rated) fun. Lol!
...memory may not really be mine (because my parents have burned this into my brain), but it's of my second birthday and Barney (yes THE Barney; purple dinosaurs do exist in nature if you know exactly where to find them and how much to pay them) was a guest. He was marching around our pool and all of us young ones were following him, but he lost balance and fell into the pool. I tried to fish him out and asked, "Barney! Are you alright?" From there, my memories begin.

Yes, Loves, our firsts are important. I bet, with all of this information, you can form a pretty interesting opinion of me. You're supposed to, though; you're supposed to see something about me in all of these instances. If you want to let me know who you think I am from this, or if you'd like to respond with some of your own firsts, drop them in the comments! I'd love to hear from you all. Anywho, I hope this got you thinking about who you are and who you'd like your characters to be. Thinking is always a good note to end on.

'Til later,
Deserae McG

P.S. Thanks to Elena, I am no longer talking to invisible persons. If you like what I have to say, I know you'll love her blog. The links are above; clickity click. And a special thanks goes out to her for thinking my ramblings were worth the follow. Smiles and love are virtually raining down on you; thanks for your support.