Warning: This will contain spoilers for The Midnight Club.
We haven't even seen Halloween yet and I'm thinking of Christmas. Truth be told, I've been thinking about Christmas since August. And that's because I'm a author and this year I am committed to three Christmas stories (excluding my godless Christmas story, but I'll talk about that closer to the time).
This year, I am going for ghost stories, settling with an overall theme of "the ghost in your head". I want all three to be somewhat connected. Two of them have to be read out (one by me) so I want to go with a bit of a prose poetry thing. But we'll see how they come out (I still have one more genre fiction thing to finish before I'm back to my experimental stuff, so they might be cross-over stories).
I had some vague ideas while finishing up my scumbags 2 story and 30-50 Feral Hogs versus the Big Bad Unicorn. A woman at work shared a nightmare with us which supplied my ghost or at least a basic description (not even ghost story can be about Marcy or Gloria). She knows a version of her ghost is going to appear in my stories. She even saw me take out my notebook and I had her describe her nightmare ghost. It is pretty horrible.
One of the Marcy/Gloria stories (I can't remember which one as there are so many, some published, some not, some only half-written) where Gloria is on stage or backstage, so I thought one of these stories should be of a performance. But synthpop doesn't really fit in with Christmas (no, please do not send me synthpop Christmas classics, I fucking hate Christmas songs with such passion it would shock you).
So, I had this vague idea of a performer being haunted (not like I've never used that theme before, to the Yanks reading this, that is British sarcasm). Sometimes when I'm busy, I'm actually unwinding and relaxing (because that is really important to mental well-being - I still resent having to explain that to adults, but at this stage if I don't, I'll have a bunch of people I don't know trying to "figure me out" with intrusive messages because apparently taking time to be healthy and functional isn't acceptable and all life is lived through social media). As I rather enjoyed Haunting of Hill House, Haunting of Bly Manner and especially loved Midnight Mass, I thought I would check out The Midnight Club.
For those that don't know, I have PTSD and jump scares will trigger it (not in the way you are thinking, it is a physical reaction that is so painful, it is what I imagine Hell to feel like). So with something like The Midnight Club, I have to take it slow and watch with the lights on. And that is okay because I hate binge watching TV unless I'm recovering from having my 5G booster (COVID vaccines for those of you that don't understand sarcasm and lack a sense of humour). I like to spend time enjoying whatever it is that I'm watching so I'm only about halfway through.
*Spoilers*
It came up to the scene of Anya's story with the two Danas. While one Dana is injecting heroin, other Dana is auditioning for Swan Lake. My mind is still very much in Snow White (the last genre fiction I have to finish) and that has a 90s theme and probably more heroin than cocaine despite the portal and the Snow Queen's heart-connection to that particular prime minister in his piss-stained y-fronts playing air guitar in front of his magic mirror.
Plus, I do ballet. I appreciate classical ballet and can dance it but I prefer contemporary - both in terms of a dancer and a viewer. Swan Lake is my favourite of the classical ballets if you care.
My only brushes with classical ballet these days involve the basic barre work and stretching. But I connected with the scene (I couldn't find it on youtube). And my only brushes with anything in the heroin family these days involve refusing a morphine prescription (even if I'm in agony, I get to live my life now, I can't function on morphine so I'll be putting off the strong painkillers for as long as I can).
I thought my performer should be a ballerina. And as it is Christmas and I've been saying for years that I'm going to be the fattest and oldest Sugarplum Fairy this world has ever seen (despite the ballet, belly dancing and walking to work, I am still obese, spare me your body confidence lectures, I'm an adult and don't fucking care about body confidence - it must be nice to have the luxury to sit around and create problems, but I don't and I would rather loose the weight so I can be healthy for longer and maybe in less pain - please note, that doesn't apply to people who really aren't secure in themselves and don't project it onto the rest of us who really don't have the time or mind space to be dealing with it).
I've never actually tried doing the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy. I'm not all that fond of the Nutcracker. But I thought for the sake of my story, I should learn the steps. So I did.
I still can't remember the name of that step that if you slow it down you look like a dog marking its territory (I've always called it the dog pissing step, seriously, don't teach eight year olds this particular dance step, they aren't mature enough lol). I don't have much space in my room of shame so I couldn't even lift my leg up for the turn anyways, but that step always brings me much amusement. And I had to do all the steps in place. Because of the layout of my dining room, I couldn't get my knee up for the dog pissing step (which is a turning step) but I could get my leg all the way out (more stationary).
It has been such a long time since my ballet classes though that I can't remember the names of so many steps and I never knew how to spell them (damn French), so I'm still going to have to look up the steps.
Nor do I know how copyright works with dance steps so I'm going to have to put my own variation into the story, but that's okay. And saying, "if you do this turn it looks like a dog pissing" won't work with my story. Maybe I can use that description if I decide to return to genre fiction in the future (I'm still finishing some genre fiction things, as mentioned). It would be nice to finish Stef and Tucker and Ketamine Addicted Pandas but I don't have time to go into the drama and boundary crossing from a small selection of people involved in genre fiction right now. It is similar to before but less creeps this time around.
I hope you enjoyed reading how the writing process can sometimes work. Usually, I don't have experience with the stuff I write (like seriously, I cannot grow a dick and not to kink-shame anyone but I am really fucking prude) but sometimes I do (there's scenes in Broccoli where I'm describing something as if it is being knitted). When I do take influence from my own life, it is usually when I'm describing something horrible, like in the case of Broccoli and don't want to use a bunch of gore descriptions. So, writing this ballet scene will be interesting, because it is what the character is physically doing and I don't think I've ever used something I can physically do before. Maybe I should try a horseback riding or football (soccer) story sometime (in addition to dance, I did both of these for years in my youth)?
And I do take influence from the outside world. Often times, TV.
PS. I will eventually get a video of me dancing. There just isn't space in my room of shame to set up a video right now.
We haven't even seen Halloween yet and I'm thinking of Christmas. Truth be told, I've been thinking about Christmas since August. And that's because I'm a author and this year I am committed to three Christmas stories (excluding my godless Christmas story, but I'll talk about that closer to the time).
This year, I am going for ghost stories, settling with an overall theme of "the ghost in your head". I want all three to be somewhat connected. Two of them have to be read out (one by me) so I want to go with a bit of a prose poetry thing. But we'll see how they come out (I still have one more genre fiction thing to finish before I'm back to my experimental stuff, so they might be cross-over stories).
I had some vague ideas while finishing up my scumbags 2 story and 30-50 Feral Hogs versus the Big Bad Unicorn. A woman at work shared a nightmare with us which supplied my ghost or at least a basic description (not even ghost story can be about Marcy or Gloria). She knows a version of her ghost is going to appear in my stories. She even saw me take out my notebook and I had her describe her nightmare ghost. It is pretty horrible.
One of the Marcy/Gloria stories (I can't remember which one as there are so many, some published, some not, some only half-written) where Gloria is on stage or backstage, so I thought one of these stories should be of a performance. But synthpop doesn't really fit in with Christmas (no, please do not send me synthpop Christmas classics, I fucking hate Christmas songs with such passion it would shock you).
So, I had this vague idea of a performer being haunted (not like I've never used that theme before, to the Yanks reading this, that is British sarcasm). Sometimes when I'm busy, I'm actually unwinding and relaxing (because that is really important to mental well-being - I still resent having to explain that to adults, but at this stage if I don't, I'll have a bunch of people I don't know trying to "figure me out" with intrusive messages because apparently taking time to be healthy and functional isn't acceptable and all life is lived through social media). As I rather enjoyed Haunting of Hill House, Haunting of Bly Manner and especially loved Midnight Mass, I thought I would check out The Midnight Club.
For those that don't know, I have PTSD and jump scares will trigger it (not in the way you are thinking, it is a physical reaction that is so painful, it is what I imagine Hell to feel like). So with something like The Midnight Club, I have to take it slow and watch with the lights on. And that is okay because I hate binge watching TV unless I'm recovering from having my 5G booster (COVID vaccines for those of you that don't understand sarcasm and lack a sense of humour). I like to spend time enjoying whatever it is that I'm watching so I'm only about halfway through.
*Spoilers*
It came up to the scene of Anya's story with the two Danas. While one Dana is injecting heroin, other Dana is auditioning for Swan Lake. My mind is still very much in Snow White (the last genre fiction I have to finish) and that has a 90s theme and probably more heroin than cocaine despite the portal and the Snow Queen's heart-connection to that particular prime minister in his piss-stained y-fronts playing air guitar in front of his magic mirror.
Plus, I do ballet. I appreciate classical ballet and can dance it but I prefer contemporary - both in terms of a dancer and a viewer. Swan Lake is my favourite of the classical ballets if you care.
My only brushes with classical ballet these days involve the basic barre work and stretching. But I connected with the scene (I couldn't find it on youtube). And my only brushes with anything in the heroin family these days involve refusing a morphine prescription (even if I'm in agony, I get to live my life now, I can't function on morphine so I'll be putting off the strong painkillers for as long as I can).
I thought my performer should be a ballerina. And as it is Christmas and I've been saying for years that I'm going to be the fattest and oldest Sugarplum Fairy this world has ever seen (despite the ballet, belly dancing and walking to work, I am still obese, spare me your body confidence lectures, I'm an adult and don't fucking care about body confidence - it must be nice to have the luxury to sit around and create problems, but I don't and I would rather loose the weight so I can be healthy for longer and maybe in less pain - please note, that doesn't apply to people who really aren't secure in themselves and don't project it onto the rest of us who really don't have the time or mind space to be dealing with it).
I've never actually tried doing the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy. I'm not all that fond of the Nutcracker. But I thought for the sake of my story, I should learn the steps. So I did.
I still can't remember the name of that step that if you slow it down you look like a dog marking its territory (I've always called it the dog pissing step, seriously, don't teach eight year olds this particular dance step, they aren't mature enough lol). I don't have much space in my room of shame so I couldn't even lift my leg up for the turn anyways, but that step always brings me much amusement. And I had to do all the steps in place. Because of the layout of my dining room, I couldn't get my knee up for the dog pissing step (which is a turning step) but I could get my leg all the way out (more stationary).
It has been such a long time since my ballet classes though that I can't remember the names of so many steps and I never knew how to spell them (damn French), so I'm still going to have to look up the steps.
Nor do I know how copyright works with dance steps so I'm going to have to put my own variation into the story, but that's okay. And saying, "if you do this turn it looks like a dog pissing" won't work with my story. Maybe I can use that description if I decide to return to genre fiction in the future (I'm still finishing some genre fiction things, as mentioned). It would be nice to finish Stef and Tucker and Ketamine Addicted Pandas but I don't have time to go into the drama and boundary crossing from a small selection of people involved in genre fiction right now. It is similar to before but less creeps this time around.
I hope you enjoyed reading how the writing process can sometimes work. Usually, I don't have experience with the stuff I write (like seriously, I cannot grow a dick and not to kink-shame anyone but I am really fucking prude) but sometimes I do (there's scenes in Broccoli where I'm describing something as if it is being knitted). When I do take influence from my own life, it is usually when I'm describing something horrible, like in the case of Broccoli and don't want to use a bunch of gore descriptions. So, writing this ballet scene will be interesting, because it is what the character is physically doing and I don't think I've ever used something I can physically do before. Maybe I should try a horseback riding or football (soccer) story sometime (in addition to dance, I did both of these for years in my youth)?
And I do take influence from the outside world. Often times, TV.
PS. I will eventually get a video of me dancing. There just isn't space in my room of shame to set up a video right now.